Childlike wonder and high fashion mix in Bottega Veneta show

Farmyards and high fashion do not usually gel well, but Bottega Veneta changed that in Milan when it staged its catwalk show among a menagerie of chickens, foxes, horses, bunny rabbits, and birds.

The Milan-based brand’s creative director, Matthieu Blazy, had guests sit on leather beanbags, each depicting a different creature to unveil his spring/summer 2025 collection, a move he said was inspired by the scene of stuffed animals in Steven Spielberg’s ET. As it transpired, the latest Bottega Veneta collection was one that revolved around the unadulterated imagination of childhood and the possibilities the future appears to hold.

“I was interested in the idea of the wonder you have as a kid, the first experience of fashion when you try on your parents’ clothes and play dress up,” said Blazy after the show on Saturday night. “We need beauty and joy and to continue to play … it’s like a freedom.”

Since Blazy joined the brand in 2022, Bottega Veneta has set the benchmark for impossibly chic urban-elegance for both women and men. This time, his experimental stimulus resulted in something of a sartorial gear-shift.

Oversized trouser suits had one leg missing, dresses were pulled out of shape and cinched at the neck with frog brooches, leather trenchcoats had floppy lapels like rabbit ears and smart-casual separates were all deliberately – and extremely – creased.

“It’s like that first day at school when [you arrive] looking impeccable and you come back at the end of the day crumpled,” Blazy said.

The super-expensive leather accessories the brand is famous for has also been put through a whimsical filter. Paper lunch bags, supermarket shoppers and retro kids backpacks, all crafted from the softest of nappa leather, were clearly designed with a tongue firmly in cheek. “In the collection, a new kind of power dressing is evoked: the power of sincerity, playfulness and chic awkwardness,” according to the show notes

Bottega Veneta has no shortage of well-known fans. The actors Michelle Yeoh, Julianne Moore, Jacob Elordi and Ebon Moss-Bachrach; the rapper A$AP Rocky; and the boxer Imane Khelif were all in attendance on Saturday night, and shortly afterwards pictures of them on their beanbags went viral on TikTok. After the show, Moss-Bachrach, who attended with his wife, the director Yelena Yemchuk, told the Guardian: “It was exuberant, and beautiful and super creative, I loved all the rumpled wrinkles!”

Many of the other designers on the Milan fashion week schedule this week underwhelmed with their collections, opting for a play-it-safe approach in a turbulent luxury landscape. On the other hand, Bottega Veneta is one of the few brands bucking the trend and seeing growth, based on figures released by the brand’s parent company, Kering, in July. It makes the experimental approach to this collection a gutsy move by Blazy, who told media: “This is about the power of sincerity over strategy.”