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The spring/summer 2026 season was one for the record books, with a succession of designer debuts across the board at major brands. No mean feat for those faced with revealing a new vision at their respective houses amid a changing of guard en masse. At Bottega Veneta, confident silhouettes that centred on the shoulders from outward and angular, to puffed up with elaborate fabric textures and slipping off the décolletage – suggested Louise Trotter was committed to the cause.
The Bottega baton, handed to Trotter by Matthieu Blazy who’s shaping up Chanel and previously passed to him by Daniel Lee now at Burberry has come to be regarded as an Olympic torch of sorts in recent years. Footwear and bags are key trophies of their tenures, defined by their experimental yet desirable visual identities. Their respective outputs meant that customers were not only investing in the pieces themselves, but the entire Bottega universe. Crucially, the brand’s look books and compelling campaigns existed without a social media presence though the coterie of starry endorsers, who sat front row, helped in its absence.
At the show in September, Trotter set a novel tone. Onlookers’ phone cameras were, by no surprise, poised to feast on the delights of the designer’s inaugural outing, but they’ve had to wait until now to see it in the real world. The spring collection launches at the end of the month mere days after she presents her sophomore in Milan. Now the dust has settled and she’s fully bedded in, Vogue heard from the creative director while in the throes of preparation for autumn.
“I believe Bottega Veneta creations are for the wearer and therefore everything must be considered,” she explained of nurturing Bottega’s craft-driven narrative. “So, my intention was to imbue craft in the internal construction of every piece, using the house expertise to ensure form and softness were connected.”
This marriage of form and softness was especially present in the tailoring, the “rounded structure” of which Trotter believes is “fundamental” to the collection. The bold reworks of the woven intrecciato technique a brand hallmark that she made sure to explore as much in the ready-to-wear as the accessories were some of her favourite aspects, which she says “set an intent for future experimentation”. Notable examples of the zig-zagging leather motif in the spring collection include Tippex-white separates and a chocolate-brown hourglass jacket.
Building on the extensive accessories offering introduced by her predecessors, Trotter proposed fiercely-practical bags. “As this was my first collection for Bottega Veneta, I wanted to open a dialogue between the heritage and my hand,” she said of evolving the Lauren, Knot, Cabat and Veneta; “creating softness through construction and modernity from proportion”.
The star player, the Veneta, takes its cues from an archive style of the same name released in 2002, which can be traced back to a supple sack conceived by co-founder Renzo Zengiaro in the 1970s. Rendered in the perfect slouch, achieved with a delicate manipulation of nappa fettucce (thin leather strips) woven by artisans, and lined in the same lambskin as the original, the Veneta arrived commercially earlier this month in four sizes, the larger of which feature unreinforced leather handles to offer versatility.
Trotter’s footwear offering, meanwhile, ranged from the classic to the statement-making – “I wanted a more relaxed feeling and attitude, with a softness and playfulness”. At one end of the spectrum there were polished loafers, trainers and streamlined thong-toe mules; at the other, otherworldly scuba booties with futuristic soles, transparent heels and fuzzy-textured pumps.
If spring/summer was Trotter’s preface, then the forthcoming chapters look incredibly promising. There’s plenty for Bottega customers, old and new, to invest in. In her own words: “Bottega Veneta is for confident men and women. It is tactile luxury; it is about a feeling; a way of inhabiting clothes and a way of moving through the world. There is an ease in fit and proportions that allow for the collection to be styled without formality.”
This article was originally published in British Vogue.
