Hard to top the 31 gorgeous dresses on the Spring Bottega Veneta runway. Tomas Maier didn't necessarily try. His pre-fall lineup for the label is much wider-ranging. It didn't knock you off your feet with its laser focus, but it was plenty seductive nonetheless.
Black and white printed dresses in motifs borrowed from vintage Japanese kimonos were echoes of last season, and other frocks had the same strong-shoulder, nipped-waist, vaguely forties silhouette. They made up a small portion of the offerings on display in the BV showroom. Tailoring was front and center, and it was difficult to resist the precise allure of a double-breasted smoking worn with parachute silk pants. Same goes for a pantsuit with ruffles down the back of the legs that was strict but sensual at the same time. Separates that followed the skinny on top and voluminous on the bottom principle, or vice versa, exhibited Maier's gorgeous color sense. The petal pink of a long double-faced cashmere coat, sweater, and trousers was particularly sublime.
The big takeaway was Maier's devotion to materials and his atelier's devotion to craft. Together, they've developed a process to do leather and patent leather on a single garment. More mundanely, perhaps, but no less luxuriously, nearly every garment came double-faced. The idea was particularly compelling on a pencil skirt with a deep slit in the back. At today's presentation, the designer made a point of showing off the inside: not a seam in sight.
