Daniel Lee isn’t a fan of digital fashion shows. That he would prefer something physical comes as no surprise. The defining characteristic of his last collection was its tactility—see Rihanna and Hailey Bieber in the deeply fringed shearling coat. And then there’s the Pouch bag, his first hit at Bottega Veneta, which feels like a luxurious leather pillow clutched under your arm. Anyway, when it came time to decide how to showcase his new collection in this COVID-19 year, he knew he wanted to go against the tide of digital content.
Instead, Bottega Veneta is sending out large canvas totes in the distinctive shade of green that Lee has chosen for the brand’s packaging with four separate pieces of content inside. “I think the strength of what we’ve done so far really has been focused on the product and really focused on the physical objects that we’ve made,” Lee said on a phone call last week. “So for me, I kind of started the idea really thinking product first.”
Book one is a sort of brand book with inspiration photos of models, fellow designers, and other muses that Lee has been accumulating since his start at the Italian label. PJ Harvey in her early ’90s glory is the centerfold. Book two is a collection of photos by the German conceptual artist Rosemarie Trockel of spring 2021 works in progress. Interspersed among her images are quotes about the importance of clothes signed only with initials. Udo Kier (thanks IMDB.com) discusses the “life-changing” costume he wore in Andy Warhol’s Dracula, but other quotes are more anonymous. Fashion insiders will keep themselves entertained wondering who said what all season.
Book three documents a series of salon-style Bottega shows at Sadler’s Wells in London from early October. Guests sat on the stage immersed in light and sound as models wearing Lee’s new collection snaked through the socially distanced chairs. Had the pandemic not prevented it, Lee would’ve liked to take the concept around the world. “It was a bit like going backwards and thinking about how fashion shows began. This idea of salon shows,” he explained. “It felt extremely intimate and much more personal.” The fourth item is a neon green record of Neneh Cherry’s spoken word performance at those shows.
This collection too is defined by its tactility. Much of it is knit, sometimes in quite thick-gauge yarns. The jacquards practically pulsate, and there are dresses made entirely from car seat beads or tiny shards of pearlescent shells. Lee studied knitwear at Central Saint Martins, and it doesn’t take the Trockel pictures in Book two to tell you that he relishes experimenting in the medium.
Case in point is the stretch-knit skirt suit in Bottega green that opens this look book. With its buttoned-to-the-neck cropped jacket and its mini-length carwash hem skirt, it doesn’t so much speak to our shut-in moment as it does gleefully anticipate our reemergence. All year long we’ve been wondering how fashion will look on the other side of this crisis. Lee—whose every move is being closely watched, the Pouch bag has had a major ripple effect—just gave us our answer. The skirt suit is one of those definitive ideas that only comes around every few years and instantly rearranges things: Post-pandemic, clothes will get shorter, clingier, and more sensual.
“I wanted to create a world and a universe that felt very glamorous and done up, but also quite stripped and quite pure,” Lee said. “I’m always interested in this idea, of how you can feel done up and elegant at the same time as feeling comfortable. That’s really my kind of mission for Bottega.” That instinct led to a fair bit of play, be it with unlikely materials like the padded leather used for a top and pants that Lee likened to a duvet, or homestyle crafts such as crochet, as seen on a sweet yellow tank dress.
Lee saved his boldest experiments for silhouettes, however. Many of the dresses are built up at the hips with padding. On a raw linen sundress the padding is hidden inside, but on a series of knit dresses it’s exposed as surface decoration. He explained that they were looking at the Tudor period, Henry VIII specifically. It’s a directional, even challenging shape—the kind of piece that has the potential to become a badge of honor for fashion obsessives.
That all this creativity emerged from the early months of the pandemic makes it more impressive. On that subject Lee said: “A lot of us moved to Milan for Bottega, and obviously with the world shut down, all we really have is each other at the studio and the work. It’s almost like a therapy. It gets you through the darkest times because you can completely lose yourself in making a beautiful fabric, a beautiful garment.” In a world gone virtual, Lee’s intuitive embrace of the analog is utterly winning.
