Bottega Veneta & Diesel: The Art of Transposing Fabrics
It’s not often that you find yourself confusing a white leather tank top for, well, a plain white cotton tank top. The eye will always seek out the rational, and when faced with what seems to be a pair of denim jeans one will, rightly so, assume that it’s just an innocent pair of blue denim jeans. However, Bottega Veneta’s Matthieu Blazy continues to seek to bewilder our instincts.
Bottega Veneta FW23
Filippo Fior
Bottega Veneta FW23
Filippo Fior
Showing his third collection for the beloved fashion house at Milan Fashion Week, Blazy once again pulled together a grouping of ensembles that have one clear unifier even though most looks are distinctly different from each other with Blazy seeking to create as many fashion characters as possible. From the final look, a simple pair of denim jeans and a white tank made entirely from leather to a pair of slippers which should, logically, be created from wool but is instead also created out of leather.
Diesel FW23
Filippo Fior
Diesel FW23
Filippo Fior
Subverting the audience’s expectations during Milan Fashion Week was the modus operandi for one other fashion house. Glenn Martens has proven time and time again that his Diesel will always put denim first, and his Fall/Winter collection was no different. Clearly produced with the intent to spark conversation, the show was overseen by 200,000 boxes of Durex condoms. The other conversation sparked? His continually innovative use of denim. Among a myriad of oversized knitwear and vinyl jackets and matching skirts were denim pieces which invited the eye to think outside the box. Can a denim dress really melt away into the skin? Turns out that if you use a thin enough denim and carefully insert panels of mesh it certainly can!
Both Martens and Blazy were not seeking to reinvent the silhouette wheel, instead, they were exploring how we can continue to play around with textiles that we may have given up on. In 2023, it’s rare to discover something unique and new in the fashion industry, however, that is not to say that we must abandon new avenues for their use.
