As a mature leather goods brand, Bottega Veneta is rarely associated with innocence. However, even with a sophisticated collection brimming with the house’s intricate fabrications and technical wizardry, a winsome beauty took shape during Matthieu Blazy‘s Milan show. Along a runway setting littered with animal toys and playful mementos of childhood, Blazy presented a Spring/Summer 2025 show that evoked the righteous pursuit of play and adventure many of us can only vaguely recall. Of course, Blazy’s intention was precisely that: to penetrate through the stoic facade of the Fashion of it all and get to our gooey centres.
“As a kid, there is the adventure of the everyday—there’s a feeling that anything could happen, no matter how fantastical and we are not so bound by regular expectations and conventions,” wrote Blazy in his shownotes. “The door is open to the possibility of strange realities and wonder, impossible scenarios that banish disillusion.”
This is about the power of sincerity over strategy.”
Through this sincerity, we see a new kind of power dressing form, harnessed through uninhibited design. A “chic awkwardness”, as the creative director describes, which conjures memories of dress-up and aimless creativity in its purest form.
One of Blazy’s most glorious achievements has been in his treatment of materials, which, in this collection, inspires awe. From the all-leather paillette evening dress to merino wool woven into jacquards, imitating stonewashed denim yet impeccably tailored, there is the playful sense that anything can be anything. The recurring motif of the grunge flannel shirt—whose leather iteration went viral—appears as a sculpted heavy cotton weave. Elsewhere, proportions are disrupted with herringbone shrunken, and pinstripes reimagined as oversized.
Far from merely a play at our softer sides, Blazy notes the wonders of discovery when we look at who we once were. Particularly in today’s confused times, when so much of the industry can feel unnecessarily stuffy, a call to tap into something more uncertain is deeply compelling.
“Can we find power in sweetness? Can the charm of the intrepid collide with rigorous precision? Would it make a new movement? What would the kid in you want?” Blazy asks with this collection. “I wanted to feel the primal pull of fashion once more, a coming-of-age fascination that encompasses the joy of looking, discovering and dressing: the power of wow!”
This story first appeared on GRAZIA International.
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