Making Light Work of Summer Dressing
Review of Bottega Veneta Spring 2027 Fashion Show
By Angela Baidoo
The summer season has swung into action at Bottega Veneta, where Louise Trotter looked to nature to find a lighter way forward. Having now lived through a full cycle of Milanese seasons, the designer was thinking about the way we transition through them for today’s collection, and more importantly, how we dress when those once-reliable boundaries become blurred.
Weathered neutrals, natural fibres and traditional craft techniques gave the collection plenty of character. But it was Trotter stripping back, shaving down leathers, creating more open-knit weaves from the house’s signature intrecciato to gradually “de-robing” the silhouette, that gave Spring 2027 a renewed sense of ease and optimism.
THE COLLECTION
THE VIBE
“A lot of the collection was based on natural, noble fibres, and light leathers, as light as I could get them. I wanted to really express craft, which is our language, it’s our logo”
Louise Trotter, Creative Director, Bottega Veneta
Bottega Veneta is a house where craft will always find a home, and whereas the fibreglass dresses from last season showed off the innovative technical capabilities of the atelier, today it was a call to nature that assisted Louise Trotter in evolving her summer story.
Trotter’s time in Milan has given her a sense of the many seasons she has experienced there, saying backstage “I’ve lived in Milan now for one year, so I’ve gone through full seasons and coming from the Northern Hemisphere it’s quite interesting for me to live in a city that really transitions through seasons and has a different atmosphere and a different feeling.” And summer is a season when the city comes alive, you only had to step out of the show’s venue to be met with crowds of locals and tourists enjoying a Saturday night dining al fresco along the Navigli canal.
Only one or two decades ago seasons were a natural occurrence that could be relied upon to mark the start of a shift in weather patterns. They signalled when it was time to invest in a new winter coat or shed the layers ready for trips around the sun. But due to a changing climate summers have become more sweltering (ask any guest to recount the dilemma of attending an outdoor show at high noon during the recent men’s or couture shows for evidence of that fact) and winters much milder. Yet the industry and the buying, production and selling calendar mechanisms that work behind the scenes have been slow to change. When summer collections hit the retail floor when there is still snow on the ground, or as is the case with Milan fashion week this season – where temperatures have been close to 30-degrees celsius (or the mid-80s in Fahrenheit) – stores are merchandised with warm Fall layers. This dichotomy makes the job of a creative director that much harder to navigate.
Over a year ago, Louise Trotter’s first summer collection was met with genuine excitement, but also questions around some of the heavier layering with respect to the season. But, as mentioned, summer collections in the world of luxury selling have to technically take you from the last days of winter into the cooler days of spring, then into the now extreme temperatures in summer. As the machine is set up in the way that it is, this is sure to continue when the ‘buy’ is done during showroom appointments. The designer took this challenge in her stride this time around, as on the runway we saw her strip back by making light work of leather and rendering the brands signature weave into more open and airy iterations. Shaving down skins to get leather “as light as I could get them” meant that outerwear had an innate fluidity built in and the bags and hats in raffia – a fibre the house has utilised in seasons past – brought the handmade and the technical together through the use of “natural, noble fibres.”
She took traditional craft techniques such as crochet, fringing, and floral embroidery and spliced them together in a way that felt deliberately imperfect. Printed retro florals onto fringing and gathered the strands up to create a new take on the bubble-hem, and doubled-up a slip dress that could be layered for a show-stopping effect as black and white 3D florals (similar to those that had been left on each seat as gifts to guests) bounced as the model walked. Speaking of wanting to address the concept of the in-between (seasons) and its gradual de-robing, a lighter outlook was always going to come into play, as she explained “I find it interesting the way we transition in our clothes. That sense of de-robing with this collection, and letting go [means] there’s a lot of lightness.”
The designer was in an optimistic mood and acknowledged this feeling often comes on with the anticipation of summer and its endless possibilities. Something she so clearly expressed in today’s collection.
THE WRAP UP
If last season demonstrated how far Bottega Veneta’s atelier could push technical innovation, Spring 2027 proved that experimentation could also manifest more subtely. Trotter found her balance for the summer season in lightness, taking the house’s established codes of leatherwork and craft and engineering them to better respond to the realities of dressing for summer now. She presented crochet, embroidery, and fringing that was deliberately imperfect, and styled in perfect contrast alongside gathered summer dresses, draped blouses, cocoon skirts with tucked hems, and structured tailoring, with spring 2027 exuding more ease and natural instinct than her first summer outing.
One year into Milan, the designer appears to be settling into both the city and the house, understanding that sometimes moving Bottega Veneta forward can be as simple as knowing when – and what – to let go.
