Dressing Up Gets Joyful
Review of Bottega Veneta Fall 2026 Fashion Show
By Angela Baidoo
Rebirthing a brand in your own image can take many seasons of trial and error, especially when the past few years have been significantly marked by the distinctive handwriting of your predecessor, yet it took Louise Trotter only one. Setting the House on a new course that uses craft as its technology, the creative director is on a mission to create clothes that compel us to remember the joy of dressing up.
THE COLLECTION
THE VIBE
Architectural Exterior, Joy of Dressing Up, Craft as Technology
Wiping the slate with a ‘palette cleanser’ of a first collection, she ripped up the rulebook on how to make a re-entrance onto the scene with her debut. The creative director has built on her memory-making opener that featured no less than fibreglass separates that were kinetically charged.
In the year since she has physically migrated to the Milanese capital, she has been taking the time to connect to Italian culture, telling The Impression “I think I feel more connected to the culture. You know, when I first arrived, I was sort of studying in a way, but now I feel it’s less studied and more natural for me.”
Her sophomore collection was to be grounded in the roots of Milanese design, roots that grew industry innovators from Giorgio Armani to Ricardo Tisci, Miuccia Prada and Gianfranco Ferré to demonstrate what good company the creative director dwells amongst. Her view of the city, from someone who has come from the outside and is looking in – from within – she believes the city possesses “this incredible sort of shift between being quite brutalist, both in architecture and feeling, and the grey weather, but then there’s this sensuality and seduction that’s behind it.” An analogy she used to describe what it was the way a Milanese building can appear structured, and even fortified, from the outside but once inside you will find “something very beautiful in the courtyard.” This has not just been her experience of the city but the people too, revealing an insight into how she has come to warm to the Italian city and its characters that may have felt cold at first.
Her fall 2026 collection unfolded at the Palazzo San Fedele, marrying brutalism with a seductive undertone that reflected both sides of Milanese culture through her prism. Her tailored silhouettes felt cocooning as if they were enveloping each model in a structured architectural exterior. Her curved shoulder shift dresses were caught to one side with the single strap of a belt alongside angular leather trench coats, loosely folded wrap skirts and longline tunic tops with soft creases.
This gave way to the dance of seduction with the human senses of sight and touch satisfied. Even if the collection will only ever be experienced on-screen by the masses. A burgundy suit made for lounging was followed up with a clipped fur vest dress. This part reintroduced us to the designers hyper-tactile fabric developments that could have stood alone but make for a compelling contrast. Often moving both in unison with the models, layers of fringing and ‘fur’ would dance around with every step, until the show culminated with another set of her fibreglass innovations that have become the calling card from her debut. Explaining she said “I see a brand as a human, as a living thing, and it’s history, like all of us, where we were born, where we live, our footprint in life, our journey, is part of who we are.”
More than humanity the collection felt like a celebration, as well as an invitation to get dressed again. As Trotter found particularly wonderful in the Italians is the fact that “people really dress up.” In her cataclysmic clash of colour and texture she wanted to express the joy and theatrics of dressing for “oneself, but also for one’s community.” Not just in the skins the house is famous for, but in her newfound hyperbolic textures that dance on command. In her use of both natural and synthetic fibres, Trotter is still getting to grips with the endless possibilities for textural exploration that is available to her. She is constantly working on trying out new techniques, as is the natural way of the house, she likened it to craft being the House’s technology.
In only two seasons the designer has managed to marry directional ideas with pragmatic silhouettes in a dialogue of her own making. This is her artistic vision of Bottega Veneta and it has never been clearer.
THE QUOTE
Craft is really our technology, and I think technique is really our logo. So when you work with such artisans, where I think you know the creations of the mind and the hand and the heart all are very connected. There’s this willingness to explore and to try ideas.
Louise Trotter, Creative Director, Bottega Veneta
THE WRAP UP
Louise Trotter’s second collection for Bottega Veneta could have quite possibly surpassed her first, and in a show of vulnerability, rarely seen with designers who are often flanked by PR teams trained to manage difficult questions, the creative director let it be known that she had heard the initial critique of the first collection and its perceived heaviness. So, she sought to course correct with season two and addressed the concerns by making the construction of her suiting, for example, much lighter.
This lightness, she revealed, is also how she is navigating a world seemingly falling into chaos, by doing the work of an artist and creating clothes that will bring joy and confidence to people. And when its needed this seasons brutalist tailoring will act as a very sophisticated take on modern armour.
