Bottega Just Broke Its Vow Of Instagram Silence
New Bottega (Prada-da). After being off the ‘gram for the past five years, Bottega Veneta abruptly made a triumphant social media return in late October. Its first sign of life? An Instagram Story with a simple charcoal-gray background and equally simple greeting — “Ciao,” naturally — in one of the fancy fonts only certain Instagram accounts are awarded. Right back at ya, Bottega social media team.
The brand has been social-media silent since 2021, the last year of former Bottega creative director Daniel Lee’s tenure, much to the consternation of those in fashion media. The thing is, it was a great idea: make the hottest brand of the moment feel that much more exclusive. Bottega enjoyed a well-received facelift under Lee, as people lauded his ability to both balance and filter his elegant design vision with the brand’s refined codes, creating something new but not entirely unfamiliar — AKA, being a really good creative director.
And the stuff he designed was good, in the same way his work with Phoebe Philo on Céline was good. You needn’t look further than his fixation with rubber boots — compare the collector-favorite Céline Planet to the instantly viral Bottega Puddle. Lee created the Bottega he wanted to see in the world, which was freakier than the norm; it felt like he was designing a wardrobe for a niche architect, just in Bottega’s Intrecciato image.
Bottega’s Lee era was a masterclass on How To Be A Good Creative Director Of An Established Brand, as it was both tasteful and profitable even through the pandemic, as we reported back in 2021. Why lean on IG when the clothes speak for themselves?
Lee didn’t need a team posting for his Bottega to matter. Especially because people were already memorializing Lee’s steeze on Instagram in real time through accounts like @oldceline and @newbottega.
What does that say about the house’s current Louise Trotter era? Trotter’s Bottega is for the modern well-heeled woman, a demographic which naturally feels less dramatic than Lee’s wild expressionism purely because the target consumer is normal people, rather than the heads. Again, you can see it in the boots: Lee made the Bottega Tire, Trotter made the Cherry, a knee-high silhouette with a sensible block heel.
Trotter’s Bottega is quieter literally by design, to the chagrin of some modern women in fashion (Cathy Horyn) and the tepid acceptance of others (Vanessa Friedman). Whereas Lee’s Bottega (and Matthieu Blazy’s Bottega) instantly kickstarted trends, making it easy to identify a Bottega devotee of the era, Trotter’s Bottega feels more generalized, less urgent.
As such, Bottega’s neutral “Ciao” hits like a coquetteish “I’m back.” The question is: back to what? It feels like enough time has elapsed since Trotter took the reins that a new introduction would be suitable, to really draw a distinction for what she hopes to do with Bottega. And, personally, I really believe in her, so to her “Ciao,” I say “ditto.”
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