Welp! Daniel Lee, the Creative Director of Bottega Veneta since appointed in 2018, is leaving the label. Tasked with revitalizing the brand, Lee was a smashing success in the past three years, needing only a few seasons to create massive it-items. As the luxury market struggled due to the pandemic in the past two years, Bottega Veneta’s sales have increased by 8.9% in the third quarter of 2021.
On November 10, Kering released a statement that Bottega Veneta and Daniel Lee had come to a “joint decision to end their collaboration.” The statement is cryptic and leaves a lot of room for interpretation, which feels similar to the brand’s low profile over the past year. In Lee’s tenure at Bottega, he removed the brand from the Fashion Week calendar, deleted all of their social media in favor of a quarterly digital magazine, and hosted extremely private salon-style shows in cities from Detroit to Berlin. These are huge risks to take in the fashion industry, especially relying on the public to gather hype around a label rather than directing it for yourself on social media.
Rumors have been swirling about Lee’s sudden departure – What’s his next move? Was he fired? What was the last straw? There are suggestions that Lee could go to Burberry or go back to work under his former boss from Céline, Phoebe Philo, for her upcoming namesake brand. Others suggest that while Lee was a creative goldmine, communication issues within the company caused a difficult working environment, leading to a revolving door of designers working under him. Maybe we will never know for sure what happened – the man has done a pretty good job at revealing only what he wants to be seen, but there is no denying that Lee has fostered a brilliant resurgence for Bottega Veneta in the past three years.
Bottega has made a huge comeback from oversized rubber boots to the pouch bag plastered across Instagram feeds for the past several years. The label has become synonymous with the shade of “parakeet” green that has ruled the salon runways and thousands of knock-offs that dominate. While he was an expert in creating hype products, some of Lee’s best work was seen in his most outlandish (and expensive) designs. He further pushed material exploration with each season, from ostrich feathers to manipulated leather, latex, rhinestones, and the thickest shearling fringe I’ve ever seen to grace a runway.
It was announced on November 15, only five days after Lee’s departure, that he would be replaced by Matthieu Blazy, who was promoted from his former role as Design Director for Bottega. Blazy has quite the resumé, working behind the scenes at Maison Margiela, Céline (with the accent), and Raf Simons for Calvin Klein. This appointment feels similar to Alessandro Michele at Gucci. He worked his way up at the brand before being promoted to Creative Director. Blazy’s first collection for Bottega Veneta will be presented at Fashion Week in February of 2022. As much as I loved Mr. Lee, I’m more than excited to see what this new fashion-veteran will present as his vision for the label.
Words by Nicholson Baird.
Graphic by Emily Tobias.