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[jula]

Bottega Veneta drops eco-friendly line to push Fashion’s Night Out foot traffic
By Tricia Carr
August 15, 2012


Italian label Bottega Veneta plans to flaunt an eco-friendly, limited-edition handbag collection available for purchase and showcase the winner of its photography contest to drive foot traffic to brand boutiques during U.S. Fashion’s Night Out events next month.

The brand is previewing its line of eco-friendly handbags, 100 of which will be available for purchase in its New York flagship store on a first-come, first-serve basis during the Sept. 6 event. As luxury labels begin to roll out their plans for Fashion’s Night Out, Bottega Veneta is also encouraging foot traffic by featuring An Le, the winner of its New Exposure photography competition that it pushed heavily via social media this summer.

“Bottega Veneta is executing a great strategy of not only doing something good for the environment and for charities, but also giving to its fan base in what is sure to be an exciting event,” said Kim Welther, director of client services and strategic solutions at Baesman Group, Inc., Columbus, OH. “It is really a winning strategy for all involved.

“This customer event will not only show that Bottega Veneta is a brand that cares for its followers, but also for others in the community through its support of charity work and concern for the environment,” she said. “In today’s environment, it is important for a brand to leave a good lasting impression. “Bottega Veneta has gone above and beyond in the Fashion’s Night Out event to represent itself as a brand that cares on many levels – a brand value that is important to every consumer.” Ms. Welther is not affiliated with Bottega Veneta, but agreed to comment as an industry expert. Bottega Veneta was not available for comment before press deadline.

Got it in the bag
Bottega Veneta will create buzz for its new eco-friendly line by stocking its New York flagship store with a limited number of handbags available for purchase during Fashion’s Night Out. The line is produced using vegan materials and environmentally-sensitive dyeing and finishing. The handbags also share the signature design details of its leather goods, per Bottega Veneta. The handbags were shown during the cruise 2013 presentation in May and will be available in stores in late fall. Two materials are used to make the bags: hand-woven, treated jersey in nero, shadow, appia, and krim colors, and Japanese washi paper woven fabric in nero.

The eco-friendly jersey bag in nero will be available for purchase at Fashion’s Night Out. To build hype and surround Bottega Veneta with an air of mystery, the brand has not fully revealed the products yet. The line was created in response to consumers’ request for a non-leather, earth-friendly bag, per creative director Tomas Maier.

In addition, Bottega Veneta will show a special project for the first time at its flagship stores participating in Fashion’s Night Out that was photographed by the 2012 New Exposure photography competition winner, An Le. The project celebrates the eco-friendly line. Participating stores include those in New York; Beverly Hills, CA; Manhasset, NY; Scottsdale, AZ; Honolulu, HI; Costa Mesa, CA; Las Vegas; Dallas; and Houston. In addition to its project launch, Bottega Veneta is hosting DJ Hannah Bronfman and serving champagne at the New York flagship store. Also at the Fifth Avenue location, a percentage of sales from Fashion’s Night Out will be donated to the International Center of Photography Programs for Youth.

Bottega Veneta could get a boost in foot traffic due to the public involvement that it encouraged for its New Exposure photography competition. Consumers may attend the events to see the winners’ work on which they previously voted.
The label partnered with Condé Nast’s Vogue and Red Digital Camera to host the contest for undiscovered photographers to award a prize package that included the opportunity to work on a special project.

The label will likely get consumers in the store for a few reasons due to the many aspects of its Fashion’s Night Out presentation: environmentally-conscious consumers will want to see the new collection, art-minded consumers will want to view the photography exhibit and party-goers will want to take in the music.

“Fashion’s Night Out has become one of the most exciting and highly-anticipated shopping events in the United States,” said Elizabeth DeMaso, managing partner at Brenes Co., New York. “With only hours to visit the hundreds of participants, every retailer is jockeying to get customers to their store.

“Bottega Veneta’s strategy is smart in that it encourages people to get to the store early to obtain the free handbag, thereby building the evening’s agenda around its store,” she said. “Combining this with the unveiling of the special project and a party atmosphere gives a reason to visit even after opening hours.”
luxurydaily.com

 

[jula]

Here's the bag for Fahion's Night Out vogue.de

 

[jula]

Elle Russia September 2012 - Nero Snakeskin Passamaneria Knot, BV Bangles tfs

 

[TDL]

NM "The Book" Sept 2012 - Teal Intrecciato Cervo Perlato Metal Lido Bag (F/W 2012 collection)

 

[cabochon]

Bottega Veneta Fall 2012 campaign

 

[cabochon]

US ELLE magazine September 2012 Canyon shadow ayers passamaneria bag

 

[cabochon]

Neiman Marcus mini catalogue fall 2012 Canyon shadow ayers passamaniera bag

 

[TDL]

A closer look at the BV FNO 2012 exclusive Nero Jersey Intrecciato Bag - $1,950
(pic from the BV website)

 

[jula]

Vogue Nippon November 2012 - Clothes, Bags, Jewelry and Accessoires by Bottega Veneta (most of them from the Fall/ Winter 2012.13 collection)

My Secret Passion
Model: Kasia Struss
Photographer: Giampaolo Sgura
Stylist: Anna Dello Russo

 

[jula]

UK Harper's Bazaar November 2012 - Early Fall 2012 tfs/ vogue.it

 

[jula]

Subtle Sophistication: Bottega Veneta’s Tomas Maier
by Robin Givhan Oct 23, 2012 4:45 AM EDT
A new book celebrates Tomas Maier’s gorgeous clothes and his patient revival of the storied fashion brand.


It is almost a rite of passage that major design houses create extravagant coffee table books in which the details of extraordinarily expensive garments are fetishized in lush photography. So the recent arrival of a Bottega Veneta tome from the art publishing house Rizzoli, was presumed to be just another show pony of a book.

Indeed, its looks are impressive—as is its $100 price. The sheer weight of the thing is enough to strain a wrist. Its size can be measured in feet and it is packaged inside a sturdy box that bears a close-up view of the brand’s iconic intrecciato—or leather-weaving—technique. The volume would look quite fine positioned atop a sleek table in a self-consciously decorated home.

But as it turns out, the Bottega Veneta book is different because the brand’s creative director, Tomas Maier, is unlike most designers. In an era of designers-as-celebrities, there is no lovingly lit portrait of Maier. The words, by Ingrid Sischy, Jay Fielden and others, deliver charming musings on their relationship to handbags and shoes. And in the few images that brag about the hands behind the work, they are the hands of the artisans with whom Maier collaborates.

“The book is a kind of declaration about the tight relationship between designers and artisans,” Maier says. “We don’t work that well without each other.”

Since arriving at the brand in June 2001, Maier has made a case for continuity and patience—ideals that have quite literally fallen out of fashion. Instead of focusing on trends and unnerving advertising campaigns, Maier has managed to create a successful company that focuses on the longevity of its wares. While other design houses might shock the system with avant-garde silhouettes or hyper-sexual runway shows, Maier provokes because he simply refuses to play by the most basic rule of fashion: obsolescence. Each season, even though he is charged with creating something new, he strives to do so without obliterating the past.

“A woman doesn’t buy a new winter coat every winter,” Maier says. “It’s not about trends and it’s not about disposal. You shouldn’t be betrayed by the product. You should have a pair of shoes for a long time…The rundown bag from six years ago is better than the bag from this season because it has a patina.”

In the universe of fashion, this is akin to a heresy. Fashion operates on the premise that each new season requires a new wardrobe. And even if a designer traffics in the highest quality of materials, it is not unusual for him to be a minimalist one season and a devotee of rococo the next.

“I think every collection is an evolution of the previous one,” Maier says. “If you’re lucky enough to have a client, that client has an affinity for you. It’s a relationship. We go step by step to the next thing. The next collection is a proposal. It’s never the contrary of what I did before.”

In his women’s collections, particularly his most recent for spring 2013, Maier maintains a constant, high-class state of adult sophistication and beauty. His clothes are a medley of complicated textures, startling but enrapturing color palettes and unabashed luxury. He has long favored dresses with a slightly raw or imperfect allure. His materials might be precious, but his designs never are. His clothes are not hip; they are more confident than that.

Maier arrived at Bottega Veneta at the most challenging moment for a high-end brand. It was just before the September 11 terrorist attacks in the United States and soon after, the luxury economy was spiraling downward from fear, SARS, the war in Iraq and a declining U.S. dollar. While other brands were paddling madly to stay afloat, Bottega Veneta was considered dead in the water.

Believing that men and women should buy less, but buy better, Maier obsesses over authenticity.

Founded in 1966, the brand rose to fame through the 1970s and peaked in 1982 with about $350 million in revenue. An earlier attempt to revive the company —with shoddy woven bags splashed with graffiti—had failed. Maier performed an aesthetic exorcism. The ready-to-wear was shuttered. And the accessories were relaunched with a single, elegant tote called the Cabat. It was hand-woven—structured but without a frame. It was unisex and multi-functional. It had no logos. And it cost a fortune.

Maier, a tall and slender man with an angular face, was born in Germany in 1957 and studied fashion in Paris. His father was an architect and as a boy he spent a great deal of time in his father’s office watching the slow, step-by-step work of constructing a building. “I was always aware of the process: visiting the site, excavating the land, putting in the foundation, raising the roof beams,” he says.

Maier applied a similarly methodical philosophy to the reconstruction of Bottega Veneta. “The reinvention started slowly—voluntarily,” he says. After the introduction of the Cabat, for example, it was six more years before the leather goods firm began making belts.

“People kept saying, ‘You should be making belts. You should be making handbags and belts.’ Once we made trousers, then we made belts—to hold the trouser up,” Maier explains. “With fashion, it’s always the same formula: You make shoes and belts and leather jackets. You go in the store and what is this? A slaughterhouse? It doesn’t make any sense.”

Today, the brand brings in nearly $900 million in revenue— the vast majority of it from leather goods. And the Cabat remains in the lineup.

In these impatient times, allowing such a slow simmer is almost unheard of within the fashion business. Designers like Raf Simons at Christian Dior and Hedi Slimane at Saint Laurent are expected to produce white hot collections immediately. And young designers have barely graduated from college before they start talking about launching their own brand.

In contrast, Maier spent 20 years working as a freelance designer at companies such as Sonia Rykiel and Hermès before he was hired by Bottega Veneta. “I worked on so many different products for men and women, high end and low end. Friends in Paris said, ‘You need to focus.’ But I liked the experience.” Maier says.

“I worked for a large industrial company with sizes going very high, from a French 36 to 52. I found it challenging to do something for a woman who is heavier, to make a garment that works for her, that fits her arms and doesn’t make them like a sausage,” he says. “It’s good training. It’s good schooling.”

Such a peripatetic existence prepared Maier for his current role in which he oversees menswear and womenswear, leather goods and products for the home. And two decades of shifting aesthetics have given him a fierce loyalty to his singular vision and precisely how it must be executed.

Believing that men and women should buy less, but buy better, Maier obsesses over authenticity—from products to advertising—and believes that function should never give way to form.

When he decided to introduce cameos into the jewelry line, he wanted to have them carved out of lava rock rather than the more common shell. So he turned to craftsmen living at the foot of Mt. Vesuvius who had pioneered a technique for working with lava stone. “I work with the real people who did these things from the beginning” instead of relying on some facsimile he says, with no small amount of pride.

When he admired the twisting and gyrating men in Robert Longo’s artwork, he went directly to the artist to propose a collaboration. “If we want to do something in the spirit of Robert Longo, I call Robert Longo. He said, ‘I’m used to people just knocking stuff off and doing it in a horrible way.’” The artist signed on for the marketing project.

And when Maier is working on luggage or other travel accessories, he takes note of every annoyance and indignity as he travels between his outposts in Milan, New York and Miami. “I want to go through security in Milan and JFK. I want to know what fits in the overhead bin,” he says. And for those who travel by private jet, he is just as eager to create custom luggage for their peculiar storage problems.

But ultimately, Maier says, all his clients are the same, no matter how they travel or where they live. The media has educated them about fashion. Maier doesn’t tweet and he doesn’t have a Facebook page. But he sees how social media delivers a frenzy of information. His aim is to be the voice of calm and poised sanity.

It is early evening in New York, where Maier particularly loves spending time in the fall. In a few hours, he will welcome friends and clients to a book signing. Well-groomed waiters are already hauling in cases of wine.

Maier is dressed for the occasion in various hues of gray, from his tailored blazer and narrow tie, to his perfectly buzzed hair. The book signing is another rite of passage. But it is not so much a celebration of a personality, as a validation of an enduring philosophy.
-thedailybeast

 

[jula]

Vogue Japan December 2012 - FNO Promotion tfs

 

[jula]

Resort 2013 campaign

 

[jula]

Bérénice Marlohe For Harper’s Bazaar Español November 2012 - Dress Fall 2012.13 redcarpet-fashionawards/ vogue.it

 

[diane278]

I love this catalog even though their prices are too steep for me....and I no longer ski. They always seem to have several BV bags among their offerings.