For spring 2025, Bottega Veneta’s Matthieu Blazy was inspired by childlike wonder. “As a kid, there is the adventure of the everyday—there’s a feeling that anything could happen, no matter how fantastical, and we are not so bound by regular expectations and conventions,” he said in the press release for the collection. “The door is open to the possibility of strange realities and wonder, impossible scenarios that banish disillusion. This is about the power of sincerity over strategy.”
On the runway, his vision was most evident in the pair of teenage-looking models wearing oversize suits as if riffling through their parents’ clothing and trying on the suits to primp and pose in front of the mirror. The next day, when editors headed to the label’s headquarters to see the collection up close and personal at the re-sees, they saw just how much Blazy was thinking about “the adventure of the everyday” when they were greeted by a giant copy of Richard Scarry’s Biggest Word Book Ever remade entirely in the house’s signature intrecciato leather, starring Lowly Worm on the front cover. It caused a minor stir on Instagram—who didn’t spend hours as a child reading their Richard Scarry books over and over again and imagining what it would be like to drive an apple? It was the ultimate desirable objet d’art, appealing to both an adult sense of extravagant luxury and childhood nostalgia. “As for many other people, Richard Scarry’s books were beloved companions in my childhood—and as an adult I still consider them exceptional acts of storytelling and imagination,” Blazy shared in an email. “This whole world and the characters he crafted on the page are so universal in their appeal: almost anyone who picks up a Richard Scarry book can’t help but smile. There’s something pure and hopeful in that.”
Now the book is finally available for sale, along with a small capsule collection of items inspired by the work of the beloved British author. They include a striped Intrecciato Dust bag, a belt with an apple shaped buckle, striped wallets in a variety of sizes, and a card holder. To celebrate the release of the collection, Bottega Veneta held an event at a new New York Residence, a special space on the fifth floor of the maison’s Madison Avenue boutique, hosted by Olympia Scarry, an artist and granddaughter of Richard. “I loved the idea because it’s really true to the book itself,” Olympia added during a video call. “I remember when I was at school, I would protect my books and my notebooks with a cover, and this is like that in a way, just with an extra touch.” She has known Blazy for a while, and when she found out that Blazy was a fan of Lowly Worm, she asked her dad, Huck, who often helped his own dad, Richard, with illustrations as a teenager, and went on to become an author and illustrator himself, to create a small drawing of Lowly shaped like Blazy’s initials. “It was sort of like a personal note, and that’s how the conversation [for the collaboration] started,” she added.
At the event, children and their fashionable parents enjoyed a reading of Richard Scarry’s The Night Before the Night Before Christmas by the artist Camille Henrot, passed chicken nuggets and apple juice served in glass milk bottles with striped paper straws, and sketching and coloring lessons with Faber-Castell colored pencils on Bottega Veneta–branded notepads. Though at times the evening’s action seemed to threaten the space’s made-for-adults furnishings including the freshly painted white walls and furniture with beautiful cream bouclé upholstery, crises were averted thanks to an attentive mother who suggested Sharpies be taken out of young children’s reach. Guests were also able to see a few of Richard Scarry’s own original drawings.
Appropriately, Blazy’s favorite Richard Scarry character is Lowly Worm. “His outfit is exceptional: one shoe, the Tyrolean hat, the red bowtie, the blue and green body tube, and an apple for a car! It’s just brilliant and joyful.”
