“I’m in the candy box,” Louise Trotter told a group of reporters backstage. Her appointment to Bottega Veneta last December made Trotter the sole woman to score a creative director job in a sweeping round of designer musical chairs that consumed fashion for the better part of a year. Rachel Scott getting the keys to Proenza Schouler in New York last month brought the tally up to two.
Trotter recently remarked to Vogue, “I want to believe that I’ve succeeded because of my work and because of who I am, and not just because I’m a woman.” That’s fair, but there was still something validating about watching her make her debut tonight; she paid her dues in New York, London, and Paris, most recently at Lacoste and Carven, for much longer than her male counterparts.
The collection did seem to suggest that she’s been reveling in her newfound situation—only less like a kid with a hand in the candy box, and more like a grown-up who knows exactly how good she’s got it. Bottega Veneta’s USP is its dedication to craft, and Trotter put it to work for her: weaving an intrecciato tailored coat so it looked like snake scales, using superfine strips of leather for a dramatic floor-length intrecciato cape, and adding feathers to a denim blue intrecciato robe coat so that it seemed to float down the runway.
Movement was a defining feature of the collection, whether it was the trailing ends of a skirt constructed from a tier of leather bands or the fringes tracing the side seam of a micro-pleated dress. Most astounding were the “sweaters” in bright shades of orange, red, and silver-blue that shifted and gleamed under the lights. The material? Recycled fiberglass. “It has the feeling of fur and it moves like glass,” Trotter said. “And it’s been tailored and constructed so it follows where you normally have a shoulder line.” Skirts in the same stuff came in swirling ombré colors.
Trotter’s tailoring tends to the prodigious side, with exaggerated shoulders and full volumes and pant hems long enough to tuck into the ankle straps of shoes. I sometimes thought it would look better if it were a size or two smaller. In contrast, parachute silk dresses with straps that peeled off the shoulders had an alluring lightness; they seemed to float on top of the body thanks to an inner construction that accentuated the hips.
As for accessories, Trotter said she started with the bag that helped launch Bottega Veneta on the world stage, Lauren Hutton’s American Gigolo clutch. The woman herself was in the front row, and the upscaled version of the clutch on the runway looked just about as timeless as Hutton does. All around, a sweet beginning.
