Bottega Veneta Spring Summer 2012 Review

 Gorgeous

Spectac

Delicious

Questionable

Oh Tomas Maier. This guy. He just understands design. He produces really beautiful and sophisticated clothes. The first six models that walked weren’t white which was great. More diversity you fashion people! There was a purple dress in what appeared to be either cotton or washed silk. It had a leather placket with sporty press studs. Loving it. 
Not all of it worked. There were some questionable denim jeans and whip-stitched plastic overlays on dresses and tops. Some of the tribal interpretations were a bit meh, like the top that had little rough squares of coloured fabric hand stitched in a grid formation to the front. There were some cool caftan-like tops that looked like they’d just been poured over the models body then tucked into a pair of trousers. So overall it was tribal without the whole....

As The Walls Are Closing In And The Colours Fade To Black

ABOVE: MARNI

ABOVE: BOTTEGA VENETA

ABOVE: PRADA. ps, this is the first and only time I'll apologise for my fucking horrible photoshop skills. Totes sozzz

Thought I'd be a giant dyke and quote some Sarah Mclachlan. If memory serves me right the song Black appears on the X-Files soundtrack. Weirdly I bought the CD yet never saw the film or watched the TV series that much either. I was probably watching re-runs of Absolutely Fabulous and brushing the hair of my treasure trolls. Aaaaaaaaanyway.

Something that surprised me was seeing black in a lot of spring collections because I don’t normally associate black with summer. It wasn’t something that was a major story to the collections but it warrants a mention. But then again, maybe it's like when you buy a red car all you see is red cars when you drive. I felt like they’d snuck them in for the Lanphears and the lesbian art critics of the world.

For example if you’ve seen the Prada show and had to sum it up you might say bright, zesty colours and retina-melting embroidered monkeys! What was Miuccia smoking? But there was a section of somber black dresses worked in. Marni did it too. I think this was done to take the edge off some of the acerbic colours and wild stripes and to give the eye a breather. Missoni would’ve been smart to have done this too and broken up the eye-fuck of colour they sent down the runway.

Below is my summer mood board. Argh, shoulda put a mood ring in.

BLACK SUMMER INSPIRATION

COLOCKWISE FROM LEFT Y'ALL: 

Special edition My Little Pony with platinum weave.

 David Agbodji. Call me bb gurl

Black Emanuelle movie poster. Italian blaxploitation at it's most raunchy. 

The black plague. Super-rare vintage disease from 1348.

Black Swan movie poster. Film about mentally unstable ballerina. I don't need to know anything else. I'm there.

And speaking of lesbian art critics....

Like a rhinestone drawstring bag

What an absolutely stunning dress.

Tomas Maier is taking BV in a more edgy direction. It's not as provincial looking as it used to be.

Look at these fucking pants! Don't even try and tell me you're not finger-banging yourself right now

This will get the Wintour seal of approval. She wears a dickload of BV.

Bottega Veneta was relaxed and effortless. Everything was just so, I could do that when in reality the night class sewing course you took won’t get you further than making a drawstring bag with hot-glued rhinestones. Shockingly I’m not talking from personal experience but it’s no stretch of the imagination right?
I actually did do a night class sewing course prior to fashion school. It was once a week and duh I was the only guy. We all had to make a skirt from some fucking Butterick pattern or whatever.

It's business casual bitches

I sat next to a girl who I'm pretty sure was a Puerto Rican maid. She quit after a few weeks. She thought her fabric choice was ugly. She chose a dusty pink crepey fabric which was kinda nice compared to my red cotton drill for $2.99 a metre.
Anyway, I made this ugly super short skirt and on the last day one of the other students half jokingly/half seriously asked me if I was making it for myself. I held the skirt up to her and said "this wouldn't even fit me". It didn't really answer her question.

You know what this bag needs?

BOTTEGA VENETA SPRING 2010

Thomas Maier goes from strength to strength each season. Apparently he wanted the outfits to be like a blank canvas. I think that worked especially well for the first half of the show. I found myself looking at the models and the clothes brought out their personalities, so to that effect he achieved what he set out to do.
The first 20 looks were mostly in cream. It became slightly tedious, particularly the pants that looked like they were made for a yoga class. Then look 21 rolled out. A pair of cream trousers with a wide green waistband and a draped top, also in cream with a small strip of violet across the top. After 20 looks of cream it was a relief to see some beautiful colour. This was done effectively, leaving you wanting more. Then he switched briefly back to cream. These looks were paired with jewel-toned bags which was a great device for drawing attention to their beautiful woven creations.