Following Matthieu Blazy's landmark appointment as Artistic Director at CHANEL, Kering announced yesterday that Louise Trotter will assume creative leadership at Bottega Veneta. The British designer, whose exit from Carven was confirmed just hours earlier, represents a strategic choice for the Italian house at a moment when luxury's creative landscape undergoes its most significant reshuffle in recent memory.
Trotter's appointment signals an intriguing new chapter for the 58-year-old luxury house, coinciding with an unprecedented realignment of creative leadership across luxury's most storied houses. Her measured approach to design, honed through positions at Carven, Lacoste, and Joseph, dovetails with Bottega Veneta's heritage of understated excellence. At Carven, where she served as Creative Director since February 2023, Trotter demonstrated her ability to revive historic houses with precision and restraint. Her final collection there, presented in an intimate salon setting at the label's historic Champs-Élysées location, showcased her talent for balancing archival reverence with modern sensibility.
"Her aesthetic seamlessly combines exquisite design with sublime craft," notes Leo Rongone, Bottega Veneta's CEO—language that deliberately echoes the house's core values and signals a commitment to evolutionary rather than revolutionary change. This strategic continuity is substantial as luxury houses navigate increasingly complex market dynamics.
The timing is especially noteworthy. Trotter inherits a house at its commercial apex, with Blazy's tenure seeing double-digit growth and unprecedented cultural resonance. His stewardship saw Bottega Veneta emerge as a standard-bearer for intellectual luxury, marked by innovations in leather craft and a distinctly cerebral approach to design. Under his direction, the house strengthened its position within Kering's portfolio, maintaining its reputation for craftsmanship while attracting a new generation of luxury consumers.
Trotter brings substantial commercial acumen to the role, developed during her tenure at Joseph from 2009 to 2018, where she orchestrated significant international expansion and doubled the brand's revenue. This experience, combined with her work at Lacoste and early career positions at Calvin Klein and Gap, suggests a designer equally versed in commercial strategy and creative vision—a crucial balance in today's luxury landscape.
Her arrival in January 2025 positions her to debut her vision for the house at Milan Fashion Week in February 2025. Having demonstrated her facility with heritage techniques through her work with Carven's archives, the industry will watch keenly to see how she interprets Bottega Veneta's storied intrecciato technique and navigates the delicate balance between the house's hallmarks of innovation and preservation. Her track record at Carven, where she orchestrated a comprehensive brand renewal encompassing everything from logo to retail concept, hints at her capacity for thoughtful transformation.
The appointment adds another compelling chapter to luxury's ongoing creative reshuffle, as heritage houses seek designers capable of speaking to an increasingly nuanced consumer. In Trotter, Bottega Veneta may have found a voice that whispers rather than shouts—perfectly in tune with the house's longstanding philosophy of letting the work speak for itself. As the industry navigates post-pandemic evolution and shifting luxury paradigms, her appointment suggests a future where craft and commerce find equal footing in luxury's new equation—a balance that has increasingly defined success in the sector's highest echelons.
