Rumoured: Louise Trotter to Bottega?
I’m exhausted and a bit bored by the designer merry-go-round rumour mill, are you?
But please indulge these few updates as they’re personally of interest to me. First, it sounds like Bottega Veneta’s Matthieu Blazy is about to be named as the new artistic director of Chanel. ‘Insiders’ say he won’t be responsible for everything in the way that Karl was (let’s face it, Karl was a machine!) but he’ll be overseeing the design for RTW, couture and accessories. I’d have loved to see Hedi Slimane in the role but I’m basically happy for anyone who can refine the clunky tweed silhouettes that current Chanel designers seem obsessed with. Hedi showed a way to do tweed that’s modern, light and even – gasp! – cool, and I think Matthieu can too.
Next, we’re hearing that if Matthieu goes to Chanel, then Louise Trotter is in the running to fill his seat at Bottega. I’m not unhappy about this prospect. Great to have a woman in the role, but more importantly, a woman who’s shown herself to understand women’s lifestyles, sartorial needs and desires (in her recent Carven collections) in the way that Phoebe Philo did at Celine. Louise Trotter was previously at Lacoste (where her designs were possibly too elevated for the brand’s positioning at the time) and Joseph (where she had a well-deserved cult following of fashion fan girls).
Finally, news just dropped that Dries Van Noten’s head of womenswear, Julian Klausner will make his runway debut as the label’s creative director in March. Sounds like another appropriate hire. “I like to think I encouraged Dries to embrace bolder expressions,” Klausner told Business of Fashion’s Tim Blanks (paywall).
UPDATE: It’s been confirmed that Matthieu Blazy is the new artistic director of Chanel and Louise Trotter is the new creative director of Bottega Veneta.
WORDS: Disneyrollergirl / Navaz Batliwalla
IMAGE: Carven SS25 by Louise Trotter
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