fashionologie

Bottega Veneta's Tomas Maier Rails on It Bags, Designer Cult of Personalities Like Karl Lagerfeld

fashionologie — Thu, 30 Dec 2010 11:48:57 PST

>> To say Tomas Maier is a perfectionist is an understatement - The New Yorker just profiled him, and when writer John Colapinto went to visit the designer at Bottega Veneta's Milan headquarters, one of the PRs inspected Colapinto beforehand, picking off a "microscopic" piece of lint and commenting: "Oh, God. If that's there, he won't be able to think of anything else." In fact, Maier, who is now 53, dropped the "h" from his first name in his thirties, for symmetry's sake.

Maier refuses to live in Milan, "a city whose many design flaws he finds too frustrating to bear," Colapinto writes, so he spends a lot of time in airports between his home in Florida and the Bottega office in Milan. "I just sit there [at the airport] and look at people and I see what's the malfunction and how can we help that man," Maier says. "I pity him! That he makes his life so miserable - himself! - by carrying some ill-functioning bag that rips his jacket half off and gives him a bad shoulder ache at the end of the day. And it makes him look an idiot on top of everything."

Under Maier's guidance, Bottega - which was "weeks from bankruptcy" when he started, he says - has seen sales increase 800 percent in the past nine years. And part of that can be attributed to the Cabat bag Maier created - one of the label's top-selling items - which features no logos, no hardware, and no adornments, but carries a six-thousand dollar price tag. It's something of an anti-It It Bag.

"The It Bag is a totally marketed bullshit crap," Maier says. "You make a bag, you put all the components in it that you think could work, you send it out to a couple of celebrities, you get the paparazzi to shoot just when they walk out of their house. You sell that to the cheap tabloids, and you say in a magazine that there's a waiting list. And you run an ad campaign at the same time. I don't believe that's how you make something that's lasting - that becomes iconic as a design."

Maier sends the Cabat down the runway every year, unchanged, except for a difference in color or leather treatment. Only about 500 are made each season, which invariably sell out, and although Bergdorf Goodman and other luxury retailers have pleaded with Maier, he refuses to sell the Cabat bag anywhere but at Bottega Veneta stores.

When he first joined Bottega, Maier notified his bosses at Gucci Group (which owns the label), that in his first year designing for the brand, he would give no interviews and run no advertising. He also didn't want his name attached. "At that time in the nineties, lots of companies were called Tom Ford for Yves Saint Laurent Rive Gauche, Dior by John Galliano - you know, everything had an endless name," he explains. He hates the idea of designer cult of personality - of Karl Lagerfeld, for instance, he says: "Who cares how thin he is? Hasn't he reached a point in life where he can relax."

He's also anti-materialism: "I'm not somebody who likes to possess. I'm not the person who has six hundred suits. I want to have two suits. Actually, I want to have one suit, and I replace it." He applies that feeling to how people should shop, insisting that Bottega's goods are not beyond the reach of the middle class, which has been trained to want too many things. "Anyone, he said, could afford one $550 hand-painted cashmere scarf," Colapinto writes. "'Just have less,'" he said."

Bottega Veneta's Livestream Is Exclusive and Invitation-Only

fashionologie — Thu, 23 Sep 2010 13:36:49 PDT

>> Bottega Veneta is offering a livestream of its show for the first time on Saturday, Sept. 25 at 9:30 am EST, but they're not taking the democratic approach that usually goes along with such a move. Instead, the livestream is invitation-only and offered specifically to top costumers or invited guests unable to travel to Milan. Post-show, those viewers will receive a digital lookbook and be able to reserve the Spring 2011 merchandise immediately after on the brand's website. “Our goal is to put this technology to the service of our customers,” explains creative director Tomas Maier on the press release. “We would like to share the excitement and beauty of the live runway show with them, and to do so within the privacy and calm of the Bottega Veneta environment.”

PPR Update: Tomas Maier Recycling Unused Material for Bottega Shoes, YSL Reporting $24M Loss, and Pinault "Impressed" With Son

fashionologie — Wed, 02 Sep 2009 13:52:03 PDT

>> Even designers are shopping the closet when it comes to piecing together their latest collection. Fortune's Peter Gumbel writes in his new profile on Francois-Henri Pinault of PPR: "All the brands have been scouring for ways to save cash. Hiring and salaries have been frozen since last September. Bonuses for this year have been halved too. Inventiveness has become the order of the day."

Robert Polet, CEO of PPR's Gucci Group, illustrates with a story of how he found Tomas Maier on the floor of Bottega Veneta's headquarters in New York City with his shoe manager last November, going through a pile of books filled with leather and skin samples. Fortune relates: "They were checking how much of each material they had in stock, planning to use it up in the next collections. 'I left the room and thought, Wow,' Polet says. 'Finding ways to manage down inventory has almost become a sport.'"

So how does Pinault feel about YSL's losses? »

Good on Tomas Maier: Bottega Veneta Is Currently PPR's Only Brand Seeing a Rise in Sales

fashionologie — Fri, 31 Jul 2009 15:09:34 PDT

>> Just a few days after LVMH reported a decline, causing all marketing to be cut save for its top-performing brands, PPR reported a 76 percent decline in first-half profits. Tomas Maier can breathe a sigh of relief: the company's only area of growth was Bottega Veneta, on which PPR has been focusing, which saw an 8.6 percent rise in sales in the second quarter.

At flagship brand Gucci, which accounts for the bulk of Gucci Group's profits, Frida Giannini was credited by PPR chairman Francois-Henri Pinault for bolstering PPR as a whole with sustained demand for her bags in China.

As for any incoming Gucci Group brands . . . »

fashionologie — Wed, 18 Mar 2009 16:36:34 PDT

>> INSIDER WIRE -It's rumored that Harvey Weinstein helps get his wife Georgina Chapman's Marchesa creations on the red carpet, but another Francois-Henri Pinault definitely helps his wife Salma Hayek out with red carpet fare. For this year's Golden Globes, she says, "Francois was my stylist. It was Christmas and I was just overwhelmed with so many things to do. He said, 'Let me help you. How can I help?' And I said, 'Well, I have to pick a dress for the Golden Globes.' So Bottega Veneta sent swatches and sketches, and François worked with the designer Tomas Maier, and he took care of everything." [The Dish Rag]

*image: source

Maier Works the Grace Kelly Angle for Bottega Veneta Fall 2009

fashionologie — Sat, 28 Feb 2009 19:12:32 PST

>> Tomas Maier is ever working the understated, the investment dress angle at Bottega Veneta - and the Grace Kelly twist he took for Fall 2009 seems so right. The gauzy goddess gowns with rectangle-shaped tiers in the skirt were full-on glamour of the best kind; sure to be snapped up for a red-carpet appearance here, an editorial there. But even the simple chocolate nappa leather or mauve velvet strapless dresses resounded - warm tones in a season full of cold blacks and grays. Resisting full-on ladylike, Maier slipped in "sly fetishistic" underwires and seams cupping the breasts into his dresses, and first-hand viewers called the collection "breathtaking" and "dreamy." The only lack of beauty shown? Apparently the pit photographers screamed at the models in Italian, and the "front row was appalled."
*image: source

View Slideshow ›

Milan Fashion Week: Bottega Veneta Spring 2009

coutorture — Wed, 24 Sep 2008 09:00:50 PDT

Milan Fashion Week Bottega Veneta Spring 2009 Images by Chris Moore

View Slideshow ›

Roman Holiday for Tomas Maier

coutorture — Wed, 24 Sep 2008 07:58:01 PDT

Bottega Veneta has become something of an obsessive secret for the most discrete members of the luxury class thanks to Tomas Maier's design restraint. Except of course that secret has helped sales soar as a heretofore ignored class of fashion consumer, those who askew flash and logo, flocked to the label.

This may seem a strange comparison but Bottega Veneta is American Apparel for the rich. It is basic, understated, comfortable, and constantly updated for the times without sacrificing its inherent classicism. And whether you are hipster or socialite, artist or corporate titan, one needs beautiful basic Platonic ideal of clothing fashion. Add to that fact that Maier is from a class of designer's designers for whom less is more, a well placed dart here, a tricky seam there, and you have a brand that is enjoying a new golden age. Perhaps this subliminally inspired Meier's Spring 2009 collection as the tawny, coppery and yes golden tones of the collection evoked a kind of rich Roman Holiday inspired pastoral life of simple beauty. Given that Rome has given us so much of our classical ideals of beauty we can only say well played.

On another note, do not forget that Rome is also home to some of our most perverse political machinations. That Machiavellian playbook is very much in effect at these Italian fashion houses now that Patrizio Di Marco, Boettga's former CEO is taking over Gucci from Mark Lee. We would like to know what internal Brutus sacrificed the extremely capable Lee. And we can only hope there is not a Brutus lurking for Meier. It would be a shame to lose this kind of genius for some political animals ambitions like we have lost Lee.

The 2010 Designer Collaboration H&M Is Teasing? Reportedly Lanvin

fashionologie — Wed, 01 Sep 2010 05:21:45 PDT

>> H&M has peppered their official YouTube channel with seven black and white video clips of designers types, their faces obscured, teasing the upcoming H&M designer collaboration so far - with more to come likely. Although some of the clips' speakers resemble Vivienne Westwood or Rick Owens, and others have elicited guesses like Carolina Herrera or Tomas Maier, when the appearances are ignored, the voiceovers, though altered, come across as Alber Elbaz-isms.

Case in point, one clip posted yesterday (below), in which the guest designer says, "Design is very important, because it actually brings dream to our life. I think it's really important today to be actually relevant, not cool, because once cool, then cold. So relevant, I find it quite important." Additionally, WWD reports that "according to market sources" H&M is expected to unveil a project with Lanvin and Alber Elbaz "within the next week" - just around the time when the videos are teasing their Sept. 9 reveal date.

The clip! »

Tomas Maier for H&M? Retailer Teases Upcoming Designer Collaborations

fashionologie — Mon, 30 Aug 2010 08:11:55 PDT

>> H&M has launched a guessing game for its upcoming designer collaborations. Yesterday, the retailer posted a video titled "Designer Collaboration 2010" of a male designer, his face obscured and speaking in accented English, on their official Facebook page. One commenter posted, "It's Tomas Maier I did a close up on his hands at a bottega veneta show and they are exactly the same...plus the shoes he is wearing in the commercial have the signiture bottega veneta woven leather." H&M responded to that commenter today with, "Good eye there!" and another video, this time an obscured female designer. Some have pinpointed her as Carolina Herrera. The retailer expects to announce the designers' names Sept. 9.

The teaser videos »