Bottega Nights Belong To Lovers

Two nights ago, Bottega Veneta decided to celebrate its 59-year history with cultural advocacy in lieu of clothes. The house staged a special addition to the Soundwalk Collective/Patti Smith world tour called CORRESPONDENCES. Founded by Stephen Crasneanscki, CORRESPONDENCES is a decade-long collaboration between Soundwalk Collective and the singer-songwriter-painter-poet Smith. Each sonic journey uncovers traces of poets, revolutionaries and impacts of climate change, connecting environment to artistic evolution.

The Palazzo San Fedele in Milan played host to this multidisciplinary concert of sound, image and film to present an S/S 25 experience that befits the spirit of the theater. The Palazzo was built in 1870 as a stage for actors, architecture and culture. It was renovated during the pandemic and although Matthieu Blazy presented his first runway show for Bottega Veneta there in 2022, the goal for Palazzo San Fedele is to promote its unique cultural and performance feeling.

Patti Smith reunified this fortress of collaborative culture craftmaking from a poem in tribute to Italian architect Carlo Mollino, who died in 1973. His last project, Turin’s Casa Mollino, reflects the sentiment behind Bottega Veneta's epithet, ‘When Your Own Initials Are Enough.’ Clad in a house intrecciato leather blouson, Smith performed seemingly inhabited by Casa Mollino spirits — an expressive fantasy world reconstituted by Bottega artisans, including Mollino’s own bed.

Smith ended the night with a call and response rendition of her classic ‘Because The Night,’ in dedication to her 45th wedding anniversary with late husband Fred Smith. Styles and aesthetics bounding back and forth at the Bottega Veneta soundscape this past season is an appropriate transition of creative directors. Daniel Lee’s travelling Salon series of multimedia moods giving way to Matthieu Blazy’s conceptual but normal shows sets up the Louise Trotter era with easy anticipation.