Bottega Veneta has inaugurated its first store in the “Salon of Milan”, the historic Vittorio Emanuele II shopping centre, which links the Piazza del Duomo and La Scala Square. For the Kering label, this is its third store in the Lombardy capital, the other two being located in the Luxury Quadrilateral, on Via Montenapoleone and Via Sant’Andrea. It is the first Italian store to have been designed by creative director Matthieu Blazy.
The designer has developed a particularly luxurious new interior concept, which until now has only been available in the Paris flagship on Avenue Montaigne. The three distinctive elements of this new concept have been applied in Milan: dark walnut wood for the furniture and staircase, glass bricks for the walls and ceiling, and green Verde Saint Denis marble from the Aosta Valley for the floor. As in Paris, a never ending spiral staircase dominates the entrance and leads to the first floor, occupying a third of the space.
A modernist style blends with a warmer, more intimate feel, notably in the small lounges furnished with low wooden tables, large green plants planted in huge golden pots, as well as woollen rugs and green leather armchairs. “The boutique offers multiple spaces. I wanted to convey the idea of a domestic interior with references to Italian modernist architecture, which contrasts with the aesthetic of a spaceship. And to capture the intimacy and imagination of the act of dressing,” explains Matthieu Blazy in a press release.
The 240-square-metre shop, with its two large display windows, is arranged over two levels. The main focus is on accessories, with an expanded range of shoes for men and women and a whole range of leather bags woven using the traditional Intrecciato technique, a signature of the Italian fashion house. Accessories occupy four rooms, while ready-to-wear has to make do with three racks, each containing less than a dozen pieces for both men and women.
To celebrate its opening, the new Milan shop is offering around twenty exclusive bag models, as well as a preview of a pair of shoes from the spring-summer 2024 collection, which is due to arrive in shops in three weeks’ time.
Bottega Veneta was able to afford this prestigious showcase in the Galleria Vittorio Emanuele II thanks to Gucci, which gave up its place, moving a little further up to a larger space previously occupied by Massimo Dutti. With Saint Laurent just around the corner, the Kering luxury group now has three points of sale in this prestigious location, which is also very popular with tourists.
The company, which has set itself sales targets of €1.74 billion for 2022, has almost 280 points of sale worldwide. In December, it opened its first shop in Aspen, Colorado, as well as a third in Mumbai, India.
