Bottega Veneta and Diesel showcase high-flying technique in Milan

Saturday was the fifth day of Milan Fashion Week, with the Spring/Summer 2025 collections proving highly seductive. Two houses in particular stood out, displaying their incredible expertise: Bottega Veneta and Diesel, each in their own segment, competing with each other in talent and inventiveness with original and desirable proposals that celebrate Made in Italy.

Once again, Diesel pulled out all the stops by inviting its guests into a vast hangar filled with scraps of blue fabric that covered the seats and even the imposing columns that stood in the centre of the space. In total, 14,800 kilos of textile scraps destined for disposal will be recovered after the show and reused in the industry, according to the flagship brand of the Italian fashion group OTB. With their zombie eyes, the models walked through this immense blue field as if they had landed on a new planet.

Torn and worn to the bone, their garments looked like rags, but they had never been so sophisticated, the result of endless experimentation and complex treatments. For example, the brand used its own fabric scraps to make recycled cotton thread for some garments. Another example is a teddy-effect coat, made entirely by hand from leftover spools of denim thread in shades of blue, green and yellow.

Now that he has left Y/Project, the Parisian label he led for ten years, Glenn Martens has plenty of time to focus on the Italian denim house, where he has been creative director since late 2020. And he is doing a brilliant job, raising the bar for the brand even further with a stunning collection, where the boundaries between denim and denim effect are almost invisible.

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The Belgian designer continues to experiment. He is increasingly focusing on the concept of the garment, with impressive work on textures. For example, the denim minishorts, being finely fitted, are extended into fine fringes, transforming into a skirt. The same technique has been used to create lace fringes that are embedded here and there in the garments.

It was also used on leather pieces or Princes de Galles printed on PVC, where it gives rise to surprising hybrid designs. Jackets, dresses and coats extend sideways or upwards in a myriad of straps, which wrap like snakes around the neck or body.

Leather was also used to make crisp 'faux denim' blazers, while real denim was used to make pretty babydolls and spaghetti-strap summer dresses. Nylon bodysuits, tights and tank tops gave the effect of spun stockings, while the Prince of Wales wore it in a bodysuit and a tight jersey dress, or in a completely tattered suit.

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Bottega Veneta, the Italian brand from the Kering group, closed the day with a very seductive and playful collection. The idea was to return to the world of childhood, as suggested by the layout of the showroom, with its row of poufs in the shape of friendly animals. Rabbits, bears, penguins, squirrels, ladybirds, foxes, mice and bears made up a dream zoo for the little ones. These poufs, inspired by the famous Sacco model by the Milanese design firm Zanotta, are already on sale.

Creative Director Matthieu Blazy was inspired by the scene in Steven Spielberg's film E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial, where the mother enters the children's bedroom, opens the wardrobe and discovers a world of stuffed animals. He draws on this playful, imaginary world of childhood to create a wardrobe full of new ideas and fun details, seen through the eyes of the children and their parents, who at one point are seen wearing a series of wrinkled and frayed garments, including a corkscrew-shaped tie!

Suits, tailoring, dresses, everything is extremely comfortable for everyday life. But it is a new everyday life, transformed into a wonderful adventure where everything is possible. The father takes his daughter to school in a grey suit and a large pink and mauve backpack on his back. The mother goes shopping in the supermarket, holding a bouquet of crocheted flowers wrapped in a kraft paper-effect leather sheet while the classic plastic bag is made of leather and nylon. Another young entrepreneur goes to his music class with a red candy bag (made of leather) and his violin slung on his back in its luxurious braided leather case, using the house's famous intrecciato technique.

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Matthieu Blazy works on proportions, giving them emphasis, as if children were having fun wearing their parents' clothes. The mannequins seemed to float in their suits, with wide, square shoulders, oversized jackets that sometimes reached the knees and very wide sleeves. The finely striped shirts, stiff and slightly fitted at the waist, were transformed into short coats, as were the plaid shirts.

The designer reinvented the culotte, with a trouser leg on one side and a straight skirt on the other, all blending together naturally. White jumpers, meanwhile, featured an exaggeratedly open neckline, reminiscent of the shape of old knitwear. Here and there, dresses were haphazardly pinched or held together with frog-shaped brooches, as if a little girl were having fun trying on her mother's looks.

This childlike world runs through the collection with joy and lightness, through a multitude of more or less visible details. For example, metal bunny ears protrude from belt buckles. Silhouettes of stuffed animals can be seen on the lapels of extra-wide collars, like this bunny wearing a white leather raincoat. A stack of matches is ready to be lit on a black knitted cardigan. A cascade of leather strips curls over the head like a headdress or wig, or the mask of an imaginary monster or horseman. The knitted outfits, poorly buttoned, seem to be stained with paint in the middle. A truly 'Wow!' collection, as the title sums it up.