Inside Louis Trotter’s Big, Bold Bottega Veneta Debut

SUNDAY 9:11 PM SEPTEMBER 27, 2025 MILAN

As the number of female creative directors dwindles, Louise Trotter makes her Bottega Veneta debut. The collection—big, bold, and uniquely non-conforming, marks not a departure for the brand but a new kind of leaning in. Trotter makes leatherwear for a modern woman, one who can find her sensuality within oversized suits, obnoxiously large bags, and flat white booties that scream soft luxury. Just ask Dara, who called me after attending the show in Milan to talk feathers, fringe, and lesbian power dressing. —TAYLORE SCARABELLI

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TAYLORE SCARABELLI: Hi. How are you doing?

DARA: I’m good. Today was pretty chill.

SCARABELLI: That’s good. I’ve been running around all day and then tomorrow, Paris. I haven’t even had a chance to look at the show yet. I’m going to pull it up now. 

DARA: We love first reactions. I’m opening all of the invitations I never opened.

SCARABELLI: Didn’t Bottega send a bag?

DARA: Yeah, it’s like this flat piece of leather that accordions into a net grocery bag, which is pretty fab.

SCARABELLI: A keeper. 

DARA: Definitely. 

SCARABELLI: So how was the show?

DARA: The show was very power lesbian, like that episode of Sex and the City where Charlotte meets the power lesbians and becomes entranced by them.

SCARABELLI: I see it. This leather dress, look number two—it’s strong but playing with odd proportions. 

DARA: Yeah, she’s definitely doing the thing where it’s not about sensuality and beauty in some old glamour way. It’s like, “Let’s give baggy, let’s give loose, let’s give falling off the body.”

SCARABELLI: But it’s all still very BAM.

DARA: Yeah, the shoulders are big and the proportions are sort of exploded. It’s very texture-y all that woven leather, there’s a lot of feather and fringe and knit and these crazy fiber optic jackets.

SCARABELLI: Whoa.

DARA: They don’t look real. They kind of remind me of those plastic feather dusters you get at the nasty general store.

SCARABELLI: It’s a lot of outerwear for spring.

DARA: I know, it’s quite layered and heavy for spring, which I feel like has been a common theme through a lot of the collections this season. As a summer diva, I don’t really understand, but work to the blazer divas because they are definitely, definitely valid and real. It’s the West Village girly security blanket.

SCARABELLI: Okay, there’s a lot of wild shit going on with the handbags. This reimagined Bottega Intrecciato—

DARA: We tried to figure out how to pronounce that and no one could really help us.

SCARABELLI: I’m just a girl from Canada, I don’t know how to say it. [Laughs] But this fringe variation is interesting.

DARA: Yeah, there are a lot of crazy, hairy, fringy bags, and they’re all huge. 

SCARABELLI: Wait, speaking of power lesbians, I have to say that Louisa Jacobson really came into her look.

DARA: Yeah, she was wearing a new Bottega suit last night and it looked really hot and sexy and cool. 

SCARABELLI: She’s definitely the new Bottega woman. Oh my god, now I see what you mean by the feather duster.

DARA: Yeah, it’s cuckoo. And there was a fun evening proposition—one of the girls had an ostrich feather earring. Look 72. 

SCARABELLI: I’m all the way up in the forties still.

DARA: That’s okay. I’m speeding through. You can’t really see it in the photo, but when she walks by, it looks like she has this crazy ponytail.

SCARABELLI: Yeah, that’s chic. With this big poof skirt and the white-on-white, the crème.

DARA: And all the sock shoes, they look like ankle socks or something.

SCARABELLI: I will say, bags are Bottega’s bread and butter and the clothes really come off as an extension of that. Trotter is flexing like, “Look at what we can do with these materials.” Like look number 63 with this deconstructed leather skirt.

DARA: Yeah, the torn-up leather is cool. I’m curious to see if the Bottega girl of now will continue on with the brand. Julianne Moore is still here and she’s still buying, so I’m curious if the rest of the divas who love Bottega will still be on it.

SCARABELLI: It doesn’t feel like too drastic of a departure but it’s definitely for an artsy woman. I guess a trend we that could pull from Milan this season is that brands are really playing with proportions that are an extension of the body versus just silhouetting it.

DARA: I think that is reflected especially in Look 4 and that leather dress you were talking about in the beginning. Look 4 is made of nylon. There’s a bunch of things that look like they’re falling off like that and it did remind me of that conversation that Prada is having with things that are not necessarily about hugging to the body proportionally. It feels like the right move because it’s been like, “Corset, pump, push it up” for a long time and I think everybody’s a little sick of that. I think we’re seeing people figure out how to flatter the body in different ways. Even Versace isn’t snatched. 

SCARABELLI: Yeah. It’s all a little bit ’80s. Now that Ozempic “democratized” skinny perhaps it’s no longer as enticing.

DARA: Maybe now people are like, “I can wear a blob and it’s okay.”

SCARABELLI: Because they’re skinny enough to get away with it… Alright, Dara. I’m going to let you go to bed and I’m going to go get some dinner before I have a meltdown.

DARA: Gorgeous. Good night and—

SCARABELLI: I’ll see you in Paris.