What will be the future of Bottega Veneta after Daniel Lee? After a sudden divorce, the brand is looking for a new way forward

If we were to look up the definition of "twist of fate" in the dictionary, we would most likely find a screenshot of Vanessa Friedman's tweet in which she announced the separation between Daniel Lee and Bottega Veneta. The news of the British designer's farewell came like a bolt out of the blue, interrupting what on paper seemed to be a perfect marriage destined to last for years, immediately opening the doors to a thousand questions about the causes of the divorce and the future. According to WWD, at the base of the goodbye there would be tensions that arose within the work environment due mainly to the attitude of Lee and reached a point of no return during the organization of the show of the brand in Detroit. As written on Twitter by Christina Binkley, the choice by Kering to communicate the farewell of Daniel Lee on the day of the CFDA Awards, the Oscars of fashion in which the former Bottega had two nominations, would seem to be not accidental as evidence of the clear break between the two parties.

In the range of possibilities for a name that could take the lead, there is certainly that of Matthieu Blazy, design director who arrived at the court of Bottega in June last year after having held the same role at Calvin Klein during the Raf Simons era. Among the protégés of the Belgian designer, Blazy was also designer for Margiela until the arrival of Galliano in 2014 and would represent an ideal name fully inserted in the dynamics of Kering, used to "promote" a name already present within the brand as in the case of Gucci and Alessandro Michele. Decidedly more complex is the road that leads to Phoebe Philo, a suggestive hypothesis for many reasons but impracticable for many others: from the launch of her new brand announced in July to the close bond with the LVMH group that makes the idea of seeing the French designer at the helm of Bottega Veneta look like one of those summer soccer suggestions. Whatever the choice will be, the pages of fashion written by Daniel Lee will remain in the history not only of Bottega Veneta, but in the entire fashion system, undoubtedly representing the foundations on which his heir, whoever it may be, will have to build the future of the brand.