A sense of childhood wonder permeated Matthieu Blazy’s S/S 2025 collection for Bottega Veneta, shown this past September in Milan. ‘I was interested in the power of “wow”,’ he said at the time, presenting the show amid a menagerie of leather beanbag animals, which doubled as seats for the assembled guests. ‘[This collection] encompasses the joy of looking, discovering and dressing,’ he said of the eclectic collection, which featured tasselled leather headpieces, animal motifs and blown-up tailoring, like a child playing dress up. ‘[That] wonder you have as a kid when you try on your parent’s clothes; it’s almost primal.’
A similar mood infuses his latest collection, a Pre-Spring 2025 offering which was revealed by the designer earlier this month to coincide with its arrival in stores. There are oversized leopard-print ties and twisting snake earrings, shoes adorned with three-dimensional flowers and bold flushes of primary colour, while perhaps this year’s most unexpected accessory also features: a 62.5 x 52.5 cm edition of Richard Scarry’s seminal 1985 children’s book ‘Biggest Word Book Ever’, reimagined with a cover crafted from woven ‘intrecciato’ leather. Its appearance in the collection’s lookbook heralds a wider capsule collection inspired by Scarry’s work, arriving in selected stores and online today (25 November 2024).
Bottega Veneta Richard Scarry capsule collection
Befitting the playful mood of Scarry’s oeuvre, the special collection features a version of the house’s ‘Intrecciato Dust Bag’ in a colourful striped iteration, a red belt with apple-shaped metal clasp, a striped leather bag charm, and a series of striped wallets and cardholders. An apple-shaped coin pouch, crafted from ‘intrecciato’ leather, also features. Meanwhile the book itself, which is based on a 2013 edition of the ‘Biggest Word Book Ever’, features reprints of the original pages within the special cover, as well as a parallel ‘sketchbook’ edition with pages for drawing or writing. Of the cover itself, Blazy says it features ‘the best outfit in the world’ – namely the Tyrolean hat, bowtie and blue and green ‘body tube’ worn by the character of the ‘Lowly Worm’.
Scarry, who has sold over 100 million books, was born in Boston, Massachusetts in 1919. Studying at the Art School of the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston in the late 1930s, before being drafted to World War II – where he used his drawing skills to disseminate news from Time magazine to troops via posters and flyers – he became a commercial artist in New York after returning home. Encouraged by an agent, his shift to children’s book illustration began in 1949 (‘Two Little Miners’ was his first published book, written by Margaret Wise Brown), though he would become best known for his ‘Best Ever’ series, set in ‘Busytown’ and of which ‘Biggest Word Book Ever’ was a part. He would die in 1994, aged 74, in Gstaad, Switzerland.
‘I’m not interested in creating a book that is read once and then placed on the shelf and forgotten,’ he once said. ‘I am very happy when people have worn out my books, or that they're held together by Scotch tape.’
The Bottega Veneta Richard Scarry capsule collection is available in selected international stores and at bottegaveneta.com.
