Bottega Veneta: Men – a collaboration between creative director Daniel Lee and photographer Tyrone Lebon – stars Neneh Cherry, George Rouy, Barry Keoghan, Dick Jewell, Michael Clark, and more
As the ongoing Covid-19 pandemic has halted plans for physical fashion shows, many brands have been exploring alternative ways of presenting new collections. The recent digital haute couture and men’s fashion weeks offered up myriad examples of this: Maison Margiela premiered a film by Nick Knight for its Artisanal collection; GmbH’s Spring 2021 collection was presented via a film and lookbook; and Prada staged ‘The Show That Never Happened’, a short film created in collaboration with Terence Nance, Joanna Piotrowska, Martine Syms, Juergen Teller, and Willy Vanderperre.
Bottega Veneta has also turned to the medium of film in lieu of a show or presentation with the launch of Bottega Veneta: Men, a collaboration between the brand’s creative director Daniel Lee and photographer Tyrone Lebon. The film is launching on curated streaming platform MUBI at midnight tonight, where it will be available to watch until August 6.
“Exploring identity, masculinity and our relationship with clothing, the film features a collective of multidisciplinary artists caught in the act of dressing,” explain the film’s accompanying notes. A roster of artists and creatives appear in Bottega Veneta: Men: Neneh Cherry, George Rouy, Barry Keoghan, Dick Jewell, Michael Clark, and more. “To show your weakness is also a strength,” Cherry can be heard saying in a short teaser for the film.
Lebon has been a frequent collaborator of Lee’s since the designer became Bottega Veneta’s creative director in 2018, having worked on a number of the brand’s glamorous, sun-drenched campaigns. Lee’s uniquely elegant take on Bottega Veneta’s house codes have won him ardent fans during his short tenure. “I think he’s succeeded in marrying the codes of Bottega with his particular twist,” AnOther’s senior fashion editor Agata Belcen said when we spoke to some of the brand’s admirers. “It’s relevant to a younger generation, a customer that can imagine themselves wearing it in their ideal lives – at work, on an island holiday, out dancing – it appeals to a sense of how they’d like to live.”
Bottega Veneta: Men is on MUBI from July 24 to August 6, 2020.