The Italian house releases a fanzine devoted to the supermodel, with scans of creative director Matthieu Blazy’s ring binder from his teenage years
Last season, there was one runway look that stuck out against the usual backdrop of high-octane fashion. At Bottega Veneta’s Spring/Summer 2023 show, Kate Moss strolled down the runway, hand in pocket, wearing a white tank top, an undone plaid shirt and jeans, with lightly mussed up hair and a no-make-up make-up look. The look went viral online, with people praising Moss’s dressed-down air of cool. The casual checked shirt she wore, however, was actually made of leather (as were the boyfriend jeans) and is now retailing for £4,300, proving that looking ‘normal’ will cost you.
Matthieu Blazy – Bottega Veneta’s creative director since 2021 – created this particular runway look especially for Moss, loosely inspired by outfits she wore in the 90s (like her casual T-shirt and denim jean airport ensembles). Now, Blazy has gone a step further in his veneration; Bottega Veneta has released a fanzine dedicated to Moss – or more specifically, to Blazy’s teenage obsession with her. “Kate Moss was my first Google search,” he says. “Whenever I hear a modem, I think of Kate, because I mainly looked for her pictures as a teenager. It’s a sound I will forever relate to her.”
Previously, Bottega Veneta has released two zines chronicling designs by Gaetano Pesce (who created those gorgeous pastel resin runway chairs for the S/S23 show) alongside photographs of the S/S23 collection. The new and latest publication in the series, simply titled Summer 23 Fanzine, features scans of a teenage Blazy’s ring binder, full of drawings and cut-and-pasted images of Moss; there’s Vogue covers, Chanel runway images, Calvin Klein campaigns, paparazzi shots and much more. “She became a personal icon,” Blazy continues. “It was, for me, a very serious teenage activity that became an everyday term at home. If I was doing my “Kate Moss”, it meant I was in the middle of collecting pictures. This hobby became a sort of education. This fanzine is a tribute to Kate and the pages of a binder that defined my coming of age. She was my first.”