Following up his acclaimed Bottega Veneta debut last season, Matthieu Blazy went big on volume for SS23. Polo’s ballooned into mock-inflatable forms that, had it been windy enough, would’ve provided enough wingspan for you to flock east, while gargantuan side bags got a similar memo, their iconic Intreccio weaves the size of thick, glossy snakes. 

But what’s the story behind it? This character could be on the run, heading nowhere in particular donning their seemingly too big yet perfectly tailored garb, maybe returning home to a loved one, their whole life tucked away inside the flaps of glossy leather. Either way, their story, no matter how mundane or enthralling, is the bright and beating heart of the label’s SS23 collection.

The collection conjured a slew of characters and stories through Blazy’s artistry. The hum-drum and ultra-sophisticated, the dishevelled and well-coiffed, the boss, the party girl, the waiter, the cook, the supermodel, the artist, they’re all here. Some in thick leather trousers and coats, in bell-shaped skirts layered with billowing feathers, others in simple plaid button-downs and wide-legged denim. “From the perverse banality of the everyday nubuck looks, to the eroticism of ultra-sophistication through tailoring, via the look of the bourgeois left of the past, to the souvenirs worn by a high-brow traveller,” said Blazy, “The whole world in a small room.”

Skirts and sheer dresses bloomed with big petals and fringed sternums, the stirring and sensual result of purposeful craftsmanship. Slouchy longsleeves, the type Mean Girls’ Regina George would have a closet full of, were decorated with wild, jacquard patterns, also seen in shifty vests and column skirts. It’s the archetypal that has taken Blazy’s interest, and his subversion of that which forms the collection’s crux. It’s why furs were tinged with dark stripes and mock-shopper totes, and why dark shirt sleeves unfolded into sharp daggers. It’s also why his plunging halter necks fall so severely they reveal secondary, contrast straps. Blazy toes the line between pragmatism and sheen until the two are one and the same, finding perfection in the elevated everyday.