Daniel Lee, the designer behind Bottega Veneta’s (much-talked-about, very profitable) reinvention, is leaving his post as the brand’s creative director.
Bottega Veneta and Lee announced that they had reached “a joint decision to end their collaboration,” which began in July 2018, in a press release last week. This comes just weeks after the brand unveiled a new Salon 02 campaign photographed by Tyrone Lebon at Australia’s famed Bondi Beach and then presented its latest collection, Salon 03, in Detroit, Michigan.
In a media alert shared by Bottega Veneta, the fashion house’s CEO Leo Rongone thanked Lee “for his dedication to the House over the past three years,” in a statement: “He provided Bottega Veneta with a fresh perspective and a new sense of modernity, while remaining respectful of the brand’s fifty-year heritage. The remarkable growth of the brand over the last three years bears testimony to the success of his creative work.”
Now a new report in WWD by Luisa Zargani, Joelle Diderich, Miles Socha and Samantha Conti raises more questions about what might’ve led to the Daniel Lee/Bottega Veneta split. “At a moment when the company is healthy and the brand performing so well, there must have been personal reasons behind this decision, which is clearly a brave one given his successful streak,” an anonymous source said.
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