TOMAS MAIER EXITS BOTTEGA VENETA AS CREATIVE DIRECTOR AFTER 17 YEARS

Tomas Maier
by Stephen Garner Jun 14, 2018
Tomas Maier
Tomas Maier

Bottega Veneta has announced the departure of its creative director Tomas Maier, who joined the Italian house in 2001. Maier crafted its renaissance by drawing on the exceptional know-how of the house. Thanks to his creative vision, Bottega Veneta today embodies the quintessence of understated and sophisticated luxury.

“It’s largely due to Tomas’s high-level creative demands that Bottega Veneta became the house it is today,” said François-Henri Pinault, CEO of Kering, the parent company of Bottega Veneta. “He put it back on the luxury scene and made it an undisputed reference. With his creative vision, he magnificently showcased the expertise of the house’s artisans. I am deeply grateful to him and I personally thank him for the work he accomplished, and for the exceptional success he helped to achieve.”

Pinault’s sentiments are far from exaggeration. Bottega Veneta, founded in 1966, had struggled to keep up with the late-’90s fashion race, and after a short-lived revival at the hands of Katie Grand and Giles Deacon, the label was struggling. When Maier joined in 2001, he worked diligently on the brand’s signature accessories, waiting until 2005 to present a ready-to-wear collection. Once he did, his men’s and women’s shows became tentpoles of Milan Fashion Week for their cerebral, refined takes on contemporary trends. In February, the brand combined its men’s and women’s fall 2018 collections into a single show, presented in the former New York Stock Exchange at New York Fashion Week. The company’s largest flagship opened on Madison Avenue that month.

Beyond the house’s ready-to-wear and accessories, Maier was also instrumental in the opening of Scuola della Pelletteria Bottega Veneta, in Vicenza in 2006. The trade school specializes in Bottega Veneta’s signature intrecciato woven leather technique.

Outside of his commitments at Bottega Veneta, Maier maintains an eponymous brand of womenswear, menswear, and eyewear (which is partially owned by Kering) and is famed in the fashion community for his eye for architecture and interior design.