Gaetano Pesce’s colourful set for Bottega Veneta

Created by the Italian architect Gaetano Pesce the colourful set of Matthieu Blazy’s SS/23 Bottega Veneta show this past weekend in Milan comprised of a poured resin floor and 400 unique chairs.

Bottega Veneta’s Spring Summer 2023 show took place in a vast concrete space that saw Pesce’s colour-pooled, resin-poured floor flow between the walls of the warehouse-style space.

Commissioned by Bottega Veneta creative director Matthieu Blazy the, vivid saturated palette for which 82-year-old Pesce is known saw a bold expression of 400 individually designed chairs and was defined by a feeling of play.

The chairs, adorned with hand-drawn smiley faces, cartooned bottles of drink, half-full glasses and handbags had a more were characterised simply by a blocky squared base and a tapering backrest.

Each chair was constructed using a cotton canvas, informed by fashion’s use of traditional toile fabrics, which was then dipped in coloured resins and, in some cases, customised with hand drawings and text.

Relatively simple in shape, they mark the first original chair in some years from the designer, and are crafted from cotton canvas which is then dipped in resin. Titled ‘Come Stai?’, they will go on to be exhibited at Design Miami later this year, where they will also be available for purchase.

Guests sat on colourful, moulded resin chairs adorned with graffiti and BV emblems, while the catwalk had a ‘yellow brick road’ feel, doused in Technicolour Dreamcoat hues.

Gaetano Pesce, architect, designer and humanist artist, is an influential figure in every field he is involved with. He is a versatile figure and always comes up with designs outside the box. Despite being in the industry for more than seven decades He continued his creativity and refused to be limited in the framework. His numerous private and public worldwide works testify that he is an experimental artist who refuses to let the monotony be part of his work. whether in the field of architecture urban planning interior design industrial design and exhibition design

‘As a designer, I make originals, not standardised series, that’s the old way – this is the new way,’ Pesce said. ‘And this is a fashion company that did a fantastic job in helping me realise such a project. It is a message that is super political – and it is not a museum or a gallery that is helping me convey it. Who makes culture today? The museum or the fashion company? It is food for the brain – not for pay. If we see the same thing each day, then we die.’