Remaking traditional men’s wear items like the jacket, the smoking, and the sweater is in for Fall-Winter 2011/2012, Bottega Veneta. 

Old World feels, subtle patterns woven into the fabrics are obscured, indistinct, woven dark-on-dark and then overprinted creating an effect of visual texture than visible pattern. Other materials include washed and aged leathers, densely felted woolens, and soft knits that range from fine jersey shirts to chunky pullovers with irregularly placed stitch patterns. Knits are central to the collection, often used to subtly revise familiar conventions. There are tailored jackets with knit pieces, shirts that are part leather and part knit, and cardigans pulled over blazers. In a collection characterized by clarity and restraint, the most noteworthy accessories offer versatility, utility, and low-key sophistication. Bags are soft, lightweight, and above all, functional. Shoes are classic in inspiration but remade in a way that blurs the boundaries between formal and informal. There is an ankle boot and a lace-up, both easily worn with jeans or a suit.

The palette for fall is somber and moody, grounded in dark shades of espresso brown, tourmaline blue, stone, rust, and pyrite gray. Technicolor bright heightens the industrial effect—there is vivid sapphire, peridot, orange resina, and a fiery red called corniola. The silhouette is narrow and close to the body, with a natural shoulder and skinny, tapered pants. Jackets are lean and uninflected, some as lightweight and unlined as a shirt, others sharply tailored but without shoulder pads. A slim trench coat reinforces the efficient line of a narrow suit. Shirts are dark, narrow, with classic patterns cut up and reconfigured. A smoking, distilled to its essential parts, emerges in a form that can be stashed in a suitcase.

 

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