EXCLUSIVE: Bottega Veneta Creates New Role – And This Is the Woman Cut for the Job
Meet Barbara Zanin, Bottega Veneta’s veteran who the company appointed to its newly created role of director of Craft and Heritage.
By SANDRA SALIBIAN
JULY 19, 2024, 12:00AM
MILAN — Bottega Veneta is upping its commitment to craft with the introduction of a new institutional role and the promotion of one of its veterans to the job.
The Kering-owned brand has appointed Barbara Zanin to the newly created role of director of Craft and Heritage. As a result, Zanin will work closely with creative director Matthieu Blazy and chief executive officer Leo Rongone on the preservation and promotion of Bottega Veneta’s artisanal craft; oversee all artisans at the company’s Montebello atelier in Italy’s Veneto region; continue to build the brand’s archives, and serve as an ambassador of the label’s leather craftsmanship.
The company zeroed in on Zanin for her longtime expertise in the field. Zanin joined Bottega Veneta in 1998 as an assistant researcher in leather products and then served as head of leather goods product development for the last 23 years, based at the Montebello atelier.
In addition to playing a pivotal role in shaping the brand’s leather product development, Zanin was instrumental in the company’s artisanal training programs, as she is one of the founders of Bottega Veneta’s artisanal training school Accademia Labor et Ingenium. As reported, the academy — whose name is translated from “craft and creativity” in Latin — opened last year to transmit the brand’s leather-working savoir-faire through workshops and courses for students, new hires and employees.
“Craft is Bottega Veneta’s timeless technology and there are few people who understand the history, depth and intricacy of our craft like Barbara Zanin,” said Blazy. “Since my appointment as creative director, Barbara has been a key figure in transmitting the artisanal savoir-faire that is the beating heart of the house. She is the perfect person to take on this role and to protect and promote Bottega Veneta craftsmanship in our Montebello atelier and around the world.”
“With her long-standing commitment to the house and her profound understanding of our heritage, Barbara Zanin is ideally placed to serve as a global ambassador for our unique artisanal know-how that has been passed down from one generation to the next,” echoed Rongone.
“Artisanal craft is the founding passion of Bottega Veneta. It is what first drew me to the house 26 years ago,” said Zanin. “Over the decades, I have seen firsthand the steadfastness of that passion. It distinguishes our product, unites our community and inspires infinite evolution and creativity.”
Zanin expressed her commitment to honor and further advance such a rich artisanal culture, which has been energized by Blazy’s design vision steeped in innovation and intensive craft.
Since being promoted to the creative helm of the brand in 2021 after the sudden departure of Daniel Lee, Blazy has put the company’s artisanal prowess into the foreground. He has done so in different ways, ranging from famously playing with what he dubbed “perverse banality” and executing very ordinary-looking basics — such as blue jeans, plaid shirts and gray sweat tops — in supple nubuck, for example, to stretching Bottega Veneta’s signature Intrecciato weaving technique into new realms. For instance, for the spring 2024 collection he asked artisans to reprise basket-weaving techniques employing strips of leather dyed and treated to faithfully approximate the look and feel of banana leaves, shedding new light on the leather technique the Italian house established in 1966 is best known for.
