Bottega Veneta Turns a Living Room into a Runway

Architectural Digest | 02.05.2019

Architectural Digest | 02.15.18

For the brand’s NYFW show, fashion and living merge into one rich-hued feast for the eyes

At his New York Fashion Week show on Tuesday, Tomas Maier affirmed that artful living is a fashion unto itself. The Bottega Veneta creative director called on Tony award–winning set designer Scott Pask—who has conceived sets for the likes of Mean Girls and The Book of Mormon on Broadway—to create not just a runway, but a truly livable home.

So, in the middle of the American Stock Exchange Building in downtown Manhattan, a house was built. Pask might be new to the runway but is no stranger to setting an impressive stage (that much is clear from his enviable Instagram feed). “It becomes this brilliant house party onstage, and you feel that people that are really living in these clothes,” Pask says.

Models trotted around the interiors of a sumptuous model apartment filled with jewel-toned upholstered pieces (and even a real fireplace) set against a stark concrete backdrop. Pask even added some alluring high-design pieces into the mix, including teal velvet armchairs and a chenille sofa from Gio Ponti and bulbous, cranberry armchairs by Gianfranco Frattini.

“The idea was finding very special pieces to inhabit this world that’s austere and full of texture,” Pask says, adding, “When I say austere, it’s never a bad word—it’s embracing the materials and the textures in the space. It’s important that this feels like home and not a hotel lobby.”

This celebration of home is appropriately timed to Bottega’s newly opened Maison flagship on Madison Avenue, which boasts an “apartment” on its top floor showcasing the brand’s home and furniture collections. Like the set, the interiors are Italian-influenced, host handsomely upholstered pieces, and feel chic yet (importantly) inviting. Case in point: At the end of the runway show, the party had just begun. Guests were invited to enjoy the stage to peruse the art on display or just curl up in a chair. After all, there’s no place like home.