Back in January, Bottega Veneta deleted their ENTIRE social media without explanation. Two months later they have come back onto the digital scene with a quarterly online magazine.
Titled ‘Issue by Bottega’, the digital journal includes 107 pages that users can flip through and features the work of a variety of artists and creatives including Missy Elliot, Biba founder Barbara Hulanicki and photographer Tyler Mitchel. The zine is made up of bright, colourful and trippy photos and videos, from a clip of British parkour collective STORROR to their most recent catwalk show. The question is, does it work as a strategy?
Speaking to the Guardian, creative director Daniel Lee said that he hopes the magazine would be “more progressive and more thoughtful” than scrolling through Instagram. However, not everyone is keen on the idea. Fashion critic Louis Pisano took to Instagram to grill Daniel Lee, calling the idea “pretentious”. Is he right? If anything, Bottega’s absence of social media seems less about being creative and more about being in the limelight.
So what is Bottega Veneta’s zine trying to achieve? Daniel Lee wants to replace the era of scrolling with something different. There’s no denying that their digital journal looks beautiful, it is effortless to click through and there’s a strong variation of content. But what does this change? In this case, you’re swiping to the side, bar that, we can’t see anything that indicates it will move the needle on how fashion brands operate online. If it looks like a stunt and it acts like a stunt, well it probably is a stunt.
You can check out ‘Issue’ by Bottega Veneta here.
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