Lara Menezes • Bottega Veneta Winter 2023

“How can it be that this city [Milan], which has exported its design all over the world, has kept so silent about its exuberant and profuse entryways?” It’s a question Karl Koblitz poses in the introduction to Entryways of Milan and proceeds to explore in detail through 144 of the finest Milanese entry halls from 1920 to 1970. That Taschen devotes one of its sumptuous coffee table tomes to the matter suggests the topic has legs, echoes of which reverberate through Matthieu Blazy’s Bottega Veneta Winter 2023 advertising campaign. Since his late 2021 creative director appointment for the Italian luxury fashion house, Italy has figured centrally in his collections and is especially evident in the advertising.

The latest campaign set in Milan by photographers Louise Thornfeldt and Maria Thornfeldt and stylist Alastair McKimm features a cast of 18 models including Lara Menezes. Models are pictured in motion passing through entry ways, halls, courtyards, all evoking the very spirit that animates Milan. The importance of these spaces and the chance encounters they inevitably produce cannot be overstated, not least for serving up the Brazilian beauty fresh off the lift wearing the very look (10) she wore on the runway back in February. That Lara brings her look full circle into the campaign is no surprise and, like Milan’s exuberant entryways, nothing about which this page will keep silent.

Credits include: Photography, Louise Thornfeldt and Maria Thornfeldt; Styling, Alastair McKimm; Hair, Duffy; Makeup, Hiromi Ueda; Casting, Anita Bitton at Establishment New York.