The location of my first meeting with Louise Trotter, the new creative director of Bottega Veneta, is confirmed just an hour before we’re due to meet. It feels fitting: Bottega Veneta has long been known for a kind of elegant restraint, and until very recently Trotter has been deliberately private about her debut collection, keeping even her process closely guarded.

The address finally arrives: Villa Clerici, an aristocratic mansion nestled in the Niguarda district of Milan, north of the city. Once you’re past the imposing gate, a hidden world unfolds—first an enormous Italian garden dotted with statues, then another large garden at the rear containing two amphitheaters. Villa Clerici’s interior rooms feature 18th-century frescoes, trompe l’oeil decorations, and coffered ceilings. It all feels opulent yet somehow restrained—sacred and slightly surreal at the same time.

I walk up the stairs in the quiet afternoon and find Trotter at the end of a long corridor, enfolded in a Raphael Raffel leather lounge sofa from the 1970s with custom Bottega Veneta leather, produced by Cassina. A wide window behind her overlooks the arched courtyard. “I realized we couldn’t not do the interview here,” Trotter says with a smile. She has a kind of whimsical mystery to her, mixed with an innate curiosity and intelligence. “In Paris, everything is grand and declared—in Milan, you have to find your own treasures.”

That notion seems to dovetail perfectly with the ethos of Bottega, which has always defied the noise of fashion. Founded in Vicenza as Bottega Veneta Artigiana in 1966 by Renzo Zengiaro and Michele Taddei, it has long built its identity on the idea that true luxury whispers. “My initial connection to the house was as a customer—I was collecting vintage Bottega Veneta,” says Trotter, who was struck by what seemed to be a radical ethos: “They were able to create a clear identity without any need for a logo, and I think that takes a certain confidence. You’re not making a statement to be seen—you’re showing who you are.”

The Latin phrase nomen omen—the name is a sign—rings true with her: She is, quite literally, a globe-trotter. Before Bottega, she brought a refined tailoring and minimalist aesthetic to England, America, and France, working variously at Gap, Calvin Klein, Tommy Hilfiger, and the London brands Jigsaw and Joseph. In 2018 she became the first woman to lead Lacoste, and in 2023 she took over Carven. Throughout her career, she’s been less a disrupter than a very creative and vibrant custodian—someone who honors legacy through quiet reinvention.

This patient philosophy feels especially resonant in the fast-shifting fashion scenario of our current moment, when disruption has become the norm. Unfortunately, though, it’s still rather rare to see a woman leading a house of Bottega Veneta’s scale and stature. “Of course I would like to see more female representation—not just in design, but from a business side too,” Trotter says, adding: “I want to believe that I’ve succeeded because of my work and because of who I am, and not just because I’m a woman.”

To start her creative process for Bottega, Trotter has been spending time in Montebello Vicentino, where the house’s archives and artisans are based. “What’s fascinating is seeing how pieces from decades ago still feel relevant—I look at something 50 years old, and I still completely desire it. But we are still very much in a getting-to-know-each-other phase,” she says with a chuckle. What she will share of her process involves a balance between learning from established systems and adding her own touch—“observing and stepping in,” as she puts it. She builds from the past, but is never beholden to it. “You have to know where a house comes from in order to move forward,” she says.