Who is Matthieu Blazy? Get to Know Bottega Veneta's New Creative Director
Prior to his work at Bottega Veneta, Matthieu Blazy has an impressive design history working with legends at Raf Simons, Maison Martin Magiela, Céline, and Calvin Klein.
Bottega Veneta appointed Matthieu Blazy as the Italian fashion house's new creative director on Monday, just days following Daniel Lee's abrupt departure. While seemingly sudden, Blazy's promotion is unsurprising, as the 37-year-old designer had been working as Lee's number two and right hand man since mid-2020.
Born in Paris in 1984, the designer graduated from La Cambre in Brussels. While studying at the university, Blazy briefly worked at Balenciaga as a womenswear intern for three months in 2005 under Nicolas Ghesquière. The following year, the designer spent four months working at John Galliano, who's namesake designer actually took over for Blazy at Maison Margiela later on.
Following his graduation in 2007, Blazy's fashion career began to flourish as he worked closely with Raf Simons as a Menswear Designer, where he also met his life partner, Pieter Mulier. Similar to his relationship with Lee at Bottega Veneta, Mulier worked as Simons' right hand man, following him to Dior in 2012.
Blazy was catapulted into the fashion spotlight in 2014 after being named as "the most famous designer you've never heard of." As a head designer at Maison Margiela, Blazy's collections received stand-out success, the most prominent one being the Artisanal Fall/Winter 2014 collection. His most recognizable work came when Kanye West famously appropriated the diamante-encrusted masks from Artisanal's Fall/Winter 2013 couture show for his Yeezus tour.
After his tenure at Maison Margiela, Blazy moved on to Céline under Phoebe Philo, who headhunted him herself. This was also where he first encountered his former Bottega Veneta colleague Lee. He then returned to work under Simons at Calvin Klein in 2016 as part of the 205W29NYC collections in America. Here, Blazy worked as VP of design for womenswear and menswear up until Simons' departure in 2019.
Kering tapped Blazy as design director for Bottega Veneta in June of 2020, where he worked as Lee's second for the past year and a half. Similar to Alessandro Michele at Gucci and Virginie Viard at Chanel, the French-Belgian designer is part of a group of designers hand-picked from second-in-command positions to lead their brands to a new spotlight era. That's not to say that Blazy will conpletely reinvent the Bottega Veneta brand, but his in-house promotion suggests a subtle shift in the fashion house's aesthetic that we're sure to see more of as his debut collection at Milan Fashion Week in February 2022 nears.
