THE
QUIET
RADICAL
An insider’s heritage brand
is finding its fashion future as
Daniel Lee weaves his modern
magic into Bottega Veneta.
By Sarah Harris. Photographs
by Jamie Hawkesworth.
Styling by Joe McKennaW
ithin 10 minutes of our sitting down for lunch at a fancy
Mayfair restaurant, the maître d’ approaches our table
and offers Daniel Lee a black blazer. You see, his informal
(though box-fresh) plain white T-shirt is deemed
unsatisfactory, not meeting the dress code requirements and possibly
offending the club’s other diners.
It’s ironic that someone should be telling Lee, Bottega Veneta’s recently
installed creative director, how to dress. As of 1 July 2018, he has presided
over one of fashion’s loftiest luxury houses, where only the very best of
everything will do. The idea of presenting him with an ill-fitting, passed-
around jacket reminiscent of something out of a school lost property
box (the fancier the restaurant, the worse the blazers
always are) is quite laughable. Luckily, Lee has a sense
of humour. He politely declines and obediently puts his
overcoat back on, quietly scoffing in his Yorkshire lilt:
“This is why I live in east London.”
Rules are rules, but 33-year-old Lee is intent on
rewriting them. Take one of Bottega Veneta’s famed
intrecciato woven handbags, for example, a staple of the
brand since it was founded in 1966. His first move on
taking over from Tomas Maier, who had helmed the
house for 17 years, was to blow it up, supersizing the
technique to dramatic new proportions. That single
design spoke volumes about his Bottega Veneta: Lee
respects its heritage but has the guts to do things his
way. “With a little bit of thinking you can do so much
with the weave,” he says. “I liked the idea of enlarging
it because I like things that are bold and quite direct.
I like things that are straightforward.”
Perhaps this sense of practicality can be attributed to
his upbringing. Raised in Bradford, where his father
worked as a mechanic and his mother was a stay-at-home
mum (he is the eldest of three – his brother is a plumber
and his sister is an A&E nurse: “They do really different,
useful things,” he acknowledges), Lee was an academic
child. “I was a geek. Still am,” he says, smiling. He was
good at languages and considered a profession in the
law, but what he loved most, he recalls, was “making
things”. His creativity resulted in a place at Central Saint
Martins, then internships with Martin Margiela and at
Balenciaga under the direction of Nicolas Ghesquière.
His graduate collection earned him a job with Donna
Karan in New York, where he stayed for two years, before
being plucked by Céline, eventually working his way up
to Phoebe Philo’s ready-to-wear design director.
Céline – at the time lauded for its woman-friendly
pragmatism, and still with its jaunty accent aigu – was a formative
experience. Lee was there for six years, until Philo decided to leave.
“Up until that point, I hadn’t taken a break. I knew that Phoebe was
leaving, so it seemed a good time to reassess. I was tired; that was an
all-consuming moment at Céline.” But before he could take any time
out, Bottega Veneta swept in with a “dream opportunity”. When the
news was announced that he would replace Maier, Lee may have been
an unknown, but his Céline backstory spread like wildfire among fashion
editors, buyers and customers left bereft by Philo’s departure. In turn,
his debut for the autumn pre-collection in December last year was the
most eagerly awaited of recent seasons. > 212208
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