Debanistha Khan- Primary Member- IMB 5
For anyone aspiring to master the luxury industry specificities, the course Luxury Companies in Global Landscape provided by and at Universita Bocconi, is nothing short of an elixir and the industry visits have been literal Xanadus for all of us who have been enrolled for the course. During the period of this course, we got to attend and participate in enriching discussions with C-suite personalities and guest speakers from brands as big as Ferrari, Gucci, Bottega Veneta, Bain and Company and the list goes on. These guest lectures, the course content and our industry visits taught us so much about luxury brand building, managing brand equity and finance, facilitating customer journey, inventory optimisation and store merchandising.
One such noteworthy experience was our visit to the Bottega Venetta atelier located in Montebello Vicentino. While the brand needs no introduction because of its ever renowned “Intrecciato” craftsmanship, unbeatable brand heritage and it’s principles of no initial and quiet luxury to celebrate individualism, there’s so much more to Bottega Veneta that the visit unfolded to us. Set up on a heritage ground, the Bottega Venetta atelier stands proud by the restoration of the timeless Villa Schroeder-Da Porto, representing a perfect combination of vintage and Uber luxury. We witnessed the thorough 7 step quality control process of each art piece that comes out from the atelier. Their quality control method is bifurcated into physical and chemical endurance tests and these ensure that each Bottega Veneta piece is ready to withstand the test of time, weathering impacts of extreme humidity and UV rays, falls and scratches. We explored their art labs and interacted with the artisans who taught us their iconic Intrecciato braiding techniques and were kind enough to let us try it ourselves! No wonder that it can take up as long as 40 days to finish one piece as each one of them is handcrafted with lots of passion, skill and devotion. And after a hearty conversation with their branding team and a tour of the whole atelier, we were allowed to walk around their most exclusive and usually inaccessible Archive section. The Archive section housed a huge collection of Bottega Venetta pieces, a few of which even dated back to 1970s.
Awestruck and enlightened at the same time, we learnt so much about their different collections from different eras, what worked for the brand and what didn’t, resale value, time value and repurchase rationale of such vintage pieces from secondary markets to preserve the timelessness of these pieces. And this priceless experience came to an end with a light and enriching discussion with the Bottega Venetta team over tea and refreshments. This experience truly summed up what the brand stands for - “ Luxury in Motion” , a vintage and timeless collection with a seasoning of modernity and relevance
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