When Kate Moss made a rare runway appearance in Bottega Veneta’s Spring/Summer 2023 collection presentation, she cemented the current mode of the fashion set; understated luxury, stealth wealth and timeless icons.
But, as it turns out, the calculated move for Kate Moss to helm the luxury maison’s SS23 collection and the subsequent campaign was by no means an accident, with Moss’ creative partnership with the label a life’s dream achieved for Matthieu Blazy.
It certainly takes a specific type of talent to coax one of the industry’s legendary supermodels back onto the runway — especially considering the rarity of Moss’ runway appearances and (as history has proven) her penchant for only exclusively working with close collaborators like Kim Jones — yet, it’s this ability that Blazy possesses in spades.
The key? Being the ultimate fanboy of Moss.
Now, Blazy has cemented his total adoration for the model and muse by creating a fanzine chronicling their creative partnership’s origin story.
Before Moss even knew who Blazy was, she was taped to his binder or bedroom wall, with Blazy meticulously spending hours curating an archive dedicated to her.
The fanzine has been published in tandem with Bottega Veneta’s Summer 23 book collection, which includes unseen photographs from the SS23 collection and Gaetano Pesce’s bespoke (and highly coveted) ‘ Come Stai?’ chair designs.
But ultimately, the fanzine is the most treasured from this trio of zines, fundamentally because it provides a childlike glimpse into Blazy’s creative world and sartorial odyssey from fashion fiend to designer.
Within the zine, we see scans from Balzy’s binder, which he titled The Kate Moss Book. Pages upon pages of collages, sketches, drawings and prose are dedicated to the model. It’s not obsessive, it’s a labor of love and a reflection of the power fashion possesses in unlocking the unimaginable in our everyday mundane routines.
“Kate Moss was my first Google search. She’s the first photo to be printed on the family printer,” Blazy reveals.
“Whenever I hear a modem, I think of Kate, because I mainly looked for her pictures as a teenager. It’s a sound I will forever relate to her.
“She became a personal icon. It was, for me, a very serious teenage activity that became an everyday term at home. If I was doing my ‘Kate Moss,’ it meant I was in the middle of collecting pictures. This hobby became a sort of education.
“This fanzine is a tribute to Kate and the pages of a binder that defined my coming of age. She was my first.”
