Chanel last week announced that Matthieu Blazy would be taking over from Virginie Viard as its new creative lead – meaning there are perhaps a limited number of Bottega Veneta placements to come from Rihanna. Her relationship with the brand has realised some of the most successful street-style looks in recent times: arriving at Giorgio Baldi draped in enormous stoles, hot-footing out of hotels in trompe-l’œil sock boots, brandishing Sardine bags on the streets of New York as if a priceless diamond.
Rihanna is, perhaps, the brand’s best living advertisement, rivalling A$AP for the élan with which he infuses Blazy’s designs. But given Rih’s taste in vintage – and the noticeable uptick in not-so-vintage-vintage – there might still be more to come. The musician was yesterday afternoon photographed in CVS (of all places) wearing look 39 from Bottega Veneta’s Pre-Fall 24 collection with leopard-print Fenty x Puma sneakers and a 22-year-old Louis Vuitton bag of Marc Jacobs’s making.
The Mini Lin Horizontal Alma was first launched in 2002, but it struggled to make as much noise as the maison’s iconic Stephen Sprouse collaboration for obvious reasons. Rihanna, an avid collector of rare Louis Vuittons – see: her football-shaped bag designed for the 1998 World Cup and her collection of limited-edition Takashi Murakami cases – was always going to zero in on an underrated classic. The billionaire businsesswoman already owns a substantial edit of Sprouse’s designs – which sell for thousands of pounds on the retail market – but this underdog retails at no more than £289. (If only CVS sold vintage bags.)
