Italian craftsmanship meets luxury style in Bottega Veneta’s iconic woven leather technique, Intrecciato. This easily recognizable pattern was developed in 1975 by Michele Taddei and Renzo Zengiaro, the brand’s founders. With 2025 marking the 50th anniversary of Intrecciato’s introduction to the fashion industry, Bottega Veneta is launching the ‘Craft is our Language’ campaign. The brand’s campaign is set to memorialize the inventiveness and technical skill represented by Bottega Veneta’s pieces, with an emphasis on the influence of hand gestures as a universal form of communication.

‘Craft is our Language’ highlights Bottega Veneta artisans and maestros of fashion, film, literature, sports and music alike. Producers Jack Antonoff and Dave Free, designer Edward Buchanan, actress Julianne Moore, writer Zadie Smith and conductor Lorenzo Viotti are only a few of the marvels featured in this campaign. Utilizing both still images and short film segments, these individuals showcase the eloquence of hand movements, and their own brilliance within their chosen craft.

Edward Buchanan, former Bottega Veneta Design Director, and Lauren Hutton of ‘American Giolo’, who carried an Intrecciato clutch in the 1980 film, contribute to ‘Craft is our Language’ by speaking to Bottega Veneta and Intrecciato’s long-standing history. Buchanan had a hand in Bottega Veneta first Ready-to-Wear collection, and Hutton’s act of featuring the clutch in-film served to thrust this signature style into the cultural spotlight.

While reflecting upon the brand’s strong Italian roots, ‘Craft is our Language’ works to initiate conversations between the pairings of maker and wearer, hand and mind and artist and artisan, to survey the weight that gestures play in cross-cultural creation and communication.

As a whole, ‘Craft is our Language’ pays homage to Bruno Munari and his exemplary work in compiling Italian gestures, Supplemento al Dizionario Italiano (Supplement to the Italian dictionary). In a similar vein, there will be an upcoming book release involved in the campaign, as well as a second batch of image stills and short films, both set to be released in September of 2025. Comparable to Bruno Munari’s work, the ‘Craft is our Language’ book will act as a “dictionary” of the hand gesture language, Bottega Veneta’s brand values and the craft as a whole by featuring 50 gestures.