The house founded in Vicenza in 1966 enters the 2026 philatelic programme with its crest in dark green and the motto Labor et Ingenium, in the series devoted to Italian manufacturers
The Ministry of Enterprises and Made in Italy has selected Bottega Veneta for the series Le Eccellenze del Sistema Produttivo e del Made in Italy, within the 2026 philatelic programme. The issue was presented at Palazzo Piacentini, the ministry’s seat in Rome, with a dedicated envelope, a postcard and an official certificate. The stamp reproduces the house’s original crest in the dark green that is its signature colour, carrying the motto Labor et Ingenium, craft and creativity. The ministerial series places the companies it selects in the category of manufacturers.
Bottega Veneta and intrecciato, a construction method before a signature
The house was founded in 1966 in Vicenza by Michele Taddei and Renzo Zengiaro, out of a collective of Veneto artisans.
Intrecciato, which became the brand’s visual signature, is first a construction technique: thin strips of leather are threaded through slits cut into another piece of hide, forming a continuous weave. The operation makes the material stronger and more flexible at once, distributing tension across the whole surface instead of concentrating it on the seams. The result is a product recognisable by the way the leather is worked, with the identification carried by the weave and not by a plaque.
Montebello Vicentino, the eighteenth-century villa where the bags are made
In 2013 the main atelier moved from Vicenza to an eighteenth-century villa set in a park of some 55,000 square metres near Montebello Vicentino. The building concentrates sampling, product development and manufacturing on one site, and keeps the work inside the district the specialised workforce comes from.
Hand weaving runs at its own speed. An intrecciato bag goes through operations no machine performs, and the number of pieces that can be produced depends directly on the number of artisans able to make them. Training is, for this house, an industrial constraint.
Accademia Labor et Ingenium and the school opened in 2006 with Iuav
The house set up its own school in 2006, with the Università Iuav di Venezia: a three-month course for twelve selected students at a time, taught inside the company.
In October 2023 the Accademia Labor et Ingenium opened, taking the name of the motto now reproduced on the stamp. Courses are taught by the house’s master artisans and are open both to outside students and to employees.
The question it addresses crosses the whole Italian leather goods district: generational turnover. The manual skills that sustain luxury production sit with workers trained decades ago, and informal apprenticeship thinned out as supply chains were reorganised. An in-house school rebuilds that passage inside the company.
From Gucci to Kering, and Louise Trotter’s first year
Gucci acquired Bottega Veneta in February 2001 for 156 million dollars, and the house is now part of the Kering group. Creative direction passed from Tomas Maier, from 2001 to 2018, to Daniel Lee until 2021, then to Matthieu Blazy until 2024. Louise Trotter was named in December 2024 and leads the house through this sixtieth year.
