MILAN, Mar 26, 2003/ FWD/ --- If Italy is the world’s greatest luxury workshop, then Thomas Maier, creative director of Bottega Veneta, is the peninsula’s most brilliant commander of artisans.

Since joining BV back in 2000, Maier has consistently created products of beauty, creativity and novelty – and the fall-winter 2003 collection he’s been presenting this weekend in Milan this weekend is no exception.

"The major influence was drawn from armor. But it’s something I’ve been thinking about since last fall, so it’s nothing at all to do with war. It’s about articulation, design and facility," explains Maier, an Austrian gentleman who did stints as a design director at Sonia Rykiel and Hermes.

But Maier’s idea of armor is not a heavy protection but an elegant and organic articulation that caresses ankles and calves, and is highlighted by exterior seams and piping made of the house’s signature braided cossiale leather straps.

With half of Milan obsessed with medieval imagery, BV’s shoulder bags with movable straps, raccoon coats with multi-joint sleeves and multi-layered "armor-like" shoes seemed perfectly timely.

Every item has its own BV touch, whether it’s shoes with soles carefully beveled to make them look as if they float, or novel loafers with "door-hinge" details.

Novelty is apparent in practically every item, from bags made of woven leather and feathers to slingbacks with faux nuggets, or patent goat leather so soft it felt like fabric, to purses in salmon skin and handbags in twisted leather so fragile it looks like Alpine flowers.

Frequently made in limited editions of as few as 50 items in BV’s famed Veneto ateliers, the collection is a brilliant test for Maier’s fertile imagination, with its love of path-breaking technique and ancient skills.

"It’s great fun each season thinking of something that hasn’t been done before. It’s about pushing an atelier to the limit and them responding each time," smiles Maier. This season he has done it again.

Bottega Veneta

Bottega Veneta

Bottega Veneta