50 Years of Intrecciato

“I think I say a lot with my hands,” says Neneh Cherry, dressed in a Bottega Veneta jacket made from its signature woven leather. The camera pans to the singer-songwriter hugging herself, interlocking her fingers, and caressing her face. Later, Cherry’s words, “There’s just so much expression—it’s like a vessel to the soul,” appear in white text over a black-and-white shot of her holding her hand out to the audience. This short film is part of a new campaign, titled Craft is Our Language, commemorating the 50th anniversary of Bottega Veneta’s Intrecciato weave, as well as the muses and craftsmen that animate it. 

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Logos often speak boldly on designer pieces, but the luxury brand’s signature latticework does all the talking. The distinct leather pattern appears across Bottega Veneta’s bags, belts, and even home decor—it has been a mainstay since it was introduced in 1975, after a collective of Italian artisans first sliced leather into slender strips and hand-wove them into panels in 1966. Now, its new campaign reimagines this artisanal process by focusing on the hands behind various crafts.

Lensed by Jack Davison and choreographed by Lenio Kaklea, 19 creatives across industries—including tennis player Lorenzo Musetti, musician Tyler Okonma, director Dario Argento, and artist Barbara Chase-Riboud—star in a new series of short films and photographs. True to its collaborative ethos, the cast also includes those with direct ties: legendary designer Edward Buchanan (the first to helm Ready-to-Wear at Bottega Veneta) and actress Lauren Hutton, who famously wore an Intrecciato clutch in the 1980 film American Gigolo.

Wearing a leather trench coat, actress Julianne Moore presses her left index finger against her lips in the classic “shh” gesture and raises her right hand to point towards an unseen object beyond the frame. The portrait is paired with an image of two hands intertwined. In another set of images, filmmaker and producer Dave Free stares directly into the camera, clasping his hands together, with an Intrecciato tote tucked behind his arm—next to him is a close-up of a handshake. As the saying goes, each picture (and design) speaks a thousand words. The brand cites Bruno Munari’s 1963 dictionary of hand gestures, Supplemento al Dizionario Italiano, as an inspiration for Craft is Our Language, and come September, it will release a hand-gesture dictionary of its own.