Louise Trotter has made a habit of infusing her tenure at Bottega Veneta with art since her debut show for the house last year. Then, it was a showspace bedecked with jewel-toned Murano glass stools, hand-blown by Milan-based studio 6:AM – audience seating which looked more like ethereal sculptures. In April, she launched an ongoing series titled ‘Bottega Veneta for the Arts,’ in which the brand collaborates with contemporary artists and artisans, beginning with photographer Peter Fraser. For S/S 2027, Trotter’s third ready-to-wear outing for the Italian house, she commissioned German visual and sound artist Florian Hecker to create a site-specific pre-show installation titled Scintillations 20 (2026).
Taking place last night (26 September 2026) at Milan Fashion Week, the work comprises 20 loudspeakers, playing a distinct atmospheric, textural sound generated by Hecker, coming together to form a unique soundscape that permeated through the space. Following the show, Bottega Veneta has acquired one loudspeaker for the house’s archive. With this element and its associated sound removed, the installation can never be staged again – making tonight’s audience privy to a singular, durational artwork that cannot be replicated.
Florian Hecker on his site-specific installation for Bottega Veneta S/S 2027
The showspace also featured resin stools by artist Illya Goldman Gubin, with a leather flower by the house’s atelier laid on each
‘I enjoy working with spaces which have not been conceived for sound in the first place and also when sound is in dialogue with something outside itself,’ Hecker told Wallpaper* in an exclusive interview. ‘With the sonic, there are more spaces than just the built or architectural; there’s the acoustic space the piece inhabits, and also the mental space of how one is processing the sounds. This ambiguity is central to the piece; each loudspeaker is coupled with a stainless steel reflector that multiplies the notion of a visually seen sound source and of a perceived location of a sound in space that might not correspond.’
Hecker describes the soundscape as being ‘a bit like a cloud-like structure present in the room, weightless and enveloping, something closer to light diffusing through air than to music in the conventional sense.’ The audio was computer-generated, with processes taken from varying synthesis techniques across the decades. ‘Many of the sounds sit on the very edge between something that might be familiar and at once not, working with resynthesis methods that all come with their own characteristics and also instabilities,’ he said. ‘I was looking for something with a lightweight quality, of surface and grain and with a continuous dynamic.’
The S/S 2027 collection sought to capture the moment spring turns into summer, where layers are shed and lightness is embraced
With the soundtrack of the runway show provided by British artist Mark Leckey, the work holds a particular significance for Hecker: ‘We had a joint 12-inch release a few years ago, and now this project together – which also meant working with ideas that were about mood and reference points, decades, maybe a certain nostalgia, into something built from synthesis, so no samples, no literal references, this was at the core of the collaboration.’ Of working alongside Trotter, Hecker remarked, ‘there was great trust from the beginning, which helps enormously when the sounds themselves often resist linguistic description.’
The work set the scene for a collection by Trotter inspired by the moment that spring turns into summer, whereby layers are shed, and you look for lightness in clothing. ‘A physical and mental de-robing,’ she described. ‘Summer as a proposition: to wear less, but feel more.’ To further capture this mood, a leather flower – handmade by the house’s leather atelier – had been laid on each seat, a series of resin-coated cardboard boxes by artist Illya Goldman Gubin. ‘The space evokes the bright airiness of summer and, with it, a renewed sense of possibility,’ says Trotter.
Stay tuned for more from Milan Fashion Week S/S 2027.