Bottega Veneta Intrecciato Weave as seen on The Pouch shown here in Topazio.
The woven design on The Pouch bag from Bottega Veneta is slightly more complex than first meets the eye. What looks like a simple woven pattern of separate strips, is created using slits in an underlayer to form a base for a dense and controlled weave pattern.
For comparison, let’s first look at a simple woven design. In the image below you can see how The Cassette bag is created using horizontal and vertical strips of leather that are woven over and under each other to create a simple grid design. In this case, note that this formation creates small gaps between the strips. Notice also that due to the design of this bag, the leather is double-faced so that the grain side of the leather is visible both outside and inside the bag. This would be created by glueing two layers of leather back to back so that the suede or flesh side is hidden.
In comparison, the Intrecciato weave used for The Pouch bag is at a much smaller scale. This densely woven weave appears to be created by cutting tiny slits into an underlayer of leather. The slits are staggered so that as separate horizontal strips of leather are woven under and over the base, the strips will be pulled into alignment without any gaps.
In this case, this weave formation may also allow very supple leather to be used, since the base layer acts as a support for the separate woven strips. In contrast, the double-faced leather looks much stiffer and more suited towards the Cassette design.
As the fashion-set wean themselves off leather in search of vegan and environmentally friendly alternatives, it is interesting to note some of these techniques that make leather such a favoured material, particularly for accessories. Not every material is strong yet soft, can be cut raw on the edges without fraying, and has just the right amount of give, so viable alternatives have quite a few boxes to tick before some of the luxury houses will make the jump forever.
Also, here is a technique that could also be adapted for other non-leather materials. This technique would likely also work well with other materials that do not fray when cut, such as felt or vinyl. Possibly some other synthetic fabrics could be used where laser cutting is used to seal the edges, or potentially this could be adapted for natural fibres where the fabric is backed with fusing first. Also, by changing the position and size of the slits, and varying the widths of the strips, you can change the pattern of the weave altogether.
Images of Bottega Veneta Intrecciato Weave, The Cassette and The Pouch from BottegaVeneta.com»
Diagrams by TheCuttingClass»
