Simone Bellotti is showing me a vintage denim jacket. Its frayed sleeve, he says, is the perfect expression of “authentically destroyed”. The jacket is one of dozens of garments that fill two rails in the designer’s office. The clothes are part archive, part research project and part storage solution – “I don’t have enough space at home,” he says – as well as acting as a visual prompt for what makes a classic piece. The best garments are those that consider “everything”, he continues: “The construction, the quality, the fabrics and the shape.”
Bellotti is sitting in the Milan headquarters of Jil Sander, the brand to which he was appointed creative director last year by Renzo Rosso of the Only The Brave (OTB) fashion group. Founded in 1968 by the eponymous German designer, Jil Sander came to global prominence in the ’90s for its clean aesthetic, no-nonsense tailoring and unfussy silhouettes. Much has changed in the intervening decades, but the brand has long reigned as the OG house of minimalism.
Kethia Ngeleza wears millefeuille nylon embroidered dress, £7,140, and leather shoes, £1,040. Clothes throughout by Jil Sander © Maximilian Mair
Bellotti, 47, made his debut during Milan Fashion Week in September. He showed a tight edit of simple yet elevated separates for women and men. Here were shrunken wool sweaters, straight-cut trousers, knee-grazing skirts and sculpted leather coats that cleaved to the brand’s minimal codes while adding sensual touches – slashes on the waistband and flesh-revealing cut-outs that, as Bellotti puts it, showed “more humanity – in a revealing but intellectual way”. A standout in a season of competing designer debuts, the collection was clear-sighted and critically well-received.
