Why Is The Most Consistent Thing In My Life Jacob Elordi Wearing Bottega Veneta

A brief analysis of celebrity partnerships in today's high-fashion landscape, and why it's important to get them right.

This past year, we’ve seen quite the reshuffling of creative directors across some of fashion’s biggest global brands. Matthieu Blazy showed his debut collection for Chanel after three years at the helm of Bottega Veneta, and Pierpaolo Piccioli showed his first collection for Balenciaga after eight years at the helm of Valentino. And that’s just to name a few.

Interestingly, as creative directors move from one brand to another, so do their favorite celebrity faces and ambassadors. In fact, many celebrities are loyal to creative directors rather than to the brands themselves.

Like how Greta Lee followed Jonathan Anderson from Loewe to Dior, or how Anne Hathaway attended Pierpaolo’s Balenciaga debut after being a strong supporter of his Valentino. Or Harry Styles, who was famously a muse for Alessandro Michele during his time at Gucci, and even wore Gucci to co-chair the 2019 Met Gala. However, when Michele left Gucci and showed his first runway collection for Valentino in 2024, Harry Styles was there, sitting front row. Wearing Valentino.

This, of course, makes sense. If you’re a designer’s muse and closely align with their style and design aesthetic, I would want to follow them, too. But if you zoom out and imagine what broader consumers see, the story looks a bit different. Now that the dust from fashion month is settling, it’s interesting to assess how creative director changes—and the celebrity ambassador shifts that come along with them—are shaping each brand.

THE ROLE OF CELEBRITIES IN HIGH-FASHION

Celebrities are ever present in today’s high-fashion landscape, though it wasn’t always this way. Actually, after becoming the editor-in-chief of Vogue in 1988, Anna Wintour received backlash when she started putting celebrities, rather than models, on the cover. Like Madonna in 1989, Nicole Kidman in 1995, and Halle Berry in 2002. Today, however, seeing celebrities on the cover of Vogue is the norm.

On the brand side, celebrity partnerships also feel somewhat inescapable. Even Maison Margiela, whose founder was famously quite anti-celebrity marketing, named Miley Cyrus a face of its brand earlier this year. This was the first time in Margiela’s nearly-four-decade history that it had announced a celebrity ambassador. The power and necessity of celebrity partnerships, in both engaging consumers and standing out in today’s competitive fashion landscape, is clear.

However, though celebrity partnerships might be common and useful, they’re not as easy to get right as they may seem. Thanks to the rise of social media, today’s fashion consumers are digitally savvy and presented with more content than ever. This means they can tell when a brand partnership doesn’t feel like a good match, which can turn consumers away from a brand. Take Miu Miu’s latest campaign featuring Kylie Jenner, for example, which fans quickly criticized for feeling inauthentic.

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Finding a celebrity partnership that makes sense is essential to convincing consumers why they should buy into a brand in the first place. And what they’re getting—or who they can become—when they do so. So, what happens when celebrity ambassadors, like many this year, switch from one brand to another, and when a brand’s image starts to lose some of its consistency?

WHERE DO JACOB ELORDI AND BOTTEGA VENETA FIT INTO THE STORY?

Bottega Veneta’s partnership with Jacob Elordi is quite the ideal celebrity collaboration scenario. Elordi was officially named a Bottega Veneta ambassador in May of 2024, while Matthieu Blazy was the brand’s creative director. However, Elordi had already been spotted carrying Bottega Veneta’s leather handbags—and often several at once—since 2022. So, him becoming a Bottega ambassador made sense in the eyes of consumers. At least from the outside, it looked like Elordi was genuinely a fan of Bottega, and the partnership seemed like a good fit.