For Milan Design Week 2026, Bottega Veneta collaborates with Korean artist Kwangho Lee, in a project that includes a site-specific light installation in the house’s Via Sant’Andrea store.

The installation, titled Lightful, combines a suspended woven form characteristic of Lee’s practice with new light sculptures woven from Bottega Veneta leather fettucce (strips). In bespoke shades of black and green chosen by Creative Director Louise Trotter, each of these light sculptures holds a unique, organic shape that evokes the possibilities of Lee’s craft processes. As the woven elements meet effects of light and shadow, Lightful develops the artist’s ongoing exploration of combined elements and materials with the addition of illumination. 

Lightful is Bottega Veneta’s third collaboration with Kwangho Lee under Trotter’s Creative Direction. Previously, Lee’s artwork was featured in the Summer 2026 show space, and in the Bottega Veneta exhibition Weaving the World: The Language of Intrecciato, hosted in Seoul in June 2025. As part of the development of Lightful, Lee visited the Bottega Veneta atelier in Montebello Vicentino, where expert artisans safeguard the house’s savoir-faire.

Born in 1981, Kwangho Lee studied at Hongik University in Seoul, majoring in Metal Art & Design. His practice is characterized by intense material experimentation as well as a commitment to craft. His art and design pieces have revived traditional techniques of weaving, basketry, and chilbo enamelling. Throughout his work, Lee is especially interested in the moment of encounter, exploring the new possibilities, functions, and meanings that might be found when together different textures, surfaces, and forms meet. His materials have included aluminium, marble, copper, enamel, steel, bundled rice, and garden hoses.

Lee’s commitment to craft and to the generative potential of encounter make him a natural creative partner for Bottega Veneta, a house distinguished by its leather artisanship, and deeply shaped by and the act and symbolism of weaving, including its signature Intrecciato.

To enhance the collaboration during Design Week, Lightful will extend its presence through dedicated activations in curated locations in Milan.