Tomas Maier cultivates tenacity. If a tree in his garden doesn't thrive, he simply uproots it and replants. If a supermarket tomato is not tangy enough for his taste, he is apt to grow his own. "People like myself cannot get happy," Maier mused last week as he sat in the courtyard below one of his namesake stores in Palm Beach, Florida. "I'm always looking for something that is not there."
During a fashion career spanning more than two decades, Maier channeled this pursuit of an elusive perfection into designs so low-key and finely tuned that they often flew beneath the radar. Then a half-dozen years ago, he trained his sights on Bottega Veneta, transforming that once-ailing fashion house into one of Europe's top-selling luxury brands, with annual sales of more than US$500 million worldwide.
Today the muted logo-free look that is the brand's signature is widely regarded as the standard-bearer for a new kind of luxury: subtle, long-lasting and recession-proof. In such a climate, Maier himself has emerged as a hero, albeit a reluctant one - and, to his admirers, even something of a prophet.
"He's not one of those in-one-season-out-another people," said Julie Gilhart, the fashion director of Barneys New York, which carries Bottega Veneta dresses and accessories. "The fashion business has so much of that - so much marketing, so much hype - that there needs to be a spot where that doesn't exist. He's definitely the person who has created that spot."
If he did, it was by cutting against the grain. While competitors were churning out look-alike handbags made of coated canvas, bearing hefty hardware and equally hefty price tags, Maier perfected his specialty: the Intrecciato series of hand-woven bags, some that take two days of labor to make (compared with about 80 minutes for a standard-issue designer bag). Signature products, devoid of initials, they typically sell for US$1,200 to as much as US$4,500.
While other designers were producing dart-free baby-doll dresses as if they were so many Fords, he concentrated on deceptively simple, painstakingly constructed styles priced from about US$1,200 to US$6,000 for an evening dress. The dressmaker touches - ruching, serpentine seaming, hand-beading and elaborate pleats - are recognizable to a small but informed clientele.
His maverick approach has reaped rewards. Bottega Veneta has become the second-highest earner at the Gucci Group, under its owner, PPR, which took control of the brand in 1999. Its clothing and accessories are distributed at upscale stores like Saks Fifth Avenue and Neiman Marcus, as well as at more than 100 Bottega Veneta shops from Moscow to Mumbai.
The Cabat, a sort of woven leather shopping bag that is one of Maier's earliest designs, remains in the line, evolving almost imperceptibly from season to season. Even with a stratospheric price tag of as much as US$6,000, it continues to attract a following.
To be sure, that following was slow to build. Critics often overlooked Bottega Veneta, and shoppers turned to showier pieces. But Maier, 51, persisted, imposing his iconoclastic vision on the house.
From the outset, Maier drew a cult by catering to the type of woman who may buy only one new bag a year - if that. "She will ask herself, 'Do I really need all this stuff that's disposable?'" he said, adding ringingly, "The answer is no."
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