Daniel Lee’s Bottega Veneta girl is fast emerging as a style zeitgeist of the moment, and everyone — from Rihanna to Rosie Huntington-Whitely — wants to be her. Marking his second runway for the Italian label, Lee’s Spring/Summer 2020 collection was a strong assertion of Bottega Veneta’s new house codes, with a ready-to-wear focus on the ease and reality of dressing. The show took to Milan’s Via Senato, where a skylit courtyard lined with stone columns framed a clear perspex floor housing Intrecciato boxes. The set design — simple, clever, and resonant — connected antiquity with modernity, breathing new life into the house’s proprietary themes.

The show opened with an expressly understated one-shoulder LBD that gave prominence to the accessories — a supersized Arco bag rendered in a slouchy, cross-body style, a new iteration of the quilted leather mules (notably sans square toe), and a simple gold chain choker that anchored at the nape with a big gold sphere. The clothing itself found a middle ground between ‘80s power dressing and ‘90s waif minimalism, revisiting many of Lee’s AW19 motifs with a lighter touch that better outlined the figure. Ribbed knit dresses were lankier and more seamlessly layered, disco-ball metallics returned as drape dresses, and the boxy suiting and drawstring-ruched leather outerwear downsized in bulk. New to the assortment were dark wash denim and a print of a monkey and pineapple that emblazoned silk scarf tops — but overall, Lee’s ready-to-wear legacy unfolded this season as spare in design, substantial in attitude, whereas his knack for creating “It” accessories continues to prosper.