Luxury house Kering took the unusual step of responding to tweet published last night (November 17, 2021) by Vogue France contributor and consultant Louis Pisanao, who claimed Bottega Veneta creative director Daniel Lee was fired because he used a racist slur in a meeting.
In his late night tweet, Pisano wrote, “Allegedly, and this comes from an INCREDIBLY close to the matter and reliable source: Daniel Lee was promptly fired by Francois – Henri Pinault after he allegedly called someone a “fucking N*gger” in a meeting at Bottega Veneta.”
Kering’s Twitter account followed up early this morning with a tweet directly responding to Pisano’s that read: “Dear @LOUIS_via_ROMA : we deny what you have been told and what you have shared about the reasons of the departure of Daniel Lee from Bottega Veneta.”
Pisano pushed back on the Kering statement with his own response. In two tweets he wrote, “I’m just going to say this, I’m always going to let people know what is being said behind closed doors because I think so many problems in this fucking industry continue because people want to hush things up.
“sat at dinner after I had a discussion about what allegedly went down at Bottega for about an hour deciding if to relay the information that I had received after considering all the information I had & decided to disclose it. So if you want to shoot the messenger so be it.”
Bottega Veneta shook the fashion world last week when it announced it was parting ways with Lee whose three-year tenure at the label was viewed as wildly successful. Less than a week later, Kering announcing it was promoting Bottega Veneta senior designer Mathieu Blazy to the lead creative position.
Lee hasn’t issued any statements since stepping down from the role and it’s still not clear whether he was forced out or chose to leave on his own.
