Louise Trotter's third Bottega Veneta show was about the moment when you start taking layers off. At a studio visit before the show she said the collection "is an observation of how we move between seasons," and she talked about living in Milan, a city where you really feel all four.

She wanted to show the in-between, the protection of winter and then "de-robing as we go into spring, summer." I think it is the first time her Bottega has felt light. Her first two seasons had so much craft in them that the clothes, the women's in particular, seemed weighed down. This time she let the air in, and it suits her. She is a designer who loves materials more than stories, and you can see it.

The show opened with outerwear, and roughly two in five looks wear a tailored jacket or coat. The coats have padded, slightly exaggerated shoulders, and some of the hems are knotted up "as if she was going to wade into the water." I love that idea, because it treats a precious coat like something you actually live in.

Baby intrecciato leather scarves were wrapped around the waist like belts, which is a quiet way to show off the atelier. Then pastels came in: a lilac top over a blue and white striped button-down with butter yellow chinos, and a flower-print fringe top and skirt that swished down the runway. That outfit is the one I would copy, because every piece in it is ordinary on its own.

Summer arrived as patchworks of white handmade lace, chunky openwork crochet and large-scale intrecciato. A vibrant red cotton dress was ruched at the middle and knotted at the side over a pleated full skirt in the same red, and it is the best single look in the show to me.

Little black dresses were swagged with crisscrossing skeins of silk fringe. Leather shows up on only a handful of looks, which surprised me from this house, but the weaving is everywhere, so it hardly matters. More than a third of the looks wear a hat, and that gives the whole show its outdoor, end-of-summer mood.

Three in four looks carry a bag, and it is clear the bag is still the center of the house. The earrings are the detail I liked most. They looked sculpted from clay or woven from leather, and they were often worn mismatched, which is a very easy thing to try at home with earrings you already own.

Only a handful of looks wear sunglasses. There was also a plain black one-shoulder long dress with no embellishment at all, and honestly it was a relief. A little more of that, set against all the craft, and Trotter will have the balance exactly right. For now, I would start with the knotted coat and a woven bag.