Since he packed his bags and left Mulberry in London, Stuart Vevers has immersed himself fully in the culture of Loewe's base camp, Madrid: learning to speak Spanish, how to eat at midnight, how to find his way around the nightlife, all that. He's also approaching the job with full appreciation of the luxe leather-goods background of the house. "I want to discover a modern take on status. Something grown-up, elegant, and provocative," he said. Clothes-wise for Resort, he's worked up a military-cum-nautical theme that he calls "a reinvestigation of classics," slipping in remixes of archive scarf prints by Julie Verhoeven and jewelry by Katie Hillier—two of his London friends. As a bag-meister (who formerly worked at Louis Vuitton and Bottega Veneta), it's his vision of the future of covetable leather that really counts, though. "I keep saying it's not about the It bag anymore," said Vevers. "What's next is things that have authenticity and beauty." Having Loewe's craftspeople to work with is his main thrill. It's meant he's been able to design a python bag with a square base inspired by a supermarket carrier bag, come up with discreetly chic patent envelopes trimmed with fine gold chains, and play with napa leather so fine-grained that, to the naked eye, it almost looks like matte satin.
