J.W. Anderson's second menswear collection for Loewe began with a typically Andersonian inspiration: "the clothes in your closet that make you wonder why you bought them." He indicated the checkerboard suit with the outsize pants hanging on a nearby rail as an example. There were others equally close at hand, primarily a mohair sweater in the most evilly toxic shade of green, and maybe the jacket in red and black kangaroo leather that wouldn't have been out of place in Michael Jackson's video for "Bad." Anderson excels at creating clothes that are slightly unsettling. Clothes that ask questions. Paris is currently adorned with Loewe's new menswear campaign, a photo from the '80s of photographer Steven Meisel kissing male model Sean Bohary. "It sparks a personal question and a cultural question," said Anderson. "It's giving people something more…provocation, excitement."
Given Loewe's august and leathery past, Anderson's knitted palazzo pants, delicate knits (he described them as "like old stockings"), and drop-backed coat in a Lurex-threaded mint tweed were certainly provocative expressions of his feminized masculine ethos. But there were also expert pieces that drew on the Loewe legacy, like a motocross jacket artfully hand-painted to give it a worn-in look, a nubuck navy trench lined in leather, and a shearling-collared car coat in napa. The confidence with which Anderson straddles both worlds is the mark of a major talent. Besides, he said, the challenge of those misbegotten outfits in your closet is to work out how they all fit together. And that is just what he is doing at Loewe: rebuilding a brand from scratch.
