Jonathan Anderson said his Fall Loewe collection was all about scale. He’s a designer who thinks big, so that felt appropriate—but even Anderson’s gargantuan army satchels and quilted blankets pale in comparison to the rock formations of Ciudad Encantada (Enchanted City) in central Spain. Shaped by centuries of erosion, these towering monoliths formed the backdrop to Anderson’s lookbook and campaign, which, as always, was pinned up around Paris ahead of his presentation, like an advertisement extolling us to go view the collection in the showroom.
Anderson collaborated with M/M to reengineer the Loewe space into a cave, blocking out natural light with printed hoardings of blown-up mineral surfaces. Again, toying with scale. It made it feel a bit like a shop—he’s just opened an unconventional one for his own label in London’s East End; Loewe has 121, directly operated. “It’s about consumerism, merchandising,” said Anderson of the decision to present his collections on racks (and racks, and racks—there’s always a lot of stuff) as opposed to via runway or live presentation. In contrast to his eponymous menswear, with its distinct and sometimes alienating focus on the total look, Anderson asserted that “Loewe has to articulate itself differently.”
The focus here, then, was on snapping looks apart into individual items—high-top kicks, a frayed tweed coat, a Loewe Puzzle bag stamped with archive logos (they’ve had quite a few, it seems) and flaps in leopard-print shearling. The aforementioned macro-scale military knapsacks came from soliders’ garb in the First World War, as did khaki separates in quilted cotton, which had a hardy practicality. Teamed with sandals they made you think of trench foot, and the current sub-zero temperatures in Paris. As individual items, they were desirable. So too was a series of leather bags and jackets, hand-painted with strange images like sunrises, toadstools, a turtledove: an expression of Loewe’s handicraft. There was a punkish element to painted biker jackets, distressed boots studded with pyramid hardware, to hats cock-combed with a mohawk of tufted wool.
However, was this bunch oddly desirable, or just odd? Anderson pushes his aesthetic in unusual directions, grounding it in a language of luxury at Loewe; en masse, it can wind up overwhelming. Which is why breaking it into composite garments helps, making it easier to ignore the scrunched-down leopard-shearling beanies, the cardigans with trains, the macro sponge-fishnet, and focus on nice shirts and suede coats. Those distractions, however, were still present. They will never find their way onto anyone’s backs—or heads—and served to muddle the commercial message Anderson was communicating. The scale of Anderson’s Loewe endeavor was impressive, as always. But you wondered if scaling back and reining in might create more impact for a brand whose latest identity is still being formed.
