When Jonathan Anderson started at Loewe three years ago, he talked about wanting to make it a cultural brand. What seemed like a gnomic pronouncement at the time has now materialized into something actual—a tangible delivery of craftsmanship, individualism, and intellectual experience. Setting out his Fall menswear collection in an exhibition rather than a show gave viewers time and space to relate to the handcrafted nature of what he’s up to. Anderson described the content as being about, “a youthful eclecticism, something post-industrial.” You could reach out and touch a loopy hand-knitted Aran sweater—the stitch technique adapted to imitate sailor’s-knots, but also to echo the Loewe logo—and its matching neighbor, a giant Anagram tote. You could stroke the sleeve of a cornflower blue shearling coat and inspect the hand-sewing around the collaged linen elbow and pocket patches. You could see every needlepoint stitch on a shoulder bag depicting a jolly Jack-tar. You could smile as you picked up a tan leather key ring in the shape of an animal from the top of a hand-turned wooden ark. Burst out laughing, maybe, at the absurdity of a brass trumpet, a pair of carved dog’s heads, and a hand-thrown ceramic bowl being repurposed as jewelry.
A new wave of fashion has hit Loewe. It’s quirky, human-feeling, and full of odd surprises, but the point is that it doesn’t feel like an arty-crafty facade, a fashion-y fig leaf for a classic brand that may be carrying on as it always has. In the “cultural” revolution led by Anderson, the emphasis is on authenticity—everything underscoring the handmade values of the leather goods company and its Spanishness. The lookbook was shot in a former steam engine factory, and a subterranean home and design studio built by the radical architect Fernando Higueras in Madrid. This follows a Loewe exhibition curated by Anderson, which opened in the Spanish capital in November last year—all of a piece with a thoroughly integrated multidimensional strategy of advertising on billboards and social media. Really, it’s the antithesis of the hard, cold luxury fashion brand marketing style that has held sway since the millennium. Somehow, Anderson’s ability to enrich the pleasures of product with meaning, tactility, and things to learn has transformed Loewe into the first brand to realize that human, experiential values are the antidote to a high-tech era. The titans and philosophers of the luxury goods industry have been banging on about that at conferences for years, but Loewe, under Anderson, has beaten everyone else to the post.
