There will be coat wars ahead. So many collections, so much outerwear this season! In this vintage year, surely retailers are going to have to take their pick between what brands have to offer. At Loewe, Jonathan Anderson made a very strong pitch for owning the top of the field, with a score of no less than 15 coats on his runway—something to cover every possible use, from a walk in the country, to commuting, to school runs, attending private views, events, dinners, and the like. Why stop at a duffle coat, a tufty shearling, a black-and-white chevron-patterned fit-and-flare midi? There is evening, too: a quite elegantly beautiful black trapeze with puffy leather cuffs. Even to those of us who’ve barely been to an opera, the idea of arriving somewhere in that evening coat was aspirational.
It’s possible to imagine that Anderson spends a lot of time plotting out this sort of woman’s lifestyle. The boxed, art-curated environment at the UNESCO building into which he invites his guests suggests he sees her as a complicated sophisticate; maybe an art collector or gallerist. This season, he had her listening to a recording from mindfulness guru Mt. Wolf. The audio bade us remember how simple and happy life can be, if only we connect with the fundamental human being inside all of us. All well and good. It made us observe Anderson’s clothes even more intently.
It was good when he concentrated on furnishing this woman with clearly functional daywear—perhaps the country tweed suit with leather poacher pockets, the narrow tunics with flowing polka-dot jabots, the moment when he put a navy V-necked shirt over a long white lace skirt. As Anderson’s work reiterates, he is there to emphasize the finesse of Loewe’s craft skills in leatherworking. It was impressive to wonder about how such things as the white cotton dress had been constructed with vertical strips of dark blue leather which clustered from the torso, and then let go to radiate through skirt and sleeves.
Something Anderson still has to learn is to hold back from over-complication. Some of the flesh-baring, suspended, craft-y dresses, and the open backs cut into suits, were puzzlingly self-defeating. The syndrome of trying too hard has messed up more than a couple of good young designers’ work this season. Anderson and all of them should know that all women want is essentially straightforward clothes with a purpose. He was halfway towards a great collection, but those distractions did hold him back.
