Jonathan Anderson’s Loewe show drew a beautiful picture of the collective longing for spiritual escape into what he called “a childlike dream state” somewhere far, far away from the harsh realities of messed-up modern life.
You could guess pretty well how his djellaba-clad procession of wanderers had reached that blissed-out plane. The first model, wearing a kind of white smock-shirt and wide cotton trousers, had a metal disc pendant on a leather thong strung around his neck and a couple of what looked like party favors, sprouting feathers, tucked behind each ear. Later on, another had strapped the same disc—which had a hole in its center—around his forehead. A portal into the mind, perhaps—a third eye.
The symbolism resonated, because Anderson has created Loewe as a head culture all its own. It’s a place where he’s taken old hippie values—for tuning into eclecticism and handmade crafts—and levitated them as a 21st-century luxury-grade cult. The feeling in the room was palpable: His audience was made up of total converts to the entire trip and all its sensations—the complete picture of layered textures, stripes, and colors, and especially the sight of ultrarefined suede, cut into caftans with matching trousers. An alternative suit, if ever there was one.
Anderson free-associates when he talks about his work. He spoke of romanticism, youth, the spiritual value of fantasy: “We have to be aware of what’s going on in the world, but sometimes it’s good to dream. Why should people not be in a fantasy state? Maybe they’ll find something.”
All emotionally true, perhaps, but Anderson is hardly a designer with his head in the clouds. His view of Loewe as a super-refined Spanish leather goods company is totally grounded in product. This collection, with its huge inventory of inventive knitwear, Roman sandals, moccasins, espadrille boots, slip-on leather shoes, and array of bags shows how far fashion desires have traveled from wanting to conform to mono trends. Anderson promises, instead, a store in which you can “find yourself”—that old hippie path to individualism, now leading to an irresistible shopping experience.
There was a telling insight into Anderson’s thinking at the end of his backstage briefing. “Obviously, Loewe’s first really big moment was in the ’70s,” he remarked. That was before he was born, but the Anderson family spent their holidays in Ibiza—a center of neo-hippie lifestyle to this day. His experiment in launching Paula’s Ibiza as a Loewe sub-brand, spun out of thinking about the homemade market fare sold on the Balearic island, was kind of a test run to see how far he could go with artsy-craftsy casual bits and pieces. The answer is: Far, very far. The direction he took this collection blew people’s minds.
