Jonathan Anderson totally understands something vital about fashion’s role—the happiness it releases when it gives us something we didn’t know we were missing but recognize and adore when we see it. Just one glance at the exuberant, freewheeling gestures of the women in action in his Loewe look book sends that sensation surging back. “We have to start loving fashion again,” he declares. “We don’t know what tomorrow’s going to bring. So let’s enjoy it!”
From the clothes’ voluminous playfulness to the active involvement of 16 intergenerational women right through to the intricate handwork in the pieces, this was Anderson’s great big blowing up of all the creative limitations that threaten to drive fashion back to dullness in these dark times. “We were all in confinement when we were doing this. We had huge issues getting fabrics, so we used what we had. My brief was: Just make your fantasy of what you want! It was a massive team effort. Each look is to show craft and fashion.”
There are mind-spinning, multidisciplinary, multi-platformed layers to unpack here. In a tangible sense, the Show-on-the-Wall was delivered as a kit of life-size posters, with a roll of art-printed wallpaper commissioned from Anthea Hamilton, a pair of scissors, wallpaper paste, and a brush. Hamilton is there as one of Anderson’s poster women, striking a semi-martial-arts pose in a puffy white dress ruched up with parachute tape. The video artist Hilary Lloyd, who collaborated with Anderson for a men’s Loewe show, and the painter Jadé Fadojutimi both swirl in generously layered black taffeta trapeze dresses.
Others portrayed wear pieces that evoke Spanish and Dutch Old masters—a theme Anderson has been interested in for a while—in crisp scalloped-edge broderie anglaise dresses with wires sewn into the collars and skirts. A huge padded and ruched under-pannier is seen through a black chiffon overskirt. Pants and sleeves balloon. Quite literally, they speak volumes about women taking up space in the world. “Poetic armor,” Anderson called it, the idea of “escaping into clothes.” Handy, too, for socially distanced times.
He also talked about “rethinking the models” of fashion—a comment you can take to mean both the expanded inclusivity in this season’s casting and the way he is remaking the Loewe business model to act as a “cultural brand.” Integral to that is the focus Anderson trains on the craft culture of the house and the seamless, socially conscious interconnections he makes with contemporary art and artists. “Through this entire year, the idea of craft and making has never been more crucial,” he says. “It engages with people. It shows responsibility and protection of things that people are forgetting are important in this industry. It employs people and ultimately is about the legacy that we pass from generation to generation.”
In the isolating times we live in, he’s a genius at making sure that Loewe continues to be an experiential brand that reaches audiences on multiple frequencies. With the launch of this collection, there’s a video documentary on Hamilton and the performance of “Spem in Alium,” a 40-part Renaissance motet commissioned from Adam Bainbridge, the musician known as Kindness. That, Anderson says, is also part of what he sees as “taking responsibility as a cultural brand. Museums, galleries, young artists, and performers are going through a horrific time at the moment.”
Loewe has been building on that responsibility for a long while, since Anderson started the Loewe Craft Prize and in the way he inserts artworks into the sets for his shows. Now, with the four walls of a physical show space gone, he has brilliantly managed to extend the reach even further. It’s really clever. In a time when social engagement is every fashion marketeer’s driving anxiety, Anderson’s real connection with the worlds of people who might buy Loewe is something that other luxury brands simply can’t cut and paste. In the stiff competition to make fashion relevant, there is no designer who sees this more clearly: “Things will always sell,” he says, “if a brand is wanted.”
