You could not watch this Loewe show without seeing the three Lynda Benglis fountains that Jonathan Anderson’s curatorial enthusiasm had brought together for the first time. One was tall and looming, another an apparently kinetically charged wave mid-break, and the last (closest to the photographers) low and spreading like an unpruned shrub. The natural substance of the water inhabited space in liquid shapes defined by the man-made structures hewn by Benglis.
Similarly but inside-out, the worn shapes hewn by Anderson and his Loewe team for this collection defined the shape and aspect of the moving human substance within them. Of the three fountains, Anderson’s collection most resembled the tall and towering columns of dimpled cones in the center of the runway. By pulling the waistband of his pants up so very high, Anderson said afterwards, he wanted to create a way of seeing this collection that was akin to viewing it from ground level with a fish-eye lens. Coating some looks with crystals that glinted in the skylight sunshine invited you to see another watery parallel with Anderson’s installed artworks.
When not obscured by long coats (in a technically impressive multi-sized herringbone), or two hypersized swatches (complete with hypersized pins) of what looked like chintzy vintage wall upholstery fabric, that looming silhouette was generally undisturbed yet variously expressed. Sparkly polo shirts, chunky knits, argyle sweaters, trench coat shirts, and bonded gray rib knits with rounded shoulders or two dimensional side-tabs were all cropped around the southern reaches of the wearer’s ribcage. Two leather jumpsuits near the end, one scarlet, the other black, combined the trouser shape with the upholstery facade into a hybridized silhouette.
Said Anderson afterwards: “It's always about trying to find contradictions in men and women: like how do you blur all of that? I feel like something in this is very precise in that message, it's very reduced, very luxe.” In its lack of any figurative identifying symbols but possession of a distinct design signature, it was also very Anderson.
