Yahoo Lifestyle This Is What Peak Loewe Looks Like
There was something curious about the Loewe show space. Last season, it was transformed into a bright green-walled art gallery space with a labyrinthian runway. This season, it was all white with a single sculpture in the middle of the room. It was the work of British artist Tracy Emin–a small bird perched at the top of a thin rail post, so small and thin in fact that if you were far away, it was hard to make out what it was. The collection notes explained that the bird was “caught in a moment of pause.” Emin, the notes continued, “encourages us to imagine the bird’s imminent flight, and ultimately its freedom.”
This week in Paris, all anyone wants to talk about is designer musical chairs. Several luxury houses are said to be announcing new creative directors soon and the game of who goes where and when and how has heated up over the last several days. Jonathan Anderson is part of that conversation. Was the bird symbolic then? Is he about to take flight from Loewe, where he’s been perched for ten years?
Anderson's front row, which included Ayo Edebiri, Taylor Russell, Greta Lee, Josh O’Conner, Rob Lowe, Meg Ryan, and Jeff Goldblum, was a testament to his genius red carpet strategy. Over the past couple of years, he has anointed the coolest stars and dressed them in Loewe, effectively turning an insidery-fashion brand with a name that was hard to pronounce into a household one. The atmosphere was celebratory. A Loewe show is always exciting but there was something more emotional in the air this time around.
The first look out was a light-as-air floral dress that had a raised neckline and billowed and bounced thanks to the addition of crinolin. The model wore oddly shaped aviator sunglasses and two-tone, square-toe boat shoes. This was going to be good.
Two more similarly-crafted dresses followed and then, incredible slouchy suits. Anderson noted backstage that he and his team have worked to perfect suiting over the years at the house–with single buttons and pants that gathered at the waist. Movement was key in all of the silhouettes, and Anderson made a point to design the shapes so that they’d have different perspectives depending on a person’s vantage point. Hard and soft textures were in perfect sync. Structured, space-age mini dresses were made of brushed sequins and iridescent shells. Feathers were used on the surface of harem and cargo pants and to recreate tourist t-shirts, the kind you might see in a museum gift shop, printed with poster-esque renderings of van Gogh’s sunflowers and Chopin’s face.
As Anderson explained backstage after the show, “It’s like going to a museum or a concert or something experiential and you want to take a memento home with you.” That notion extended to the show invites as well, which were tied with a Tudor-inspired gold ring engraved with “Loewe 1846.” When asked about the rings, Anderson replied, “It’s a commitment, when you commit to an idea and again, a token of a memory.”
There was a standing ovation as Anderson came out to take his bow. Everyone was, once again, enraptured by the designer’s talent and absolutely in love with the clothes. It was, in so many ways, peak Loewe and, therefore, peak Anderson. Whatever winds up being the truth about the rumor mill, the designer will continue to make magic.
Anderson’s work over the last ten years at Loewe has been about the evolution and perfecting of ideas as well as the pursuit of delight. He tricks the eye and trains us to find more meaning in clothes, to challenge ourselves to, in his words, “perfect ideas.” “There’s no point in showing clothes for clothing’s sake,” Anderson noted. He is a rare bird in the luxury space, a creative director who can make great, sellable products and push new ideas forward at the same time, always leaving room for us to dream and to guess.
Referring back to Emin’s sculpture, he said, “I like this idea that it’s like a bird taking flight, it’s a bird standing still, it’s a bird watching. It’s a kind of voyeur on everyone.” Anderson challenges us to keep our eyes open, and to delight in what we see.
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