I
n 1997, aged 12, Jonathan Anderson was living in
Magherafelt: a small, grey Northern Irish town coloured
by the Troubles and entirely removed from the fantasy
of fashion. On his local high street, there was one small
newsagent that stocked international magazines, and one
day, while flicking through the pages of an Italian Vogue, he
happened across an editorial by Steven Meisel. A series of
tableaux inspired by the artist Alex Katz, showcasing models
such as Kate Moss playing Frisbee and a sunkissed Carly
Hanger lounging amid sand-dunes while reading a dog-eared
copy of Richard II, it made an indelible impact – not for its
dreamy escapism, he explains, but for its immersive narrative.
“It was a piece of storytelling,” he recalls. “There was this
understanding that the character was more important here
than the fashion.”
That sentiment struck him with such force that, 16 years
later, in 2013, when he presented his vision to revamp Loewe
to LVMH’s Delphine Arnault, it was these images that
opened the scrapbook he took with him. “There was no,
‘Here’s the silhouette,’ or, ‘I’m going to change the logo,’”
he recalls of his proposition for the brand, leaning back in
his chair and taking a confident drag on his cigarette. “I just
thought, these pictures are what Loewe should be.” Such a
left-field approach somehow got him the job (in fact, these
images were reprised by Meisel for the first Loewe campaign
that he and Anderson created together) and, in the six years
since, has perhaps proven the key to his success.
Today, we are on set in an enormous garden on the outskirts
of London. Anderson, a 35-year-old sandy-blond, dressed
in his trademark uniform of a blue jumper and jeans, is
sitting in a deck chair, chain-smoking Marlboro Lights and
waxing lyrical about Loewe. While other designers often
require coaxing into conversation, he is exceptionally
eloquent in articulating everything from his formative
inspirations to the business’s infrastructure, as enthusiasticabout its internal machinations as he is about fabric
choices. If, once upon a time, a designer’s prowess was
measured in terms of their ability to sculpt a toile, then
today’s industry demands a far broader skill set from its
architects: they must also be curators, merchandisers and
strategists. In that sense, Anderson has established himself
as the model of a contemporary designer, creating a vision
for Loewe that extends far beyond the runway; an approach
that has turned him into the golden child of LVMH and
transformed what was once the conglomerate’s sleeping
giant into a titan of luxury fashion.
When Anderson joined Loewe, it was a 150-year-old
Spanish brand revered for its heritage and renowned for its
handbags, but under Anderson’s meticulous direction it
quickly shifted away from being simply about expertly made
leather goods and into exploring craftsmanship across the
board. Just a few weeks after joining the house, the then
29-year-old Anderson had already begun installing artful
proclivities within its remodelled DNA, founding an annual
craft prize celebrating ceramicists and glassblowers from
Madrid to Tokyo, and investing in an art collection that
now spans the likes of Anthea Hamilton and William
McKeown. The template for the Loewe customer soon
appeared to be that of an erudite collector – as besotted by
Noguchi furniture and Lucie Rie ceramics as by leather
goods – their carefully curated lifestyle completely
considered. “My whole idea was asking, ‘How does Loewe
coexist differently to other companies inside the market?’”
muses Anderson. “And I thought, ‘OK, instead of it being
about a luxury brand, it’s a cultural brand.’”
It’s hardly a novelty to situate a luxury house within the
cultural conversation to establish cachet – Louis Vuitton and
Prada have long operated as patrons, and every label going
now seems to incorporate some sort of artsy collaboration
within its offering. But what’s fascinating about Anderson’s
approach is not only how innately embedded it appears in
the language of Loewe, but also the way he has eschewed the
typically starry names regularly enlisted by his rivals for
the much-maligned realm of craft (“we put craft under a
microscope,” is how he explained it after the a/w ’19
womenswear show, which goes a way to indicating the exacting
approach he is taking). “I think craft is undervalued,” he says- and he’s right, the word usually evokes the idea of crochet
cushion covers or hand-sewn quilts, rather than elevated
elegance. “But it is something through which you can tell the
history of time, and there’s a tactile quality to it, which is a
good bridge between contemporary art and fashion... What
I’m trying to do at Loewe is create a modern movement that
surrounds the idea of the art of making.”
As creative
director, Jonathan
Anderson has
renewed Loewe’s
cultural clout via
the celebration
of craft in all
its forms. Olivia
Singer meets the
designer, while
Kendall Jenner
models his latest
capsule collection
for the house.
Photographs
by Alasdair
McLellan. Styling
by Kate Phelan 250 >246“AN ODD
TYPE
OF
FANTASY”
12-19-WELL-Loewe.indd 246 14/10/2019 12:28