t’s almost a year since Jonathan Anderson gave us the first glimpse of
Loewe’s future under his direction: a shift from evening to day, from
baroque castle to the beach, with an informal wardrobe where ease is
everything, inspired by the designer’s childhood holidays on the
island of Ibiza. His inaugural presentation as the new creative director
of the Spanish luxury leather brand was a men’s collection unveiled in
Paris last June. And given the enthusiastic and near universal approval
that greeted it, a less diligent designer might have allowed himself at least a day
off to recover and bask in the glory. But not Jonathan Anderson. The very next
morning he was hard at work on his first women’s collection for Loewe, pacing
around the garden of the UNESCO headquarters in Paris, which would play
host to the show some three months later. “I had already moved on,” says
Anderson, “because it’s womenswear that people see as the real test.”
Anderson was only too aware that he was still on probation. Only 29 at the
time, he was a young designer entrusted with one of LVMH’s oldest brands,
a 169-year-old Spanish institution beloved of its royal family. What’s more, his
own label, J.W. Anderson, which he set up in 2007 and was menswear-only for
its first three years, has a reputation for revelling in unorthodoxy, particularly
when it comes to disregarding gender conventions. As he cheerily points out
himself, Anderson was hardly the most obvious candidate when LoeweWith HIS YOUTHFUL bravado,
wunderkind Jonathan Anderson
is injecting a NEW SPIRIT
into heritage label Loewe.
By Murray Healy.You ng
I
▲blood
Jonathan
Anderson170 – MAY 2015