Loewe

Jonathan Anderson started his tenure at Loewe in June 2014 with a static exhibition of his first menswear collection in the company’s Paris headquarters at Saint Sulpice. At the age of 30 he was already showing signs of placing the Spanish leather brand in a wider context, displaying his work as artifacts, giving a sense of how they were made; throwing in a reference to his boyhood love of Meccano; making people smile. So today there was a feeling of something coming full circle when the Loewe women’s and men’s collections were presented in another, way grander exhibition over multiple rooms of a Hotel Particulier on Rue de L’Université.

If not exactly a retrospective, it was a rounding-up of everything Anderson has done to continuously stretch the boundaries of Loewe as a cultural brand while honoring its artisanal leather skills, and exerting the full raft of his playful, intellectual and queer-lens creative instincts. And thereby, to take a leadership position in shifting the zeitgeist of luxury fashion as a medium for doing stuff that seems nutty, nonsensical in the moment, makes genuine connections with contemporary and mid-20th century art and artists, gets talked about throughout the internet, and is simultaneously grounded in a world of desirable, wearable products.

Anderson wasn’t on hand to talk through the Loewe mis-en-scene. A company spokesperson said that he’d checked through everything on site the day before (though no announcement has been issued about his current or future employment). But if the Loewe show was sorely missed in Paris this season, the lasting impression of walking through this exhibition was of just how much fun Anderson has had—and how much seeing his work acts as a pure endorphin injection.

As you walked in, cartoon-y characters blown up from Loewe trinkets were sliding down the banisters, while a giant leather pumpkin by Anthea Hamilton (who collaborated with Anderson in 2022) squatted in the foyer. On the womenswear floor, clusters of mannequins displayed the latest suspended, draped evening dresses, paired with ridiculously elongated men’s leather dress shoes. A wunderkammer of footwear held a delightful pair of crystallized jelly shoes, the commonplace but affectionately remembered sandals every British child wore to the beach once upon a time. Gold-wire pendants in the dinky shapes of a bee and perhaps a donkey were glimpsed in cabinets.

In other corners, there were reminders of how Anderson can make a thing out of exaggerating and fetishizing utility kit—leather waders—while styling them with the sort of perfectly cut Loewe trouser suits and shirts you find merchandized in their stores. Long ago, Anderson asserted the idea that inspiration can come from anything and be shown apparently randomly, just as long as this artwear—whatever you call it—is beautifully made, innovating technique.

There were groups showing the conceptual things Loewe does with leather—a moment for coats, biker jackets and bombers vertically slashed in a way that made you think ‘medieval.’ Further rooms were devoted to the Loewe Spanish leather-working ateliers, their tools, the fine skins they use, and the intricate pattern geometry that goes into the making of the wildly successful Puzzle Bag.

Art pieces were scattered around, most of them acquired by Loewe on Anderson’s advice. His habit of exhibiting contemporary art as part of his shows led to purchases which have helped boost the careers of artists, many of them female. One of them was Rachel Harrison, whose chunk of polystyrene with a teetering typewriter on top, made in 2011, is entitled “Portrait of an Artist as a Young Man.”

Anderson’s elevation of the status of craft is one of his most influential achievements. In fashion, nobody ever mentioned the word before he came along—indeed, it was snobbily shied away from, actively dispensed with in the era of globalization and the massification of ‘luxury.’

The fact that the Josef and Anni Albers Foundation in Connecticut agreed to a collaboration with Loewe is testament to the esteem this fashion house is held in as a serious proponent of arts and crafts. Anni Albers, an experimental weaver, fought all her life to have her compositions of texture and color taken as seriously as her husband’s abstract paintings. Multi-colored flecked woven cocoon coats, and bags hand-embroidered with pompoms reproduced by Loewe’s artisans will be available in flagship stores.

The upshot: this was an exhibition, beyond just a myriad of product, with all sorts of depths and insights you never get to see or understand on a runway. Anderson has created a joyfully uplifting legacy here.