In a season where most designers have been exploring the idea of pragmatism — real clothes for real life — along comes Jonathan Anderson to subvert the status quo. It was the word he used to describe his show, held in the courtyard of the Château de Vincennes on the outskirts of Paris, where a vast Loewe-branded grey box had been constructed and filled with metal works by American sculptor Lynda Benglis. “A stringent proposal of daywear,” Jonathan described the collection as. “A pragmatic one.”
The third look set the tone for the show: elongated wide-leg trousers and jeans which sat ultra-high on the waist, right up to the ribs, worn with a tucked-in shirt, chunky sandals, and the new Squeeze bag slung over the shoulder. It was a silhouette that defined Loewe’s menswear show in June, designed to give the appearance that you were looking upwards at the model through a fish-eye lens. Here it was again, except this time in high-rise jeans and suede trousers, with preppy shirts, cardigans, zip-up sweaters, crisp t-shirts, and rugby tops. Jonathan said he’s previously “had a tendency of running away from silhouette. This time, it was quite nice to explore it further – it was a newer process for me.”
“A high-waisted trouser does something sensual to the body, but at the same time it looks very civilised,” he said of his subverted-prep look, a slightly off-kilter take on universal codes of Sloaney/BCBG/WASP-y style. “I love it when something is familiar but slightly unhinged,” he said. “How do you twist something so it’s ‘oh, yes—I recognise the oxford shirt and white pair of jeans,’ but then it’s off in a weird way? There’s a subversiveness to it. But it’s very civilised.”
The result was a sartorial New Normal that was basic, but not boring. You got the sense that instead of continuing the bombastic surrealism that defined his post-pandemic collections, Jonathan has detoured to more nuanced ways of deceiving the eye — playing with the items right under our noses by taking familiar uniforms and re-shaping them into something new, strange, seductive. Slim, super-sheer polo shirts, later elongated into dresses, traced the line of the body and exposed skin beneath. A classic V-neck sweater was worn with a prim button-down blouse and frilled skirt; but in another look, it was blown up into an enormous size, making it slip languidly off the shoulders. There was a tension between restraint and release which ran throughout the collection: ‘A reflection on being uptight, and the sensuality that breaks it all down,’ Jonathan purred.
‘There’s a subversiveness to this collection: when you look at it it’s very civilised, and [then] suddenly there’s a sexual seduction,’ he continued. ‘Which for me was like Lynda’s work. You approach the sculpture, you read the title, and then you’re like… ah.’ In fact, the sculptures by Benglis became an apt metaphor: the large twisting forms, in metallic gold and silver, were cast from manipulated pieces of clay moulded by the artist’s hands. For the show, the designer collaborated with Benglis on jewellery, including a series of dramatic cuffs which provided miniature, wearable versions of the sculptures in the room. ‘She doesn’t need to use words, she’s using something which is physical,’ he said. ‘There’s something of her that I see in this collection – the attitude, the confidence.’
Jonathan has been in the job for a decade, which has allowed him time to get into his groove and develop a solid roster of bestselling house classics that provide a safety net for experimentation on the catwalk. And unlike other LVMH fashion houses, Loewe doesn’t come with the burdensome weight of a couture heritage or iconoclastic look, which also allows him agility in his frenetic search for new silhouettes and innovation.
“I’ve been here for 10 years, so it takes a super long time, but I feel like I’m at a point where I understand the attitude of the brand: the clothing, the woman, the man, the bag,” said Jonathan. “You see that there’s something happening; that the look is becoming definitive.” He’s right: constant experimentation and a devotion to craft have put Loewe in a league of its own.
