Loewe: Funky rave party hedonism

By

Godfrey Deeny

Published
Jun 27, 2021

Clubbing culture without any boundaries at Loewe, where the key inspiration this season were the funky naïve paintings of sexual liberation by German artist, Florian Krewer.

 
Clubbing culture from the disco-ball dresses to psychedelic bugle-bead mini-cocktails and tanks. Including the first rate, Rasta-haired, naked torso dancer who was the real star of the latest fashion flick from Loewe, Spain’s most prestigious luxury label. Even Anderson’s elephant bag for Loewe got the bugle-bead treatment.
 
His cast appearing in a four-minute video in triple-layer, acid-hued oversized basketball tanks or huge satin bow tops for models who looked mainly masculine, yet faintly genderless. Unveiled on Saturday as part of the Paris Men's Fashion Week, and available for all to see on that platform.

A show video that included abstract versions of Loewe’s soft, gothic logo seen on loosely woven knits or sheer pink chiffon tops; worn over long multi-strand skirts and great acrylic, green rope pants.
 
“Awkward beauty in a kind of optimism stage,” explained Loewe’s creative director, Jonathan Anderson in the video.  

 
The leader of the whole pandemic show-in-the-box movement, this season Anderson sent editors not one but two books; and in the process changed his pick of photographers. After working closely with Juergen Teller at his signature brand J W Anderson, he teamed up with David Sims for Loewe.
 
The result managed to be a more youthful, yet also more opulent vision by Sims, one of fashion photography’s acknowledged masters. Sims' images of cool clubbing kids in poster-bedecked basements had tremendous oomph. The cast, found in Marseille, suggested some new underground dance movement that managed to remain secret.
 
A little too much cotton ribbed pink tops perhaps, though with charming romantic graphics. And one had to love the wacky matelassé moon boots; the neon-logo trenches and matching backpacks – all in a blend of Krewer’s colours – metallic plumb or electric shamrock.
 
Plus, the designer unveiled a new material, cactus leather, which reflected light like liquid metal. 
 
“I wanted something where we were not getting locked into a universal gender boundary,” explained Anderson in his latest video tutorial.
 
And he did, in a video, box a collection that registered saturated colour hedonism.