PFW: Loewe from UNESCO to Hollywood

By

Godfrey Deeny

Published
Mar 3, 2017

Few designers throw out as many ideas as Anderson, whose latest collection for the Spanish house Loewe combined patchwork polkadot fantasy, voluminous cutting, wacky bags and classic American films.
 

Anderson stunned with mega polkadot trench-coat dresses finished with huge bows; wickedly well-cut leather double-breasted coats and drew audible gasps from the front row with an amazing leather combo – of golden beige courtier’s jacket over flared and ruffled flamenco skirt. His use of harder Spanish leather and funky rural traditions always impresses – like pairing a perforated pink rawhide skirt with a cable sweater, into which was sewn the name Loewe.
 
Five years ago, one had to practically to bribe people to attend a Loewe show, but under Anderson this Madrid-based brand has become the hottest ticket in Paris. Natalia Vodianova sat with Charlotte Rampling and Amanda Harlech in a front row that included two heirs to fashion’s greatest fortune – Alexandre and Delphine Arnault.

The Northern Irish designer has also won a legion of fans for Loewe by creating completely unexpected and faintly mad accessories. Today he even had an orange pet handbag.
 

However, at times, Anderson seems to have almost too much on his plate, between his own brand in London and dashing between Paris and Madrid to guide Loewe.
 
Moreover, the staging was truly weird. Anderson has presented all his Loewe collections inside UNESCO, generally using the famed Modernist building’s light to great effect at shows, staged promptly at 9.30am. This time, the set was a pitch black nightclub, where ushers needed torches to locate place names and guests tumbled into their seats amid an air of general confusion under a ceiling so low a tall man could touch it. Predictably, the show began a half hour late. Jonathan placed dimly-lit orchids in among the audience and hung black and white homoerotic images by photographer Lionel Wendt on the walls. And just occasionally, the clothes felt a tad too complicated by half, and the incredibly hard working Anderson seemed to lack a vital element in a designer’s arsenal: a self-editing button.
 
Adding to the sense of unease, the soundtrack varied from the car-chase music in Sunset Boulevard to portions of A Place in the Sun, which called to mind those words often attributed to Euripedes, Quos Deus vult perdere prius dementat. Meaning: Whom the gods wish to destroy they first make mad.