In the church of Loewe we trust. This season, Jonathan Anderson built his own chapel lined with stained glass windows that flickered with self-shot footage of handsome Loewe ambassadors, including Jamie Dornan, Omar Apollo and Obongjayar. The designer had collaborated with American artist Richard Hawkins, whose clever paintings collage celeb elite alongside wannabe Instagram influencers and porn stars. “An algorithm of masculinity,” is how Anderson described Hawkins’s work, which not only featured throughout the collection – via intricately-beaded hoodies, trousers and floor-length dresses – but helped define Anderson’s design lexicon entirely.
“Now [our consumption] of media has become 360, what does that mean about the future of fashion and how we put clothing together?” said Anderson. He began thinking about a “forced look”; whole outfits that tell you “exactly what you’re wearing”. His cast of models, who carried the too-cool-to-care attitude of an American coming of age flick, wore jeans that came attached to socks which were conjoined to swollen sneakers. Elsewhere, leather trousers were welded with biker boots, and dress shirts and cable knit cardis became one with swollen trench coats.
Post show, Anderson spoke of how the American dream “kind of became a global dream. It’s not about countries anymore, it’s about the Internet”. He paired plaid shirts with joggers and transformed white sports socks into tights worn with shearling jackets. One coat came layered with unidentifiable Loewe garments, as if the model had just rolled out of bed wearing whatever was stuck to him, while another wore straight-leg jeans with a half-constructed belt attached. The whole thing was dizzying in its brilliance, you couldn’t help but be utterly impressed.
Photography by Christina Fragkou.
