Loewe did their thing superbly this season, with a little help from Irish designer J.W. Anderson, that’s right, London’s androgyny advocating darling of Dalston. Taking summer’s motif straight from the cutting board for his much-awaited debut, Anderson’s most attention-grabbing choice came from piecing swatches of Loewe’s finest leathers and suede together in a mess of deconstructed dresses and intricately handled tactile trend tops. I say mess because in the wrong hands it could have all gone majorly awry, but when Loewe x J.W Anderson makes a high fashion mess, it’s contained clutter with a stylistic edge.
He was not quite as adventurous when it came to the bulk of the collection though, Loewe gave him creative freedom, yes, but made sure he remained level headed, so lipstick red leather trousers wrapped with kimono belts for instance may have been lovely, but didn’t allow for any more adventure; like they need it – we like, a lot.
Their choice to stage Anderson’s entrée into Paris fashion as a grande show in the Parisian tradition worked well, especially for the sake of certain pieces, notably a Matisse cut-outs dress which adopted an artisanal aesthetic we’ve seen again and again but not at all to this high spec. Fingers crossed it’ll translate into a flattering piece beyond the catwalk, which goes for a number of articles in this collection. Overall though, Anderson’s tenure at LVMH’s Madridian trophy brand has got off to a stellar start, it may have been relatively unexpected when the brand announced he would be taking the reins, but now we can see that what they were expecting has come through.
by Liam Feltham
Images courtesy of Style.com