My introduction to Loewe was back in the early 2010s. Stuart Vevers was the creative director then and the Spanish brand was more about its bags and accessories than anything else—you could say that it was a relatively niche luxury offering.
I was taken by the brand’s Amazona bag. Being on the cusp of adulthood, I was in the early stages of discovering fashion and luxury brands. And for some reason, while walking past a Loewe boutique, the sand-coloured, suede exterior of the weekender-style bag caught my eye. It wasn’t exceptionally extravagant by any means—designed with a simple panelled construction, trimmed with dark brown leather at the seams and corners, and finished with a top handle and clochette. The branding, one of the earlier iterations of the Anagram logo, was front and centre but still rather discreet owed to it not being as well-known as a Louis Vuitton or Fendi logo.
That particular version of the Amazona bag imprinted on me Loewe’s standing as a luxury brand. As I dug further into the brand’s history, I discovered Loewe’s rather extensive vocabulary of vibrant prints that reflect its Spanish roots. Yet despite all the flourishes, the designs are founded on an intentional, sculptural idea of fashion that while rather minimalist in execution like the Amazona, never felt old.
When Jonathan Anderson was appointed the new creative director in September 2013, it was on the heels of his Autumn/Winter 2013 showing of his own JW Anderson label. Five-years- young at the time, JW Anderson became Anderson’s way of experimenting with outré ideas of dress that continuously straddled the lines between traditional notions of masculinity and femininity as well as a hybridisation of the casual and formal. As experimental as they were most times, JW Anderson pieces were deftly designed to also be wearable for daily life—a commercial viability that no doubt interested LVMH. Prior to handing Anderson the keys to Loewe, LVMH invested a minority stake in JW Anderson. The rest, as they say, became history. And historic it surely was.
“I knew straight away that [M/M (Paris)] should be involved. We’d been in conversations before,” Anderson told System in 2015. Anderson knew very well that a brand isn’t merely about its product but also about the content and its accompanying visual identity. His interests in art and design beyond the realm of fashion meant that he understood how they connected to each other and to culture. Creative duo M/M (Paris) helped build the visual language, stripping and at once reimagining Loewe for a new era with a more simplified Anagram logo, cleaner packaging that on its own felt like boxes and collateral you’d want to keep, and references that positioned Loewe as more than a luxury brand.
Breaking away from the typical modus operandi of showing a collection and then waiting a few more months to shoot and release its accompanying campaign, Anderson released the campaign imagery to his first Spring/Summer 2015 menswear collection before even showing said collection. And even more surprisingly, he readily opened up the references for this new Loewe—images by Steven Meisel shot in 1997—for the world to witness. It was disruptive and almost unnatural but spoke to the increasingly fast-paced and evolving nature of fashion where everyone wanted to know and not necessarily wait.
In 2015, Anderson’s first menswear and womenswear collections finally materialised in a press preview in Singapore. It was officially my first full-time editorial position in a men’s lifestyle publication as a fashion assistant and I was privileged enough to witness the collection up close. It was a simple affair in the brand’s then-dark wood-heavy boutique in The Shoppes at Marina Bay Sands. While most fashion media were enamoured by Anderson’s very first icon for Loewe—the Puzzle bag—I gravitated towards the Flamenco. It wasn’t given as much push as the Puzzle, perhaps because it’s not an entirely Anderson- initiated design. The Flamenco was originally released in the ’70s around the same time as the Amazona, and had seen a few revivals including by Vevers. Anderson supersized the drawstring closure of the original and made the knots at both ends of the opening into the distinctive element of his reimagined Flamenco. I saved up, and on a trip to Paris, I purchased my first Loewe by Jonathan Anderson piece.
That first purchase turned into many more. My second Loewe bag is the Hammock in a classic Loewe tan purchased in 2016, followed by an Anagram pouch, then a mini Gate pouch, before I bought another Flamenco in a clutch version, and more, with some ready-to-wear pieces in between. You get the idea; I was hooked.
Loewe may not have been built by Anderson but it was revived. At a time where fashion houses felt the need to be as radical—this was around the same time as Gucci’s phenomenal aesthetic boom by Alessandro Michele—Anderson’s quick evolution of Loewe hardly felt rushed. Or forced. In 2016, he launched his first fragrance for the brand, the Loewe 001. Although it’s split into man and woman variations, the fragrance was conceptualised to also be layered together to result in a made-for-each-other blend as an interpretation of the intimacy of the morning after. The man knew how to sell a concept.
Then, in the middle of the Covid pandemic in 2020, he launched the brand’s first line of home fragrances comprising scented candles and room sprays themed around vegetal ingredients of a fresh garden. Whether it was purposefully released when we’re forced to be nowhere else but home, or if it was a convenient happenstance years in the making, there’s no denying the impact it had for a brand that still had room to evolve and grow. The execution was on-brand and artful too. The ceramic candle holders were exceptionally crafted and became decorative and functional vessels forthe home once the wax burnt off.
Intentional—that very first impression I had of Loewe pre-Anderson stuck and permeated every facet of his vision of Loewe. More than a creative director, Anderson was a world-builder at Loewe, intentionally linking up bags and accessories to ready-to-wear to fragrances to designs for the home to promoting and uplifting artists though the Loewe Craft Prize. To Anderson, just as he believes that these interests of his are interconnected, so do the pillars in the world that he was building.
Needless to say, for any of us who have grown with Loewe under Anderson’s creative leadership, his decision to part ways with the brand is an emotional loss. It’s not too out of reach to say that Anderson is one of those once-in-a-lifetime talents whose artistic genius are seemingly never-ending. Lest any of us forget, Anderson still found time to have a hand in conceptualising collaborative collections with brands such as Uniqlo and On, created custom outfits for celebrities that have left marks in pop culture history, and designed costume for Challengers and Queer—all while juggling his two main roles. He’s the Karl Largerfeld, the Azzedine Alaïa, the Gianni Versace of our generation.
“They say all good things must to come to an end, but I disagree. While my own chapter draws to a close, Loewe’s story will continue for many years to come and I will look on with pride,” Anderson ends his farewell post on his personal Instagram. While he affirms that Loewe shouldn’t be tied to a single person’s influence, it’s difficult to separate the man from the world he’s built at a once sleepy brand.
It's been officially announced that Anderson will be heading to Dior Men next, a move within the LVMH fold, with his first showing coming up quickly during Paris Fashion Week Men's in June. Till then, I’ll be holding on a bit tighter to my Loewe by Jonathan Anderson pieces, reminiscing my relationship with the brand and the memories that all these different pieces have afforded me. What a legacy, indeed.
