LOEWE’s Radical Act of Restraint

photography MOLLY LOWE

23 June 2024

Jonathan Anderson titled his summer collection for LOEWE ‘A Radical Act of Restraint’. It was a curious use of the word ‘restraint’. The show space was elemental, with ecru wooden slabs casing the floor and benches—a minimalistic installation compared to the zealous art by Richard Hawkins for Fall 2024. In the middle of the show space, Anderson (in thought; the LOEWE team in action) scattered (very skilfully) what Anderson later described as “a group of objects created by some of the most singular artistic voices of the 20^th century.” Among these objects were a copy of Susan Sontag’s seminal text Against Interpretation, now in its 60^th anniversary; Charles Rennie Mackintosh’s Half Moon Chair, one of the architect’s most complex furniture constructions inspired by traditional ladder-back chairs; Paul Thek’s bronze work The Personal Effects of the Pied Piper, comprising a collection of everyday objects cast in bronze; and Peter Hujar’s celebrated black and white photograph of a single high-heeled shoe, for which Anderson first drew his inspiration for the collection. In the show notes, Anderson writes that it is in these artists hands that “everyday objects are elevated to the extraordinary.” Worded slightly differently, it is in these objects that the restrained is made radical.

If a collection of clothes is an object of sorts, then here we have Anderson’s own interpretation of the restrained and radical. The show opened with a two-piece black silk mohair suit, the pants of which were slimmed like a cigarette and the blazer fastened with a singular button at the torso. The model’s hair was slicked back and adorned with a band of gold-leafed feathers that concealed his face. It reminded me of the noses in Martine Rose’s collection, perhaps intended to similarly draw our attention away from the wearer and towards the worn. "Forced perspective," he called it. The feathers, along with this sentiment, carried through the majority of the next 55 looks.

Throughout these looks, we witnessed Anderson at his most artful. He draped LOEWE-branded tunic tops in orange, green and white against the models’ chests, like a handkerchief or a geometric origami napkin seated on the dinner table. He gilded muscle tanks to look as if they were made with ostrich shells or opal shards, slightly shiny and super smooth. He embossed billowing brown pants with a leather-encrusted label at the hip. He used thick belts to differentiate colours and forms. He played with gingham and gold, tartan and leather, steel and denim. He warped perspectives and pushed tensions. He was radical in his will.

The restraint, then, can be found in his precision. The meticulousness he applied to the pink shirt cuffs, the sharp triangular flair of the wool coats, and the fall of the thin two-strap belts. It is in these details that we find Anderson’s magic. It is in the “mis-en-scene” (as he notes) where we discover all the bits and bobs, pulls and tucks, creases and folds that make Anderson, himself, one of the greatest artistic voices of our century.