Everything
Light denim, shorts, tanks and t-shirts – for a collection coming in Fall Winter, Loewe has taken a decidedly sunny and summery route to their latest runway show.
But in the metaverse – a place that Loewe’s creative director Jonathan Anderson seems determined to expose and explore – summer and winter are just codes and the body is the only constant.
The metaverse – the world of NFTs, crypto, avatars – can give rise to numerous internal responses.
Anderson’s personal take seems to be an ironic one. What’s real if nothing is?
As if to punctuate an argument against this subculture of digital existence, everyday scenarios and mundane items are given new status as adornment and embellishment. It’s as though Anderson wants to pull us back into the everyday world, to find the fascinating in the familiar.
Kitchen sinks, T-shirts with prints so they’re only visible inside out and hoops and wires disfigure the simplicity of tank tops and shorts. If you’ve ever had your pockets caught on a door handle, you can appreciate the jarring sense of styling.
But it also resembled the static dynamism of the Italian Futurist artists and their obsession with constantly moving forward.
If this was a deliberate double entendre, Anderson doesn’t mention it.
What he does talk directly to is the uncanny in fashion.
Anderson flips the familiar on its head and repurposes their shape to accommodate a new purpose. To reference the world of art once more, this time it is in the footsteps of the Surrealists.
Footwear that looked like bags. Some cleverly bedazzled shorts that look like they’ve spent a night out in the rain. LED lights hidden below the fabric so it looks like the body itself is glowing.
Anderson’s talent however lies in ensuring that, for all this, the collection for the most part is entirely wearable and retains a casual air to it that feels almost resort-like.
Which of course makes this collection perfect for an Australian winter.
