If fashion is wearable art, then Jonathan Anderson’s spring/summer 2022 collection for Loewe has just birthed a new Renaissance.

Streamed live from Paris, the much-awaited show—Anderson himself has been teasing it on Instagram in recent weeks, posting detail shots of high-heeled shoes with egg yolks, roses or nail polish bottles at the end of each heel, giving the surreal appearance of being crushed—tethers the cool, funky and playful side of Loewe with the unadulterated craftsmanship and experimentation of Anderson, a perfect duo for contemporary exploration.

Basics are restructured, built upon, made from something simple into something extraordinary. In a 53-look collection that is all about architecture and structure, we get what is perhaps a glimpse into what the closet staples in the year Y3K might look like: classic motifs, entirely deconstructed and reconstructed.

The looks of Loewe speak for themselves; that’s why, with a simple rectangular room made of light wood as the runway, sans smoke and mirrors, every look is still jaw-dropping, building upon the previous just when you thought it couldn’t get any better. The first trio of looks reinterpret the classic black maxi dress and make it ultra-sleek and modern, adding boxy, architectural waists for a cubic, not curvy, silhouette. The maxi dress is a star player in the collection, sometimes taking on a pastel, watercolor-esque print, sometimes with bell sleeves and a turtleneck, fitted with a clear, exposing panel at the torso.

 

 

Torso panels dot several looks of Loewe, and complete some of Anderson’s strongest looks, like the metallic gold breastplate resting atop a black maxi dress, or any number of coat dresses boasting his familiarity with the fashion game.

Jonathan Anderson is a designer who knows clothes, understands how they move, how they interact with their surroundings, at an essentially deep level, and this has never been more evident than in Loewe SS22; the creative director is able to manipulate garments—not fabrics, but fully structured garments—into becoming different things with different functions, while still retaining their original forms. This is seen in the most elaborate experimentation in the collection: a series of backwards coats and jackets, turned into maxi and mini dresses, completed with a shimmering metallic breastplate to add structure. A backwards trench coat becomes a long dress, and an oversized denim jacket becomes a short one; the back panels of each are now torsos to the dresses, under Anderson’s vision, and the new tailoring is hid so well that you worry the coats are tied behind the models’ backs by their sleeves, prone to slipping to the floor at any moment.

 

 

But the dress never falls, and the Loewe show goes on. An emphasis on remaking what has already been done into something that hasn’t been done has held a spark in nearly every SS22 show of the season, but few achieve it so wholly as Loewe. Plays with fabrics, textures and shapes make each look more interesting than the last; there is the white puff shoulder cape paired with a blue crop top and nude leggings with the same blue detailing around exposed kneecaps; there is the purple slip dress playing with sequins, cut with a hole, not slit, for the leg to peer out of; and there are the flowy, soft fabrics comprising dresses and headscarves, exposing the versatility of Anderson and Loewe, a modern uniform crafted for a future of intricate basics.

If the future of fashion is anything, it’s got to be Loewe.

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Originally posted from “V Magazine” by Trishna Rikhy