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Jonathan Anderson has been winding the clock of his wit, and it struck loudly this month in the somewhat unlikely location of the Shanghai Exhibition Centre. Loewe’s ‘Crafted World’ unites a decade of Anderson’s creations, with a particular spotlight on the many artist collaborations that have come to typify and inspire his creative direction. ‘I thought it was going to be an easy exercise. But I had forgotten some things,’ admits Jonathan, when discussing the making of his exhibition. Utterly vast, it includes over 800 individual exhibits befitting of the setting: the equally dizzying 93,000sq m Soviet-era exhibition centre, with its Empire-style Neoclassical halls and courtyards. ‘When it first arrived, and I saw it all together, it was quite amazing,’ says Jonathan. ‘I was, like, “Wow, ten years of work.”’
The impressive building, once the tallest in Shanghai, has undergone a series of interventions specifically for ‘Crafted World’ by Ellen van Loon, partner at Dutch architecture firm OMA. The exhibition will travel globally (next stop, Paris) once its public opening in Shanghai concludes later in April, with each location receiving a new Ellen-approved design. In Shanghai, a white-box space has been perforated by interesting cut-outs, revealing glimpses of the original architecture; a move that echoes themes that run throughout the exhibition (and Jonathan’s creative direction more generally): modernity meets tradition, past meets future. The exhibition architecture winks playfully at the idea of the seen and unseen, asking us to look twice and think more keenly.
The Loewe archives have been mined, revealing fascinating snippets of the fashion brand’s history. Established in Madrid in 1846 by a group of Spanish leatherworkers, the brand as we know it today was created in 1876 when Enrique Loewe joined the group. Swoon-worthy treasures from this era, like an early 20th-century leather vanity case rub up against seductive 1950s window-design watercolours by José Pérez de Rozas.
The treasure hunt continues: tiny leather elephants peek out of unusual locations throughout the exhibition, begging to be discovered and adding to the sense of whimsy. In room after room, the playfulness of Loewe’s visual language is a ‘thread’, as Jonathan puts it, that ties everything together, allowing sense to be made from the era-hopping. One moment we’re face to owlish face with a Picasso ceramic, the next, we’re shaking hands with the ‘Renaissance’-red fingernails of Beyoncé’s dazzling bodysuit. I use the phrase ‘shaking hands’ deliberately – protective glass is conspicuously absent. In the room dedicated to ‘Puzzle’ bags, visitors are encouraged to touch the supple leather, which is as buttery as a hotel brunch. Jonathan was inspired by Barbara Hepworth’s attitude to sculpture: you have to touch it to understand it. ‘The minute you put glass up it would destroy its tactility. Like a taxidermy version of a live bird, it would lose its “thingness”.’
Limiting the distance between audience and object is a metaphor for the broadness of appeal, and the enormous popularity, of Jonathan’s Loewe. He is genius at using the common linguistic device of wit, that great boundary melter, by employing it visually – and it’s working. During his tenure, Jonathan has shaken what he calls fashion’s ‘Big Bad Wolf’ image, particularly when it comes to artist collaborations. ‘In the beginning, it was very difficult to try to get artists to work with fashion brands,’ he explains. ‘There was a preconceived idea of the artist as an island. But recently, I feel confident that the artist is in a safe space, ultimately. We’ve got a team understanding that the artists comes first, but the brand and the artists can harmonise. It’s been hard to get it right, because in today’s world it can become opportunistic.’
‘When I first joined Loewe, it was all very tight. It had crippled itself somehow with the idea of being a “luxury brand”. But when I looked into the archive, and from my own experience of Spanish culture, I started to realise that there’s so much fun and lightness here. It’s very different from French or German brand character – there is a kind of ease, and huge amounts of humour. The way in which people in Spain use language, and the way they articulate through jokes is very different to, say, the way it’s used in Britain, because there’s a lightness to it.’
The honest joy Jonathan takes in collaborating can be attributed to a deep appreciation for the effect of historical references on artists through history who took fearless steps forward so that others could stand on their shoulders and progress visually. Take the 2017 William Morris x Loewe collaboration, for example, which is given its own room within the exhibition. ‘I really do believe in Morris’s philosophies,’ Jonathan explains. ‘As much as he was a traditionalist, he was a bit of a radical. Look at what came next, like Mackintosh furniture, for instance. If we hadn’t had this person thinking radically, we wouldn’t have a whole school that followed.’
Other rooms (each gifted their own space by Ellen’s punkish, maverick exhibition design) are dedicated to nine fellow aesthetic progressives and Loewe collaborators. The graphic illustrations of Ken Price are celebrated in a full-scale recreation of the master potter’s studio; the carpeted landscapes of textile artist John Allen cocoon an entire room, creating an oddly reassuring padded-cell environment; a quarry explores the ancient skill of jade carving and Loewe’s recent Lunar New Year collection; and a moving, suspended garden set inside a hall of mirrors is inspired by CFA Voysey.
‘I worship them all,’ says Jonathan. ‘For all the artists here, there’s something in their craft that becomes quite twisted. When you look at Picasso ceramics, for instance, they borderline on kitsch, but at the same time, they become characters within themselves. They’re kind of funny!’
What prevents this approach from tipping over into gimmick is the same thing that stops the exhibition feeling like selfie-stick Instagram fodder (as can so often be the case with such immersive environments). There’s a deep, pervasive quality to the work on display. Everything is full-bodied, reasoned, and as perfectly pieced together as a ‘Puzzle’ bag. As the audience emerges, blinking, into the bright courtyard, we’re met with half a dozen of Álvaro Leiro’s reinterpretations of the traditional fringed Galician raincoats woven from reeds, straw and briar, hammering home the title and key takeaway of the show, which is ultimately about handicraft and Loewe’s worshipful celebration of it.
For more about Jonathan Anderson’s design, visit loewe.com
