Jonathan Anderson’s LOEWE is top billing at Paris Fashion Week, and Spring/Summer 2024 was no exception. Bringing Kris Jenner, Troye Sivan, Charli XCX, the Japanese fashion influencer double act AMIAYA, Griff, Kit Connor, the Chinese actress Yang Mi (who is also the new LOEWE Global Ambassador) and countless other celebrities to a Parisian chateau’s grounds, in which a white LOEWE box loomed, this was yet another spectacle of a show. Anderson brings it to us every season, continuously upping the ante despite it feeling like there’s no way he can better himself. But he does.
For Fall/Winter 2023, LOEWE’s womenswear played on the theme of deception. White duchess satin was used to create dresses that were covered in blurred-out prints derived from the past, such as a floral motif, or a fox fur coat. The subversion elevated these antiquated tropes into a contemporary sphere, and it’s something Anderson does every single time he shows. His SS24 menswear, for example, completely altered what we thought of traditions. Here, we found jeans pushed way past a high waist, crystal-encrusted tops that folded like the House’s Puzzle bag, and impossibly narrow silhouettes that deceived the eye.
Anderson sets himself a tall order to follow. How does the official hottest brand in the world continue to reign supreme? With its SS24 womenswear collection, of course.
The showcase kicked off with a typical Anderson statement of reduction, where dresses were knitted with a loose gauge and fastened with beaten gold buttons, blown up to playful proportions. The aforementioned menswear silhouette of high, high trousers and a cropped shirt influenced a clean white womenswear number, as well as a gorgeous pair of velvet corduroy brown trousers, also used to hold a cropped shirt in place.
LOEWE is a brand that knows how to make mundane clothing spectacular, and the spectacular clothing, astonishing. For example, leather shorts were pinned with a sewing needle crafted in gold-toned metal, artistically holding the pleats in place. On the other hand, two tops were created from crystal-encrusted flowers, hanging together like one sculptural piece.
A million pleats creased and billowed alongside the models’ movement on classic wrap dresses, while skirts – like one found in white – used asymmetry to create pleats that fell like an accordion down one side of the leg.
Those mens’ cropped, skinny blazers with awkwardly-placed arm pockets made a women’s debut, as did three-dimensional knitwear that created toy-like bulbous shapes up top. It was all contrasted with molten metal jewellery, more often than not also studded in glistening gems.
And it was this contrast between the wearable and the extreme, and finding that perfect harmony that allows the extreme to be wearable and and the wearables to be extreme in their own right, that made LOEWE SS24 yet another home run for Anderson.
Blazers had the perfect shoulder to length ratio – wide up top, narrowing quickly to the waist. It creates a dramatic silhouette, something that was echoed by equally impactful knitwear, or reductive ensembles in off white that relied on House cues like knots on the shoulders.
Anderson is a master of proportioning. Things that aren’t usually massive, like a ring, were huge. There’s wide jeans, and then there’s LOEWE’s wide jeans. Cardigans were so comfortable, despite the asymmetry, you just wanted to wrap yourself up inside it. But then, in true whiplash fashion, Anderson presented silk dresses that effortlessly flowed down the runway, topping the chest with a pin-punched square.
All the while, a soundtrack that listed off everything from My Little Pony to Liza Minelli played in the background alongside a dreamhouse mix. It was so otherworldly, that it felt somewhat normal. And this is Anderson through and through: quite the genius of making the alternative the new norm, and vice versa.
Take a look at LOEWE SS24 by Jonathan Anderson here. More Paris Fashion Week SS24 content can be found on Culted, Instagram, and TikTok.
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