Loewe’s latest menswear show was a meditation of the cult of the celebrity, the levelling effect of the worldwide web and a brilliant collab’ with LA-based artist Richard Hawkins.
Whose set looked like a cathedral of celebrities, built inside the Garde Républicaine barracks near the Seine. A large white space with a series of huge gothic windows, inside of which were multi-media art installations, that blended Renaissance religious painting, saintly icons, gay soft porn and appearances by ambassadors of Loewe.
Often the brand’s fans – from Jamie Dornan to Josh O’Connor – frequently shot themselves, as if after waking up.
“Now that media has become 360, what does that mean for fashion’s future. I like the idea of iconography – using phones to take pictures to validate yourself,” opined Loewe creative director Jonathan Anderson, in the midst of a maul of iPhone wielding fashion critics.
“I think that the Internet has erased borders… So, I don’t think there are fashion movements anymore, more subcultures online,” explained Anderson.
Anderson had telegraphed his intentions with the invitation – a table cloth-sized canvas collage painting by Hawkins of the very characters and hues seen in the show’s grand altarpiece and mock stain glass windows.
Anderson sending out the collages in jogging pants; floor-sweeping cassocks; chenille dressing gowns and sweatshirts; and totes or weekender bags from which sprouted orange and blue horsehair.
Like the opening cabans finished with an artist’s scarf and shown with just sneakers and bare legs; and made in lime green or bright orange.
He mixed up bright check gingham shirts worn over giant cargo pants. Loewe’s signature raw suede was also used to great effect in tinted beige and tobacco coats, like the one worn by Italian filmmaker Luca Guadagnino at the show. Before ending with hyper deconstructed coats – mixing elements of trench, spy and cabans.
In a very cool front row, Nicholas Hoult joined Zayn Malik, underneath the mock windows – blends of the sacred and profane, kitsch with kink.
A soundtrack, that decidedly American Guns N’ Roses classic anthem ‘Wanted Dead or Alive’ blaring out of the speakers, following the theme music to ‘The Magnificent Seven’. Though also a show that began with a celebrity TV recording talking about Sean Penn.
“Richard Hawkins is a painter that I love, and we began by discussing videos that he put on Instagram,” noted Anderson. An idea that ended with Hawkins incorporating Loewe windows from the 1920’s into the celebrating cathedral. Into which a squad of young celebrities took their pews.
“I love Richard’s sense of humor in his work like putting Justin Bieber and then Van Dyck in the top-level corner of these paintings. Everything is a collage of media, and the goal of fashion is to predict the future, but also reinterpreting norms using trickery,” concluded Anderson, after the most thought-provoking show of the 13-day international menswear season, staged on its penultimate morning.
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