LOEWE WOMEN’S FALL WINTER 2018
Inside the Maison de l’UNESCO in Paris, the LOEWE show space is populated by the Neo-Dada sculptures of Japanese artist Tetsumi Kudo (1935 – 1990) alongside furnishings and an important replace designed by E.W. Godwin (1833 – 1886). Though a seemingly incongruous pairing, Godwin’s contribution to the Arts & Crafts tradition was heavily in uenced by Victorian Japonisme, forming a sober complement to Kudo’s grotesque Post-Human microcosms.
Questioning the facade of the introvert, the LOEWE Women’s Fall Winter 2018 collection designed by creative director Jonathan Anderson inhabits a pensive space where the organic meets the industrial. Disrupted by decadent moments of primitivism, austerity reigns – as shapes nod to the mid-century shifted through a contemporary lens.
Embracing LOEWE tradition, leather is worked as both surface and adornment. Smooth topstitched calfskin imposes structure on cotton plissé dresses, is spliced through lace, or falls in vertical panels down soft smocks and trousers. Flared coats and capes create ample volume in at gabardine, plush shearling, or raw-cut optical jacquard.
Deconstructing notions of tailoring, the pant suit is rendered uid in wool jersey, silk jacquard, and eld checks with sack pockets or a kimono sleeve. Shirt collars and hems extend in curved arcs, and a blazer is wrapped as a bow. In erogenous twists, multi-yarn wraps slice column dresses or fuse disparate textiles as a single garment. The graphic touch of polka dot and hound’s tooth joins lingerie as romantic textural abstraction.
In a LOEWE take on the traditional saddle bag, the knotted ‘Gate’ bag returns for Fall Winter 2018 re-imagined in burnished box calfskin, paneled in hound’s tooth wool. It is updated in a miniature style and an exotic top-handled tote.
Guests at the Fall Winter 2018 Women’s show each receive one of ve hardcover novels of classic literature published by LOEWE, rst seen in the Fall Winter 2018 Men’s and Women’s campaign photographed by Steven Meisel featuring Josh O’Connor, Stella Tennant, and Elise Crombez. The series includes Madame Bovary by Gustave Flaubert (1856), Wuthering Heights by Emily Brönte (1847), Dracula by Bram Stoker (1897), Heart of Darkness by Joseph Conran (1899), and Don Quijote by Miguel de Cervantes (1605-15).
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