Loewe Fall Winter 2022-2023 Men. Review by Eleonora de Gray, Editor-in-Chief of RUNWAY MAGAZINE.
Make it Life, Make it Light, Make it Laugh, Make it Loewe. This is probably the first collection ever which made me laugh to tears for quite a long time. From the quick look at it you might find it interesting, somewhat contemporary, but nothing new. So I suggest you to look CLOSER. Believe me, it’s worth it.
I didn’t have so much fun in years just discovering the details. Jonathan Anderson, young Irish designer, creative director of Loewe (menswear, accessories) and his own brand JW Anderson, brought a real Holiday cheer to this collection. He is known to the big public for cup-bags and winter sandals with huge golden chains on them.
So let’s look at the details of Loewe Fall Winter 2022-2023 Men. Menswear archetypes such as the boxer and briefs, the coat, the jean jacket are remade under a twisted new light, with provocative transparency and LED illumination. Bags take the form of capacious totes, a tall and rectangular Amazona, the Cubi embellished with void-like sinkholes. The Flamenco is reimagined as a pair of soft boots and LEDs illuminate rubber boots.
“What is real today?” – the name of the Loewe Fall Winter 2022 men’s runway show. Jonathan Anderson presented a collection defined by illusion, displacement and the backlit glare of an altered world, set against the ephemeral work of artists Joe McShea and Edgar Mosa. Staged at Tennis Club de Paris, the showspace presents a site specific installation of colourful ribbon flags on a landscape of sand by artists Joe McShea & Edgar Mosa.
With the body as a point of both arrival and departure, nothing is as it seems as archetypes of men`s dressing are put under a twisted light and another kind of reality is drawn through themes of exposure, illumination, movement and projection. An altered real world is defined in a collection proposing that nothing is as it seems. Flashes of backlit glare illuminate as we ask the question: “What is real today?” If perfection is fabricated and imperfection erased, illusion and displacement are the only coordinates.
What makes this collection so funny? Let’s start from the bags. Loewe’s main bag’s element is a sink strainer. Funny! It’s encrusted, and it’s printed on the bags. And the sink strainer is also part of 2-3 pullovers, placed exactly on the heart. Go, filter your emotions! It’s very manlike.
Filter or don’t filter – this is the question. There are bags/shoes, oysters tee-shirts – many items should be filtered. The collection looks like phishing “accident” when a fisherman or sailor fished all kids of things out of the ocean. The navy sailor shirt with the huge heart on it is telling you how big a man’s heart is, and how much he loves you, he just can’t express it. Well, there’s a HELLO belt that made some buzz, but this is not the most “must have” item this season.
Then of course many coats, shirts, shoes have LED lights in them. The men are literally lightened up. So when you see light from the sleeves or from the collar then you know when the party is starting.
Coat-shorts, naked body prints all over the rain-coats, long sleeves tee-shirts and trousers with the sink strainer as a belly button – all these extraordinary, perky, and twisted in the good way garments just scream to you about the holidays. And to finish these looks shell bags and jelly-boots.
And my favorite – the “golden butt-print”. There are 2 of them – a classic grey coat, a classic black costume. That is not in front, it’s when you look behind you see absolutely finest, golden butt-prints on them. If you were born around 1980s, give or take 10 years, then you probably know how much fun we all had when the first scanner came to the market. Almost everyone I know did it, the elegant, the snobbish – literally everyone!
So there’s it is, golden once, butt-prints on the classic coat and black very traditional costume.
And all if it is real today!
