Last week, Celine opened the doors to Hedi Slimane’s first London store on Old Bond Street. This week, it’s Jonathan Anderson’s turn to welcome Mayfair’s luxury lovers into his souped-up Loewe flagship. After outgrowing its Mount Street premises, the brand has set up shop in a Grade II listed building at 41-42 New Bond Street. While Slimane’s retail concept centres around brutalist architecture, Anderson’s proposition is craft. Casa Loewe is designed to mimic the home of a collector.
“I’ve always wanted to create a cultural space where art, fashion, craft and experience can meet,” Anderson tells Vogue ahead of cutting the ribbon at a cocktail party on April 25. “As much as we live in the digital world, clothing needs to be able to exist inside a space for people to understand its emotional personality.”
Anderson introduced the “casa” or “home” theme almost six years ago when he joined the Spanish house. The illusive collector figure is an extension of himself. “I want people to be able to come in and understand me and my creative vision, because it is something that I have worked tirelessly to do,” he explains. “The shop should feel warm and domestic, because fashion exists in the domestic environment – and this can be conceptual.”
Housed within the three capacious floors, interconnected by a cylindrical lift and curved “floating” staircase, are a series of installations, which will rotate in line with the collections on sale. Fourteen artists, including Ernst Gamperl, winner of the 2017 Loewe Foundation Craft Prize, and Anthea Hamilton, a longstanding Loewe collaborator, kick off proceedings. “A collectible is something that makes you happy,” states Anderson of his criteria when selecting the sculpture, furniture, art and photography that “co-exist naturally”. His favourites? An “amazing piece” by Magali Reus called Leaves (Shell Drake, November) – “it is based on a padlock I have always been obsessed by” – Alvaro Barrington’s Been Around The World -2 – “he is one of the most incredible young painters” – William Turnbull’s Idol 1/4 – “it’s very important and we’re lucky to have it” – and some equally “amazing” ceramics by Sarah Flynn.
Craft is not only a passion – “I am obsessed with what people make with their hands” – it’s essential to the brand’s success under Anderson’s leadership. “It’s probably the most personal part of the rebranding for me, as ultimately it stems from my own desire,” he says. What a desirable home Anderson, the collector and London-based creative who is determined to inject the sensibility of his home city to the heritage label, is inviting us into.
