Loewe’s autumn/winter 2023 menswear collection saw creative director Jonathan Anderson taking on a reductionist approach to fashion—distilling silhouettes to their simplest forms, but not in execution. For the follow-up womenswear collection, the same theme was applied with different approaches.
Dresses were essentially simple and plain satin shift dresses—constructed with nary a shaping dart in sight—but printed with a blurred out image of other dresses. These were akin to impressions, shadows of memories if you will, that Anderson would like to stress about fashion: rather than being about the moment, it’s about the later; about focusing what’s unclear now. This trope was repeated towards the end of the line-up as “coats” as well—printed on blank satin “outerwear” as a trench coat or a faux fur coat.
Materiality remained the focus throughout, heightened by the level of craftsmanship that Anderson is known to favour. Feathers decorated simple shapes and almost enveloped the body as though part of the skin; cashmere knit cardigans were lengthened and draped beautifully as though they were dresses; and suede was brushed for a textural treatment on outerwear and footwear.
Silks were simply divine as they captured light in stunning ways. As dresses, a number were simply affixed with a gold pearl right at the bust, giving off a surreal effect as though it was magically floating in mid-air. A similar gesture was seen on silk shirt dresses that were held up on one side by a bag chain strap, effectively creating a handkerchief hem. At the collection’s most extreme of reductions, look 26 appeared to be a swathe of fabric held in place by the model’s hand while every movement caused the fabric to gleam.
At the heart of it, Loewe is a leather house. Anderson amplified Loewe’s leather know-how with arguably the collection’s most impressive technique. Seen on looks 37 to 40 were a series of leather garments moulded and crafted in literally seamless ways. Cropped tops, a skirt as well as a dress displayed the level of leather craftsmanship that Loewe’s known for—from afar, they appeared like any other sewn garment but to achieve the specific shape is in short, remarkably impressive.
Personally, the new Squeeze bag that was introduced in this autumn/winter 2023 womenswear collection is one of Loewe’s better additions. The shoulder bag was crafted from buttery leather (evident from the shape and folds alone) with a squishy handle and topped with donut-shaped chain hardware that’s a stunning contrast to the rest of the bag. I’m calling it now that it’ll be the bag to watch out for when the season rolls in.
View the full Loewe autumn/winter 2023 womenswear collection in the gallery below.
