“Fashion that entices a reaction, stripped bare to a crude primitiveness with the thrill of kink,” a press release introduces the Loewe FW22 collection. While the collection is a ready-to-wear one, it’s…not quite ready to wear, with the resultant effect more akin to an elementary school project. Doing away with the wearability-oriented approach of FW22 collections like Saint Laurent and Prada, Loewe FW22 instead opts for a surrealist and somewhat nonsensical take. After all, when the world is somewhat unfathomable, why shouldn’t fashion follow suit?
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Striding down a runway clad entirely in brown carpet “inspired by sake bags and recalling soil” and lined with giant pumpkins, models wore garments like cap-sleeved sheath dresses in neutral-toned leather; sleeveless dresses with a toy car stuck in the hem; several nipple-bearing tops; cherry red stilettos encased within a sheer draped dress; a dress with illustrated hands hugging the model inside it; and jersey column dresses adorned with shrunken balloons. Balloons were a recurring theme, also appearing stuffed between shoe straps and blown up as bralettes.
“I wanted something primal,” Loewe creative director Jonathan Anderson told WWD, before noting that he “pushing a silhouette toward something that can be nonsensical, things that can be irrational.” While Anderson succeeded in pushing Loewe FW22 into surrealist territory, where is falters is in desirability. Though some of the voluminous bomber jackets and denim sneakers introduced are likely to drive sales, will women really opt to don car dresses or gowns with oversized lips across the chest when they could enact a surrealist fantasy courtesy of the rib dresses, golden lungs, or golden rose breastplates at Daniel Roseberry’s Schiaparelli? Impossible to say.
Words by Theo Rosen
