Sound like a fashion expert. Learn how to say Loewe

Learning the correct pronunciation of Loewe only became a priority recently. The Spanish label has been a stealth brand for most of its 175 years but frenetically beeped onto the fashion radar with the appointment of its creative director Jonathan Anderson.

Balloon high heels coveted by influencers, the glitter shirt worn by Heartstopper heartthrob Kit Connor two weeks ago in London and Rihanna’s firetruck red jumpsuit from her Super Bowl half-time show are all material motivation to practise saying Lo-WEH-vay.

The Loewe spring 2024 ready to wear collection by Jonathan Anderson, shown at Paris Fashion Week.Credit: Getty

Add to that the high-waisted trousers, chunky knit capes and preppy basics splashed with surrealist details seen on the Paris runway this week and its worth wrapping your tongue around the German name of the Spanish brand’s founder.

“I’m really just looking for things that excite me – it could be anything from a table, or a person, or a piece of art,” Anderson wrote by email, before his Paris Fashion Week show. “Each project has its own voice. They’re all a different avenue for my brain.”

There are plenty of voices in fashion but getting people to listen is a problem. Since launching his own label in 2008 JW Anderson, with a simple name to wrap your tongue around, the Northern Irishman has been a valued contributor to the fashion cacophony.

Anderson’s message of contemporary craftsmanship rose above the din in 2013 when executives from the luxury conglomerate LVMH hired him to run Loewe, which it fully acquired in 1996.

‘Heartstopper’ actor Kit Connor in Loewe at Vogue World, London, September 14; Loewe’s imitation balloon heels on the street at Paris Fashion Week; Rihanna performing at the US Super Bowl halftime show, February 12. Credit: Getty

“When I joined Loewe, I spent a year researching the brand before releasing anything and was drawn to the history of craftsmanship in the brand, particularly when I visited the leather goods atelier in Madrid,” he says.

That craftsmanship can be found in the top-selling puzzle bags carried by Beyoncé, Sienna Miller and Jennifer Lawrence but reached its zenith with the Anthurium dress, created from a single piece of leather for a seamless result.

“Each year we try to reflect back onto craft itself. For me and the team, it’s instinctive to find new avenues to build on what we have already done or to explore techniques that are new to us.”

“It’s important to offer choice.”

Those choices have attracted more than $1 billion a year in revenue at Loewe, which recently leapfrogged Prada and Versace to be rated the hottest brand in the world by global fashion search platform Lyst.

The coveted pieces from the latest spring collection will find their way to Australia. In May, Loewe opened its third Australian boutique in Melbourne on the corner of Little Collins Street and Russell Street, along with an international airport outpost in Sydney last year.

“Even though we’ve had a presence in Australia for a few years, Loewe is really at the beginning of a new journey and the opening of our first freestanding store in Melbourne is the first key step. We hope to continue this over the next few years and bring our unique physical Loewe environment to more major cities but I don’t believe in this as a one-way street; you have to get involved in the culture.”

“There’s a modernity in the Australian fashion attitude and casual lifestyle, which to me is similar to Loewe, its Spanish lifestyle and the inclusive way we have built the brand, with the concept of craft reinterpreted for the modern world.”

Respect for that craftsmanship has been taken even further in Japan, where Loewe opened a ReCraft boutique in April.

“The concept of ReCraft speaks fundamentally to the craftsmanship of Loewe,” Anderson says. “In the first store in Osaka we have a full-time leather artisan who repairs and maintains Loewe bags as well as personalisation and products made from repurposed surplus materials.”

It doesn’t matter whether the ReCraft artisan can repair Loewe’s balloon heels. The Loewe bubble won’t burst for some time.

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