Is any designer out there doing more with less better than Jonathan Anderson? Doubtfully, because his fall Loewe show was another stunner, despite his zeal for reducing fashion down to the simplest, bluntest elements.
But what elements. Photos of antique garments blurred on pristine white duchess silk dresses, as if by Gerhard Richter’s squeegee; lengths of panne velvet draped over a brass peg at the center of the ribcage, or simply hugged around the body; plain white feathers arranged into the dreamiest sweatshirt imaginable, and leather stiffened into neat little Lego-like shirts, or flowing like hot chocolate on roomy coats, slouchy bags and collapsing boots.
He managed to coax fashion fireworks from plain gray knits — here an elegantly crumpling cardigan, there a cape-topped tube dress, the gesture of a folded arm providing some of the drama — the slouchy footwear the rest. Ditto fuzzy coats the shape of violas, or shearling T-shirts etched with the geometry ofGuests had to drive way, way, way out to a 14th-century fortress, the Château de Vincennes, traversing a drawbridge and then stepping into a big white box set in the courtyard.
Inside, security guards shooed people away from 21 colorful cubes dotted throughout the set: They were sculptures by Italian artist Lara Favaretto made with 10 tons of paper confetti, which her teams stamped on like grapes in wooden boxes that were removed just before people arrived. They crumbled a little from vibrations as people walked by, adding a tension to the show — and also serving as a metaphor for Anderson, packed to the brim with fashion ideas, but letting them leak out slowly.