Jonathan Anderson Writes His Own Story for Loewe's Fall/Winter 2021 Menswear Collection

For the Fall/Winter 2021 menswear season, Jonathan Anderson offered each of Loewe's runway show guests A Show in a Book—a bounded collection of works by writer Joe Brainard, the primary inspiration behind the brand's new collection. The book explores Brainard's life as a young poet in New York's pop art scene through his work, including many poems, paintings, and other essays rarely on display. However, Brainard's most famous book, his memoir I Remember, was the ultimate inspiration behind Anderson's work.

"As an artist, a writer, an illustrator and a poet, he thought and oct outside of rulebooks and categories, and there is a lightness and an immediacy in his work that I find acutely apt for this very moment, and indeed any moment," explains Anderson about what drew him to Brainard in the first place. "I have thought of this publication as a ‘show in a book,’ the catalogue of an exhibition that has yet to take place, and an accompanying manifesto to the Loewe collections it inspired."

The collection, as presented, is two in one: the first is a gender-subversive menswear collection that is set in nature, while the second is the Eye/Loewe/Nature collection, the brand's functional, sustainability-focused line that supports surviving the outdoors. By joining forces for the first time, Anderson has merged the values of both colllections—nature is not just where we are, but what we wear. From the first half, '70s subculture tropes like leather pants and shearling jackets have been reconstructed into more modern forms. In the second half, actors Stéphane Bak and Omar Ayuso pose in streetwear style ensembles and a growing number of accessories, as if they're gearing up for a long camping trip. Together, the two concepts culminate in a dynamic collection of versatile pieces that challenge the definition of the "natural world."