From Craft to Couture: The Timeless Legacy of Loewe
A deep dive into the history behind the 178-year-old Spanish brand that continues to capture our attention.
Nobody, it seems, can get enough of Loewe. Its looks have been cemented into fashion history throughout the tenure of creative director Jonathan Anderson, whose trailblazing designs have captured the hearts of customers and celebrities alike. Yet, for a fashion house that was founded in the 1800s, there is a long history of success and innovation behind the LVMH brand.
Loewe was founded in Madrid in 1846 and acquired shortly after by the German leather craftsman Enrique Loewe Roessberg, giving the brand its eponymous name. Combining German utility and Spanish flair, the leather goods brand produced designs that caught the eye of the Spanish royal family. By 1905, Loewe would become the official leather supplier to the Spanish royals and, over the first half of the 20th century, garnered global attention from notable cultural icons like Ernest Hemingway. Loewe became a symbol of elegant leather designs, with storefronts popping up across Spain. It wasn't until 1965, over a century after Enrique Loewe acquired the brand, that the first ever ready-to-wear collection was released. This seminal collection would begin a long history of combining the finest craftsmanship with innovative clothing design that the brand is known for today.
The Loewe logo, found in the closets of stylish individuals across the globe, was designed in 1970 by Vicente Vela as a graceful interconnecting of 4 “L” letters and has remained largely unchanged throughout the brand’s evolution. It was in this period, in 1975, that the Amazona Bag, Loewe’s first It bag, was released. The progressive design championed women in the workplace, as its practical, feminine design was perfect for professional women in a culture dominated by men. The Amazona bag has stood the test of time as the bag has remained popular throughout modern iterations.
While the Amazona bag was innovative in its design for the working woman, it took some time for the brand to hit its stride, pushing boundaries in fashion and becoming a source of excitement for younger audiences. Loewe was largely family-run until its acquisition by LVMH, the luxury goods company known for refreshing older brands with young talent in the industry. Loewe is LVMH’s oldest fashion house, meaning that by the 90s, the brand needed some major upgrading while remaining connected to the core of high-quality craftsmanship. The brand’s first creative director, Narcisco Rodriguez, was tasked with increasing brand awareness as a leading luxury fashion house. Rodriguez captured the minimalist essence of the 90s style and translated it into collections that caught the industry’s attention.
From the late 1990s to the early 2010s, Loewe transitioned creative directors multiple times from Rodriguez (1996-2001) to José Enrique Oña Selfa (2001-2007) and Stuart Vevers (2007-2013). It was not until Jonathan Anderson was appointed in 2013 that the brand’s trajectory changed dramatically. Anderson, who had already made waves as a young designer for his eponymous brand JW Anderson, took Loewe’s legacy and ran with it to create some of the most iconic looks in fashion from the past decade. He designed the highly popular Puzzle Bag, marrying Loewe’s long history of leather craftsmanship with exciting geometric designs. However, it was not only a new signature brand bag that Anderson ushered in but also an entirely new language for the brand that has impacted the way the entire industry thinks of fashion.
