Loewe 2016 Fall RTW Collection

 

Guests in the Joan Miró rooms at UNESCO, with its ravishing wall murals by the Spanish master, were seated on Perspex cubes stuffed with pot scrubbers, disposable razors or lightbulbs, along with an assortment of skinny benches and concrete pedestals.

 

Anderson also likes to put fashion in a context, and the furnishings, artworks and low ceilings suggested an artsy Madrid apartment. The offbeat soundtrack was a hypnotist spouting mantras for quitting smoking as the designer recently did.“A curated look,” he said backstage. “That’s what we do with our lives.”

 

There was a hint of Donna Karan in the clinging jersey tops, the scarf-point skirts in stiff knife pleats or bouncy knits and the demonstrative gold jewelry. Yet Anderson’s melding of the organic and the flashy is impressive, and this was his most sophisticated and polished Loewe collection yet.

 

While fashion has drifted away from head-to-toe designer looks, here were scores of outfits so chic you would hate to break them up. Consider a gently flared, padded coat and pants in a matching military green cotton, or caramel-colored leather, the latter accessorized with two matching hobo-like handbags. Or a long tweed tube dress coiled with heavy fringe that repeated on the matching Amazona bag.

 

Anderson has a knack for incorporating hardware into clothing in striking ways. Here he threaded beaded necklaces into the gathered waist and neckline of loose cotton shirtdresses; topped tube dresses with sculpted leather corsets; and made sparkling dress sleeves out of delicate metal rings.

 

With this collection, Anderson proved that modernism and eccentricity make fine bedfellows. Among his quirky accessories was a white cat-shaped minaudiere slung from a necklace. You can anticipate the caption on Michel Gaubert’s Instagram feed: “This is not Choupette.”