One of fashion’s most innovative and forward-thinking designers – Jonathan Anderson, who heads up Spanish luxury house Loewe and his own eponymous label J.W.Anderson – is The Business of Fashion’s latest cover star.

The cover, which is unveiled here, features the Irish designer shot by acclaimed British photographer Alasdair McLellan. In this issue – entitled A Connected World – Anderson talks to BoF founder and editor-in-chief Imran Amed about how the internet affects the way he designs. 

“For me, the creative process is this giant patchwork of information,” he says (in an exclusive excerpt from the interview). “Today’s creative director has become more of a consumer of information in search of the new, weird and wonderful. It can be online, libraries, markets, bookstores.”

“It’s like taking a picture, cutting it up into tiny squares, throwing them into a box, and rendering them all back together but in a way that’s better than what it was,” he goes on to say. “The next generation has become more liberated. You can take a bit from here and a bit from that. But we don’t get precious – there’s not the preciousness of owning things.”

“Today’s creative director has become more of a consumer of information in search of the new, weird and wonderful” – Jonathan Anderson

As one of the first “millennials” or “digital natives” to helm a luxury house like Loewe, Anderson has been at the forefront of this new approach.

Aside from this interview with Anderson, the issue features an in-depth conversation between Tim Blanks and another one of fashion’s digital pioneers – “techno-shaman” Nick Knight – on creativity in a connected world. It also includes an interview with talk show host and comedian Ellen Degeneres who discusses leveraging her vast social media reach of 130 million people into a new lifestyle brand.

Speaking on the issue, Amed says, “At times, the world seems to be splintering into factions – a divisive US election, an impending ‘Brexit’ vote in the UK and religious wars in Syria – but there’s little doubt that despite these growing tensions we are more connected than ever.

“This global interconnectedness has wide-reaching implications for fashion well beyond creativity and celebrity. Price transparency, managing risk amidst growing global uncertainty, new “glocal” retail strategies and income inequality are all topics we tackle in-depth in this issue.”

A Connected World will be available for pre-order from Monday June 6th at shop.businessoffashion.com and is on sale beginning Monday June 13th at exclusive stores around the world.