It’s all about leather at Loewe and Stuart Vevers couldn’t have done more to hone in on that point with a collection that was based mainly around outerwear – the most luxurious and quietly decadent coats for the season when rendered in the buttery skins that were also skillfully manipulated. The properties of leather naturally created volumes and structure in the pieces and it was exploited at every opportunity to ensure the spotlight was on the raw materials – nappa, suede, shearling, fox, antelope hair – Loewe's texture arsenal that communicate the Spanish house's codes of sleek luxury.
Without going for full or complete outfits (often coats were paired with plain black knit leggings), leather peacoats, shearling collared jackets with simple A-line leather skirts and dresses could stand on their own. Whilst the palette mainly revolved around the Loewe ‘oro’ gold, pops of red, mustard and aquamarine blue popped up in a trio of leather coats. Likewise, you could see flashes of colour in a print derived from a stained glass window from a Spanish cathedral used on silk, as well as in the gemstones on a leather dress where the edges were outwardly exposed on the shoulders. The emphasis on structure and rigorous cut was also present in the bags which were more like mini-cuboid cases, swining on in perfect harmony with the rest of the well-articulated collection.
Dazed Digital: It seemed you were subverting classics – was that your intention?
Stuart Vevers: i always play with that balance of classicism which I think the house stands for and my personal taste where I like to bring things with a cooler and playful edge. Leather’s quite good to do that with because it has this classical reference and at the same time it’s also quite sexy. We were playing with the natural feeling of leather and pushing it to find new volumes and silhouettes.
DD: Tell us a little about the prints in the collection.
Stuart Vevers: The herringbone tweed was made into a print. From stain glass windows in this church in Borgo, Spain, we digitally manipulated the print to give it more luminosity, which led on to the crystal embroidery on the leather dresses.
DD: Was there any progression in the bags?
Stuart Vevers: This season I drew everything with a thick marker pen, to get a more graphic line and that made the lines very clean and so the bags were quite boxy and quite smart in a way.
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