After several sunny days in the French capital, the fashion crowd woke up to dreary grey skies this morning (October 3). Luckily, Jack McCollough and Lazaro Hernandez were on hand to inject some much needed colour. Finally, the time had come for the New York-raised design duo to deliver their debut collection for Loewe, having taken over from former creative director Jonathan Anderson earlier this year.
Back in January, the couple announced that they would be stepping down from their roles at Proenza Schouler, the label they founded 23 years ago while studying at Parsons. Though it came as a shock at the time, the boys were clearly preparing for their future at Loewe – one filled with bright colours, bold looks and trouserless models, if today’s show is anything to go by. Here’s everything that went down.
Before the show began, a select number of guests and editors were mailed this season’s invite to their homes and hotels. But rather than send out a traditional card invite, a rectangle piece of leather took its place, each one embossed with a corkscrew or bottle opener “as a motif of new beginnings”. After guests had received their invites, the label released a short video of these invites being carefully constructed on its Instagram page, which told us that the values of craftsmanship Anderson established will be carried through to the new era.
For SS26, the big box that Loewe often holds its shows in was back, but transported to the lush green gardens of Cité internationale universitaire de Paris. Home to almost 6,000 students and researchers, it’s basically a really fancy uni halls located on the outskirts of the city.
Inside the show space, McCollough and Hernandez maintained a minimalist aesthetic, with wooden blocks as benches and stark white surroundings – bar one piece of art on the wall. Hanging in the entrance to the catwalk was Ellsworth Kelly’s “Yellow Panel with Red Curve”, a colour field painting exactly as it’s described. “In it lies a vibrancy and tactility that feels fundamental to the house; a chromatic intensity and sensuality that feels inherent to its Spanish roots,” said McCollough and Hernandez before the show. “And ultimately an optimism and spirit that we deeply identify with… it operates as a starting point, a prelude of sorts, to what lies ahead.”
As we’re all well aware by now, when former creative director Anderson left for Dior, he walked away with the entire Loewe gang in his back pocket (bye Josh, Greta, Taylor and Sophie). Because of that, Jack and Laz have had to find themselves a brand new roster of famous faces – cue Liv Tyler, Yara Shahidi, Milly Alcock and Sarah Snook all arriving to fill the front row. Elsewhere Sarah Paulson, Parker Posey, Baz Luhrmann, Emma Chamberlain and Tracee Ellis Ross were all in attendance, as was a tardy Solange Knowles, who had to break into a light jog to get seated in time. Returning from the old era, however, was former Anderson muse and Loewe campaign star Lesley Manville.
Fashion editors love to tie a jumper round their neck as if they’re about to go golfing in the Hamptons. At Loewe, McCollough and Hernandez are offering a new way to style the trend – with absolutely nothing underneath. Paired with structured trousers that bunched around the ankles, the risqué look brought an element of sexy to a collection that was generally more playful than seductive.
Speaking of trousers, there were very few. The collection was made up mostly of dresses and sweeping asymmetric skirts, while bomber jackets were paired with barely-there hot pants – another brand to join in with the no-trouser trend. A series of mini dresses were notably stiff and rubber-like, reminding us of Anderson’s Polly Pocket-inspired silhouettes and love of trompe l’oeil. Elsewhere, as with Dries Van Noten and Rabanne already this season, the designers took us to the beach for Spring/Summer. Like the Balenciaga towel skirt, McCollough and Hernandez have developed their own Loewe towel dress, presented in various iterations and colourways. In keeping with the seaside theme, several legionnaire hats (the stretchy ones kids wear to the beach so they don’t get sunburnt) made their way down the runway, as did colourfully striped maxi-dresses, like wearable windbreaks.
Less practical for a day at the beach were the bold leather moments – in the form of jackets and more mini dresses – though they upheld Loewe’s reputation for exquisite leathers. “The collection employs a visual language of reduced, sometimes sculptural forms and elemental colour, drawn from sportswear archetypes and often expressed through the medium of leathercraft,” explained McCollough and Hernandez in the accompanying notes. Afterwards, the show ended in the same way as Anderson’s at Dior: with a standing ovation for two designers brave enough to put their stamp on a heritage house.
Scroll through the gallery at the top of the page to see the entire collection
