SHAPE SHIFTER

We are on Zoom, but there is tangible evidence of Jonathan Anderson’s presence here, halfway across the world. He is in the Paris studio of Spanish house Loewe, but present in smell, touch, even physical form, are the products of his creative output: the heft of an artist’s portfolio, the tactility of a wooden paintbrush, the earthen sillage of a beetroot-infused ceramic tile. They’re all parts of the creative director’s show-on-the-wall, the spring/summer ’21 instalment of his experiential show-in-boxes in place of shows. He is not bemoaning the distance though; he is making it work for him. “I actually, in a weird way, feel that the pandemic has probably been better for me in terms of communication,” he says, mug in hand (it is early). “I think being able to directly talk to consumers and the press, it’s helped me to explain more of what I have been trying to do the last seven years.”

In the most recent of those years, he’s formulated these interactive show templates for both Loewe, which he’s helmed since 2013, and his namesake label JW Anderson,