Loewe Confirms Jonathan Anderson is Stepping Down as Artistic Director

Jonathan Anderson is departing after 11 years as artistic director of Loewe, which he reworked from a small, respected Spanish leather-based home right into a vibrant international luxurious model steeped in modern tradition.

Loewe introduced his exit in a brief assertion shared completely with WWD. It didn’t say what Anderson’s subsequent transfer is perhaps — or point out any successor.

Nonetheless, it’s virtually an open secret in Paris that Anderson is heading to Dior — and will have already began engaged on the spring 2026 menswear assortment there.

Proenza Schouler designers Jack McCollough and Lazaro Hernandez, who in January stepped down from their New York-based label, are broadly anticipated to succeed Anderson at Loewe.

“Whereas reflecting on the final 11 years, I’ve been fortunate sufficient to be surrounded by individuals with the creativeness, the talents, the tenacity and the resourcefulness to discover a approach to say ‘Sure’ to all my wildly formidable concepts,” Anderson stated within the assertion. “Whereas my chapter attracts to a detailed, Loewe’s story will proceed for a few years to return, and I’ll look on with pleasure, watching it proceed to develop, the superb Spanish model I as soon as referred to as residence.”

Pascale Lepoivre, chief govt officer of Loewe, expressed her gratitude to Anderson for the “unmatched creativity, ardour and dedication that he has given to Loewe. With him as its artistic director, the home has risen to new heights with worldwide recognition. The Puzzle bag, celebrating its tenth anniversary, has turn out to be a real icon, and the model codes that he has created, rooted in craft, will reside on as his legacy.”

Sidney Toledano, a veteran of LVMH Moët Hennessy Louis Vuitton who has been CEO of Christian Dior Couture, head of LVMH Style Group, and an adviser to LVMH chief Bernard Arnault, stated he has “had the pleasure of working with among the nice inventive administrators of latest instances, and I contemplate Jonathan Anderson to be amongst the perfect.”

“What he has contributed to Loewe goes past creativity. He has constructed a wealthy and eclectic world with sturdy foundations in craft which is able to allow the home to thrive lengthy after his departure,” Toledano added.

The event appears to set the stage for a blockbuster European runway season this fall, which will even see the debut of designer Matthieu Blazy at Chanel, of his successor Louise Trotter at Bottega Veneta — and fairly presumably the brand new artistic administrators at Gucci, Dior and Loewe.

To make sure, Anderson set a excessive bar at Loewe, remodeling a Madrid-based home identified largely for leather-based items, presents and perfumes into a worldwide participant synonymous with daring fashions, quirky collaborations with the likes of Studio Ghibli, and eccentric campaigns, the most recent that includes bodybuilders and knights in full armor posing subsequent to fashions.

His designs for Loewe and his signature model JW Anderson earned a heap of awards, together with the 2022 WWD Honor for Womenswear Designer of the 12 months, Worldwide Designer of the 12 months Award on the 2023 CFDA Style Awards, the Neiman Marcus Award for Artistic Influence within the Discipline of Style in 2023 and Designer of the 12 months on the British Style Awards in 2024 and 2023.

Revenues Rose Sevenfold

The designs additionally helped catapult the size of the Loewe enterprise, with revenues multiplying by greater than seven instances over his tenure to method 2 billion euros, market sources estimate.

A continuing all through Anderson’s Loewe tenure has been a deal with craft, which stems from his private affection for arts and crafts antiques, and his appreciation for weavers and potters.

A longtime collector of ceramics and wood-turning items, the designer established the Loewe Basis Craft Prize in 2016. Its 2025 version attracted greater than 4,500 functions from world wide, with a winner to be revealed in Madrid on June 29.

The annual competitors pays tribute to Loewe’s roots as a leather-making collective and provider to the Spanish royal crown.

The corporate was based in 1846 and purchased in 1996 by LVMH Moët Hennessy Louis Vuitton, which first put in designer Narciso Rodriguez, then José Enrique Oña Selfa, after which Stuart Vevers, who exited in 2013 when he moved to Coach.

The identical 12 months, LVMH acquired a 46 % stake within the JW Anderson label and handed Anderson the artistic management at Loewe.

On the time, LVMH stated the designer, then solely 29, submitted an excellent proposal providing a contemporary, fashionable and a brand new means of Loewe, whereas respecting its historical past.

“Luxurious in the end needed to fall into the cultural panorama for it to have the ability to turn out to be related,” Anderson instructed WWD in a 2023 interview. “The model is about storytelling. There’s a complicated language that’s being constructed, however in the end it’s about bringing individuals on the journey with both one thing they count on or one thing they don’t count on. I believe that’s what’s good about Loewe — you can not pigeonhole it.

“The job of a artistic director at the moment is to carry the DNA of the model to the forefront and make it related for the interval — to not alter the precise the DNA of the model itself.”

Certainly, his makeover of Loewe has been sure-handed and revolutionary.

He initially appropriated ’90s-era vogue imagery as present-day advert campaigns; introduced an unvarnished, spontaneous spirit to the usually shiny luxurious world, and launched some dramatic retailer ideas with inventive parts, together with Picasso ceramics and Rennie Waterproof coat chairs, positing the model in a broader cultural context.

Along with his tousled hair, free crewneck sweaters, denims — and a cup of espresso seemingly glued to his proper hand — the effusive, stern-faced designer resembles a college scholar without end cramming for exams.

Journalists relish his post-show, stream-of-consciousness musings, throughout which he shares a tumble of historic and inventive references that someway add as much as very authentic, compelling fashions.

Whereas some designers chase viral moments through stunts or the fitting movie star affiliations, Anderson creates fireworks through emphatic, sharply executed design concepts, each for Loewe and his JW Anderson model, which has a barely youthful, extra irreverent spirit.

Simmering below the floor of each manufacturers are references to artwork and surrealism, plus sly commentary in regards to the perils of expertise, social media and our estrangement from nature.

In recent times, Anderson has described his Loewe as “stripped again,” “primal,” “lowered” and “blunt.”

In the meantime, he has earned a popularity for purses — headlined by the perennially standard Puzzle bag, and extra not too long ago the Flamenco and Squeeze fashions — and attention-grabbing footwear with birthday candles, bars of cleaning soap, nail polish bottles, short-stemmed roses, damaged eggs or squashed balloons serving as heels.

Born in Northern Eire in 1984, Anderson studied menswear on the London Faculty of Style, graduating in 2005 and occurring to work in visible merchandising at Prada below Manuela Pavesi. He consulted for a number of manufacturers earlier than launching JW Anderson in 2008.

He shortly attracted consideration for provocative and androgynous designs similar to frilly Bermuda shorts and bandeau tops for males. And his womenswear reveals shortly turned essentially the most sought-after ticket of London Style Week.

On the root of every thing he does is daring.

“For me, vogue is thrilling, and it must be thrilling whether or not you get it unsuitable or proper,” he instructed WWD in a 2015 interview. “Should you do generic issues, , after some time, manufacturers or designers turn out to be stagnated. It’s a must to be barely uncomfortable with what you’re doing, and you’ve got to have the ability to attempt to discover moments of newness.”