Was Loewe Fall ’25 Jonathan Anderson’s Last Hurrah?

JONATHAN ANDERSON WAS MIA for Loewe’s Fall 2025 presentation at the Hôtel de Maisons on Monday morning. But the magnificence of this 18th century mansion on Rue de l’Université — which is considered one of the best preserved of the period in Saint Germain — was, to be honest, something of a distraction. Built in 1707 and also known as the Hôtel de Soyecourt or the Hôtel Pozzo di Borgo, it also happens to have been the primary residence of Karl Lagerfeld for some 30 years.

Loewe offered no official line on why a runway show was nixed this season (it also forewent inclusion on the men’s Fall 2025 show calendar in January, presenting menswear alongside the womenswear today). But the frenzied speculation that Anderson’s departure from Loewe is imminent seems the most logical. Why invest in a blowout runway show, the purpose of which is always to generate buzz — when the industry noise that he is about to take up the creative reins at LVMH stablemate Dior is now deafening, having made its way as an almost fait accompli into reports in WWD, The Business of Fashion, even British banking and financial services group HSBC.

With the Crafted World exhibition kicking off in Shanghai last March — and due to move to Tokyo later this month — much has been made of late of Anderson breathing new life into the 179 year-old year old Spanish brand over the past 11 years. Adding to this In Memoriam vibe: on Sunday, Anderson posted a video montage of his own personal Loewe highlights.

It’s abundantly clear he is moving on.

Conceived as a “scrapbook of ideas” and presented throughout 23 themed “rooms” throughout the opulent building, the Fall 2025 collection component including a collaboration with the Connecticut, US-based Josef & Anni Albers Foundation.

At the entrance stood a trio of deconstructed brown and black leather trench coats crafted from sliced leather, while in the adjacent ballroom were four beautiful cocktail dresses that had been sculpted from whorls of beaded organza strands. Looking like the world’s most exclusive luxury boutique, cabinetry in an adjacent room showcased yet more coats teamed with elongated dress shoes, a continuation from the Spring 2025 collection, as well as comical ultra-wide over-the-knee boots. One coat in Prince of Wales check was covered in superfine, fibre-optic-like cellophane fringes that gave it a 3D effect.

Elsewhere stood a series of roomy coats with raw-edged cuffs and hems, that had been made from thick woven fabric referencing four of German textile artist Anni Albers’ tapestries (she called them “pictorial weavings”) of 1958-1959: South of the Border, Pasture, Open Letter and Dotted. Anderson’s signature chunky knitwear found its way into a pair of thick double breasted bolero jackets with large gold buttons and Liberace-like raised collars that looked like clothing for adult-sized toys and his supersized tailoring theme continued on with one striking black women’s suit with oversized trousers and topped by a tail coat. New bags included iterations of the Puzzle, Flamenco clutch and Amazona styles that incorporated references to Josef Albers’ Homage to the Square series of paintings.

Nestled in and amongst the collection was a series of sculptures, which lent the whole presentation an air of being a mini Crafted World Paris. At the entrance was a large pumpkin, a nod to British artist Anthea Hamilton’s Giant Pumpkin No 2, 2022, which appeared in Loewe’s Fall 2022 women’s runway show and campaign. There was trio of vases by South African ceramic artist Zizipho Poswa, work by Japanese sculptor Yoshihiro Suda, a large apple sculpture originally created for the Spring 2025 pre-collection campaign, while out in the garden was an installation of mushroom sculptures that had featured at Salone del Mobile 2023.

This time last year BAZAAR Australia was huddled together with Anderson and a small group of journalists in a small demountable green room inside the cavernous Shanghai Exhibition Center, a few hours before the opening of Crafted World Shanghai. His commentary on how he felt he had completed his Loewe mission now has added resonance.

Related: Jonathan Anderson reflects on his time at Loewe, as ‘Crafted World’ heads to Japan

“Coming here, I believe that I have done my job. I feel like I have done what Loewe needed” he told us. “Loewe started in 1846. It was a German cooperative which moved to Spain. It’s all about making, it’s all about craft. And I think when I go through the exhibition and when I see all the people involved and I see all the stories that are told — and there’s only, I would say, 10 per cent of what we’ve done — I think everything has an authenticity, has a purpose, has a meaning. And this is what I think Loewe means to me now. I was there to kind of bring it to this, and now we bring it to the next chapter. So for me, it’s like, ‘Where do we take all this information?’ And ‘Where do we go next?’”