Loewe Confirms Jonathan Anderson is Stepping Down as Artistic Director

Jonathan Anderson is departing after 11 years as inventive 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 could be — or point out any successor.

Nonetheless, it’s virtually an open secret in Paris that Anderson is heading to Dior — and should 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 folks with the creativeness, the abilities, the tenacity and the resourcefulness to discover a solution 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 dwelling.”

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 inventive director, the home has risen to new heights with worldwide recognition. The Puzzle bag, celebrating its tenth anniversary, has change into a real icon, and the model codes that he has created, rooted in craft, will dwell 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 Trend Group, and an adviser to LVMH chief Bernard Arnault, stated he has “had the pleasure of working with a number of the nice creative 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 robust 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 may also see the debut of designer Matthieu Blazy at Chanel, of his successor Louise Trotter at Bottega Veneta — and fairly probably the brand new inventive administrators at Gucci, Dior and Loewe.

To make certain, Anderson set a excessive bar at Loewe, reworking a Madrid-based home recognized principally for leather-based items, items and perfumes into a worldwide participant synonymous with daring fashions, quirky collaborations with the likes of Studio Ghibli, and eccentric campaigns, the newest 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 Yr, Worldwide Designer of the Yr Award on the 2023 CFDA Trend Awards, the Neiman Marcus Award for Artistic Influence within the Subject of Trend in 2023 and Designer of the Yr on the British Trend Awards in 2024 and 2023.

Revenues Rose Sevenfold

The designs additionally helped catapult the dimensions 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 give attention to 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 around the globe, 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 yr, LVMH acquired a 46 p.c stake within the JW Anderson label and handed Anderson the inventive management at Loewe.

On the time, LVMH stated the designer, then solely 29, submitted a superb proposal providing a contemporary, trendy and a brand new method of taking a look at Loewe, whereas respecting its historical past.

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

“The job of a inventive director at present is to convey 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 modern.

He initially appropriated ’90s-era vogue imagery as present-day advert campaigns; introduced an unvarnished, spontaneous spirit to the sometimes shiny luxurious world, and launched some dramatic retailer ideas with creative 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 eternally cramming for exams.

Journalists relish his post-show, stream-of-consciousness musings, throughout which he shares a tumble of historic and creative references that in some way add as much as very unique, compelling fashions.

Whereas some designers chase viral moments by way of stunts or the correct celeb affiliations, Anderson creates fireworks by way of 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 concerning the perils of know-how, social media and our estrangement from nature.

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

In the meantime, he has earned a repute for purses — headlined by the perennially well-liked Puzzle bag, and extra just lately the Flamenco and Squeeze fashions — and crowd pleasing sneakers 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 School of Trend, graduating in 2005 and happening 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 rapidly attracted consideration for provocative and androgynous designs comparable to frilly Bermuda shorts and bandeau tops for males. And his womenswear exhibits rapidly grew to become essentially the most sought-after ticket of London Trend 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 incorrect or proper,” he informed WWD in a 2015 interview. “Should you do generic issues, you understand, after some time, manufacturers or designers change into stagnated. It’s important to be barely uncomfortable with what you’re doing, and you’ve got to have the ability to attempt to discover moments of newness.”