Loewe showed its third collection under Jack McCollough and Lazaro Hernandez at the start of October, inside a circular arena raised in the courtyard of the Château de Vincennes. The spectacle of the first two seasons thinned out. What replaced it was a wardrobe.
The pair built Proenza Schouler in New York across more than twenty years, then sold their stake and moved to the oldest house in Madrid. Their first Loewe collection showed in Paris a year ago. The second followed at Vincennes. This one came back to the same grounds and asked less of the set, more of the clothes.
Loewe turned 180 this year. Founded in Madrid in 1846, it built its name on leather and kept it there through decades of ownership. Jonathan Anderson ran the house from 2013 until Dior called, and he left a signature that belonged to one man. McCollough and Hernandez spent two seasons proving they could fill the room. This season they stopped proving it.
The arena
The show sat inside a two-tiered circular structure. Guests looked down on a ring rather than along a straight line. The format put the clothes in the round, read from every side at once, which is a harder test than a runway that only shows the front.
The designers have said they no longer want to make clothes as objects. The collection ran on physicality, the feel of cloth against skin and the ordinary motion of a day. Garments were cut to be lived in rather than photographed once and shelved.
Two coasts
Two places shaped it. One was the coastal New England of their youth. The other was Spain, filtered through 180 years of house codes. The American half arrived as sportswear turned slightly wrong. Polos were cut and worn backwards on the body. A basketball jersey gave its shape to a bead-fringed chiffon slip dress. Collars caught the light like sunglass resin, and silk anoraks sat straight against the skin.
The Spanish half carried the colour. Shades ran from vivid to faded patina to bleached pale. Baroque detail surfaced at the waist, splayed open or heaped into ornament. Satin scarves flared from taleguilla trousers, the narrow cut a bullfighter wears. The reference stayed specific and skipped the usual flamenco shorthand.
The clothes landed between the two moods. A suede blazer sat over wide trousers with the ease of something owned for years. Shirting loosened and slipped off the shoulder. Beadwork caught on skirts and slip dresses, then faded into plainer pieces. Nothing asked to be studied.
The spectacle is gone. What is left is a wardrobe, and a wardrobe is harder to make.
The Splendid Edit
Loewe spring/summer 2027, shown in the round at the Château de Vincennes, Paris. Courtesy of Loewe
The leather
Loewe sells leather first, and the accessories did the house's quiet work. A new bag, the Pasito, joined the line, along with a Puzzle Charm drawn from the brand's most familiar silhouette. A suede blazer revisited the first garment Loewe made, in 1960. Silk ties read as souvenirs of the archive, and nappa leather was graded down to short trapeze dresses.
Glass beads ran through skirts and dresses. Striped jackets and loose shirt dresses kept the mood summery and light. The leather never shouted, which is the point of leather at a house that lives on it. It carried the label without announcing itself.
The read
The first two collections were loud by design. The pair arrived at a watched house in a year when nearly every large label changed hands, and they answered with volume. Colour, latex, inflation, set pieces. It worked as a statement and wore thin as a method.
This collection took the other route. The clothes are legible and the styling is calmer. Critics who had waited for the pair to settle read it as the season they stopped auditioning. The strangeness that makes Loewe worth watching survived, pulled back into cut and colour rather than staged for the front row.
The timing adds weight. LVMH reported softer fashion sales this autumn, and a cooler market leaves less room for a house still finding its footing. Loewe grew quickly under Anderson and became one of the group's clearest creative wins. A reset at the top of a property like that carries a cost, and the pair have spent a year earning the benefit of the doubt.
A house this dependent on its workshops can absorb a change at the top as long as the craft holds. It held. The spring collection trades the argument for the clothes, and the clothes are strong enough to carry it. One year in, Loewe looks settled.
The Splendid Edit on Loewe's spring/summer 2027 collection. Show and collection details from Loewe and LVMH.
Photography courtesy of Loewe