The Anderson method of evolution is to keep Loewe’s retail concepts close to his heart. Positioned as curator in chief of the Spanish brand, Anderson has spent six years shaping the Loewe world as a manifestation of his own inner passions. “It doesn’t happen overnight. I’m glad that we’ve taken six years to open in New York because I think it takes time to build a story, and I think it takes time to be able to build brands. I think we’re in this abstract moment of hype where brands have to work in six months. It’s impossible!” he declares. “It takes time to build a DNA that is right for a store and the right environment—and it shouldn’t be perfect. We end up trying to build, in a weird way, mausoleums, whereas I think stores need to be emotional places. When I buy something, I find it’s a very emotional process. You’ve got to work really hard to make money, and then, you know, you treat yourself.”
As such, his new store, nestled on a bustling block of SoHo, bucks the bigger, brighter, bolder trend for neon lights and shock-jock art installs of late in favor of the warmth and intimacy of a home. “I think it just needs to be incredibly personal,” Anderson continues. “If we go too generic, then I feel that we lose the message. I think that what’s important about Loewe, that I went out with this kind of fantasy to build a cultural brand, and I feel like the stores should be—for me, for anyone—about more than just purchasing.”
That’s a bold mandate, but Anderson’s brand of taking big swings is working. Building Loewe into something more than just buttery leather bags, cerebral ready-to-wear, and annual art-world collaborations has made the brand more than just a thing to buy into; it’s a life goal. “That’s why we have fan zines, that’s why we have posters, that’s why we have talks programs, that’s why I try to go out around the world and find a Rennie Mackintosh chair for the store,” he says. “I think what our customer wants is an honest opinion of something. They want an edit. They want personality. I think if you don’t do storytelling then it’s very complicated to be able to compete. There are so many brands. You have to tell the story through the store and make the retail experience exciting and fulfilling.”
In New York, the Loewe story you will find is a decidedly domestic one. “How I would want to live is how I would want to shop,” Anderson says, noting the tapestries from the spring 2018 show that are collaged around the store as a wallpaper and the artworks by a range of working female artists that dot the space. Lisa Brice’s five-panel piece is the flagship artwork. “I wanted something which was kind of showing a sensuality of woman,” he says of Brice’s piece. “I like this idea of women being able to express sexuality.”
You might catch some more of that heat at the opening party for the store tonight, where, after cocktails, Anderson will transport his crew from SoHo to an Upper East Side mansion. “The party is like, I don’t know,” he cuts off with a laugh. “I always fantasize that I lived in New York. Maybe I’m just a British person looking in, wondering what it would be like to live in New York, but the idea of the party is a house party in every sense, where people can have conversations in the bathroom, but at the same time there’s an abstraction. Do you feel like you could fall into the floor? Are you doing magic mushrooms or not?” Anderson says. “The best parties you go to are house parties you never plan.” Anderson might be a man with a big plan for the future, but even the cleverest among us like to let loose now and then. At Loewe, you can do it all—plus buy a great dress.
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