What happens when you mix Loewe designer Jonathan Anderson – known for his love of uplifting joyfulness – with a key ingredient of Japanese anime?
Answer: the charming Loewe x Spirited Away collaboration. The Spanish luxury fashion house has teamed up with Studio Ghibli for a second time, now taking inspiration from the anime film Spirited Away.
First launched last year as Loewe x My Neighbour Totoro, which sold out in record time, the tie-up has returned with another round of ready-to-wear, bags and small leather goods all scattered with the familiar figures from the 2001 anime film Spirited Away.
In the notes accompanying the new collection, Anderson describes the film as being “an ode to loyalty, friendship, and stubbornness in the face of adversity", and calls it "magical”.
He is not alone in that view, with the film bagging the Oscar for Best Animated Feature at the 75th Academy Awards in 2003.
It is this same sense of magic that Anderson has brought to a collection, now on show at a pop-up in Dubai’s Mall of the Emirates. The range is decorated with the film's main characters, Chihiro, Haku, Fly-Bird and the sorceress Yubaba, as well as Kaonashi, the spirit with no face, and the Susuwatari soot sprites. Described by Loewe as being a "wearable movie" the collection features intarsia knitted wraps covered with scenes from the film, sweatshirts with patchwork faces and knitted cardigans with woollen soot sprites sprouting in 3D.
The famous leather know-how of Loewe is bolstered with characters embroidered on to canvas panels and made into bags, and as intricately appliqued purses and wallets. Best of all, the sprites – the small quirky Susuwatari – swarm over everything, as fluffy black pom-poms, with big, googly eyes.
For Japanese aficionados, there are even patchwork coats that call on the "boro" technique of taking discarded fabric and mended scraps – now dyed in a rich, saturated indigo blue – to make loose fitting jackets, while the rest of the clothes are also roomy, to give the characters space to shine. Jeans, puffer jackets, hats, oversized jumpers and even blankets are all shown in a pop-up setting that echoes a traditional Japanese ornate bridge and the inside of a subway train.
