JW Anderson unveils a fashionable narrative about the quarantine

By

Godfrey Deeny

Published
Jul 2, 2020

The very happening house of JW Anderson unveiled its latest collections online Thursday at 2PM CET online, outside of any official European runway calendar. And without any actual models to be seen.
 

Instead, the designer presented his menswear for Spring 2021 and his women’s Resort collection 2021 together on his eponymous website in a 12-minute fashion tutorial entitled A Collection Reveal with Jonathan Anderson.
 
“Hi I’m Jonathan Anderson, I’m here in my office in London and we’re here to talk through the menswear and women’s wear SS collections,” explained Anderson, perched before a large white table.

Prior to the presentation, a select band of editors and reviewers had already been mailed a package containing fabric swatches, calligraphy, illustrations, handmade nails, waxed cotton, masks, photos and even a few flowers to their office. Which Anderson termed “mail art,” and an example of the “art of packing.”
 
Developing a collection during the Covid-19 crisis was like “an act of defiance to try to work creatively around solutions,” opined the Ulster-born creator.
 
His big idea in menswear was a whole fisherman theme, and the sense of rather inclement next summer.
 
His opening look was a hybrid composition of cape, hoodie and trench-coat, made of recycled mackintosh materials that looked great.  “Collaged into patchwork utilitarianism… Where it is hard to place the decade,” noted Anderson.
 
Like most of the images, the cape was drawn by Pol Anglada, the Catalan erotica artist, who is an Anderson favorite.
 
Look 25 featured a reference to hand-knit motif of a boat on a lake culled from his grandmother’s needle point, part of what the designer referred to as “reverting back to craft.”
 
Anglada images featured in discharged prints on over-sized knits were also excellent - like hanging tapestries” that had that genderless sensibility that is Anderson’s leitmotif.
 
A series of domestic wallpaper and kicking fabrics made into offbeat frock coats had a cunning jauntiness one could only admire. 

Anderson's women’s Resort ideas all featured masks worn over grand lace jumpsuits and his signature outsized and asymmetrical dresses.  All engineered to look poetic after they had come off the the mannequin.
 
For his night job as creative director of Loewe, Anderson has developed several mega-selling bags, and he came up with some new winners for his own house. To wit: a great new basket-shaped idea based on an early 1920's fisherman’s bag; and for guys: a new backpack made of recycled polyester.
 
“There’s something solitary about fishing,” said the designer, explaining his mood.
 
In summary, Anderson – who never looked directly at the camera in the entire 12 minutes – expounded that the pandemic had allowed him to go “back to making things on your own.” And hence this mail art fashion package, that one can be experience over a cup of coffee in the evening.
 
All told, a stimulating approach to presenting fresh fashion ideas online. Even if it still felt like watching a boxer with one hand tied behind his back, making a brave fist of an unfair situation.