LOEWE Crafted World Exhibition Opens In Tokyo

LOEWE’s first major brand exhibition, Crafted World, is a celebration of the house’s rich history, Spanish heritage, and commitment to the handmade opens in Tokyo’s Harajuku district.

An interactive journey through time, space, material, and techniques of making imbued with LOEWE’s idiosyncratic sense of play, Crafted World is a showcase of the house’s progressive approach to fashion and the culture of craft over generations. Conceived as a traveling exhibition, Crafted World first launched in Shanghai in 2024. Now, in March 2025, Crafted World will arrive in the Harajuku district of Tokyo in Japan, the country where LOEWE first expanded beyond Europe with the opening of a dedicated space within the Nihombashi Mitsukoshi department store in 1973. In the years since LOEWE has continued to engage in a rich cultural dialogue with Japan.

Designed in collaboration with OMA, the studio behind some of the most ground-breaking buildings of the 21st century, Crafted World offers visitors a chance to journey through the iconic designs and cultural collaborations that have illuminated LOEWE’s evolution from its founding as a leather-making collective in Madrid in 1846 to becoming one of the world’s leading luxury fashion houses. Steeped in art and culture, Crafted World charts LOEWE’s 179-year history of creativity, innovation, and excellence in making: from the house’s appointment as an official supplier to the Spanish Royal Family in the 19th century, the opening of its first store in Japan and its acquisition by LVMH in the 20th century, to its renaissance guided by creative director Jonathan Anderson.

The exhibition is, above all, a celebration of craft and artistic techniques passed down through the ages, which have long been supported by the LOEWE Foundation, the annual Craft Prize, and LOEWE’s many collaborations with artisans around the world. It is a story dedicated to the joy of making things by hand, transporting the audience to the sights and sounds of Spain, the front row of the Paris runway, and, in a series of spectacularly interactive rooms, inside the visionary imaginations that have inspired LOEWE’s recent collections – including those of Studio Ghibli and the Kyoto-based ceramicists Suna Fujita.

Crafted World Tokyo also includes a specially curated series of works and architectural interventions highlighting the house’s collaborations and cultural projects across Japan and beyond. These include a video documenting the LOEWE FOUNDATION’s support for the Onishi family who have been crafting ceremonial Kama tea kettles in Kyoto for over 400 years, alongside works by Craft Prize finalists Tanabe Chikuunsai IV, Moe Watanabe, and 2019 winner Genta Ishizuka, and Salone artisans ARKO, Hafu Matsumoto, and Jiro Yonezawa. Other custom configurations include an illuminated façade that glows with LOEWE iconography at night, a staircase ready to be plastered with thousands of stickers given away to guests, and a gift shop filled with products exclusive to the Tokyo edition of Crafted World.

Complemented by a digital catalogue offering behind-the-scenes insights into the works on display, Crafted World unfolds over 1,300 square metres and features plenty of surprises along the way. These include a recreation of the LOEWE atelier, a suspended, moving flower garden, and a series of knee-high exhibits for children to interact with, to name just a few. The exhibition is curated around thematic rooms showcasing the house’s progressive approach to fashion and the culture of craft:

Born from the Hand, tells the story of LOEWE’s evolution from a leather-making collective in 1846 to the house’s modern identity through presenting key products, such as early made-to-order leather pieces and the first editions of the iconic Amazona, Flamenco, and Puzzle bags, alongside architectural models, archive photographs and advertising works from Pablo Picasso and Pedro Almodóvar signifying the spirit of the times, recent collaborations with Anthea Hamilton, and costumes for Rihanna, Beyoncé, and the 2024 MET Gala.

Welcome to Spain, presents a series of tableaux framing the unique landscapes of LOEWE’s home country, and the craft traditions and designs they have inspired. Accompanied by the ceramics of Spain’s most celebrated artist, Pablo Picasso, illuminating the often-overlooked importance of craft to his oeuvre, the chapter opens a window into a terracotta-tiled casa typical to Galicia; the beaches of southern Spain, where seashells have inspired raffia bags and Laia Arqueros’ chestnut roaster soaks up the sun; the Mediterranean Sea and the marine creatures of LOEWE’s free-spirited Paula’s Ibiza line, and an enchanted forest animated by flowers, plants and birds in the form of sunglasses, leather charms and pouches.

The Atelier, goes behind the scenes of the atelier to guide the audience through the many steps needed to bring the designs of LOEWE’s iconic bags to life. Beginning with a library of leathers before continuing through its cutting, trimming, painting, and assembling, this chapter reveals the tools needed to cut by hand and the hundreds of hours of prototyping and testing that ensure that every bag lasts not only for this life but for future generations, too. The maze-like journey through the atelier culminates in a series of deep dives into innovations such as caviar embroidery, leather marquetry, origami modelling, and 3D printing.  

The Castle Room, is centred around a two-metre-tall edition of the Howl’s Moving Castle bag, initially designed for LOEWE’s 2023 capsule collection inspired by the Studio Ghibli classic. A showcase of how the atelier employs the alchemy of craft to recreate some of cinema’s most surreal architecture, the super-sized Howl’s Moving Castle bag is composed of elements of other bags from LOEWE’s repertoire – the panel of a Hammock, the ripples of a Flamenco Clutch, the inner pockets of a Goya, and whole, shrunken Amazonas and Bracelet Pouches – and the room is sure to cast a spell on anyone who through its door.  

Fashion Without Limits, immerses the audience in the elaborate craftsmanship, sculptural forms, playful trompe l’oeil effects, and unexpected materials of Jonathan Anderson’s catwalk collections for LOEWE since his appointment as creative director in 2013. The chapter features 54 looks from both men’s and womenswear collections on mannequins atop plinths placed in dialogue with works of art from the LOEWE art collection that evoke his designs’ bold silhouettes: William Turnbull’s bronze sculpture Idol (1956), Haegue Yang’s textile mobile The Intermediate – Dangling Hairy Hug (2018), and Zizipho Poswa’s glazed earthenware Mireille Kamyanya, Congo (2022). Seven vertical screens broadcast videos from the catwalk to give the feeling of models walking through a show space, further animating the room.  

United in Craft, is dedicated to the joy of making things with one’s hands and the house’s support for crafts around the world, such as the LOEWE FOUNDATIONS’ bespoke funding programme for the Onishi family to safeguard their 400-year-old heritage of crafting iron tea kettles in Kyoto and cultivate future generations of Kama craftspeople. The chapter features works from the annual Craft Prize and videos telling their stories, the exquisitely coloured glazes of Ming and Qing Dynasty ceramics that inspired 2023’s Chinese Monochrome Collection, and the Tapestries, Baskets, Weaves, Chairs and Chestnut Roasters projects from Salone del Mobile which have seen LOEWE collaborate with Ecuadorian tapestry artists, Indian ribbon-makers, South African basket-makers, and Chinese bamboo weavers, and contemporary artists such as Alvaro Barrington and Cerith Wyn Evans. The house’s dedication to a responsible and sustainable future is showcased in the beaded Elephant bags of the Knot on My Planet charity collaboration, made by Kenyan and Tanzanian craftspeople, and the repaired baskets of the 2022 Salone del Mobile exhibition Weave, Restore, and Renew. 

Unexpected Dialogues, is a series of five spectacular rooms immersing the audience in the visionary worlds that have inspired LOEWE’s collaborations from the past decade. The chapter features a recreation of master potter Ken Price’s New Mexico studio, a sugary grotto where Japanese ceramicist Suna Fujita’s fairytale scenes are hidden in the walls, while another room brings a Joe Brainard collage to life, and another transports the audience to a magical Studio Ghibli dreamworld. An interpretation of the tile and textile designs of the British Arts & Crafts Movement architect C.F.A. Voysey, the chapter culminates in a moving, suspended flower garden made in collaboration with Tokyo-based creative studio Edenworks.

LOEWE & Culture 

Culture is at the core of LOEWE’s DNA, exemplified by a longstanding commitment to creativity in all forms and disciplines. Reflecting fashion’s vital link to contemporary life, a strong emphasis on art, design, and craftsmanship has been a cornerstone of creative director Jonathan Anderson’s rebuilding of the brand, one of the world’s oldest luxury houses. Since Anderson’s appointment in 2013, LOEWE has initiated a series of collaborations with artists and artisans who reinterpret and expand the brand’s values. Aside from showcasing the many facets of LOEWE, these cultural projects reflect the transfer of knowledge and the cooperative spirit that has been characteristic of LOEWE since it was founded as a collective of leathermakers in 1846. 

About OMA / AMO

OMA is an international practice operating within the traditional boundaries of architecture and urbanism. The firm is led by seven partners and maintains offices in Rotterdam, New York, Hong Kong, and Australia. OMA’s completed projects include the Taipei Performing Arts Centre (2023), Fondazione Prada in Milan (2017), and the Seattle Central Library (2003). In Japan, OMA has built Toranomon Hills Station Tower in Tokyo (2023), and Tenjin Business Center (2021), and Nexus World Housing in Fukuoka (1991).

AMO, a research and design studio, applies architectural thinking to domains beyond and often works in parallel with OMA’s clients to fertilize architecture with intelligence from an array of disciplines, including media, fashion, communication, and information. 

The design of Crafted World was led by OMA / AMO’s Rotterdam office in close collaboration with LOEWE. The Tokyo exhibition reflects OMA / AMO’s longstanding engagement with Japan and its expertise in fashion and scenography.

ABOUT THE VENUE

It is a modern, two-storey, glass-fronted exhibition space located opposite Harajuku Station and Yoyogi Park, a short walk away from the newly renovated CASA LOEWE Ōmetosando. 

In the Philippines, Loewe is exclusively distributed by Stores Specialists, Inc., and is located at Shangri-La Plaza Mall East Wing, Greenbelt 3, and The Mall | NUSTAR Cebu. Visit ssilife.com.ph or follow @ssilifeph on Instagram for more information. 

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