LOEWE Men's Runway Collection Spring Summer 2024
A study on perspective. On how points of view define perceptions and scales, and how perceptions and scales draw silhouettes. Dwarfed by Lynda Benglis’ gigantic, water-spouting fountains, attendees look at the catwalk from a wide angle, and from the bottom up, taken by a certain grandeur. At least, this is what the silhouette entices: legs are long, the waist is high, the bust becomes compact.
Elongation, gesture and an exploration of fabrication turn the straightforward into something not so straightforward, the subtle into the bold. Blazers, coats, banker shirts, knitted polos, twin-sets, argyle knits, jeans and chinos are what the collection consists of. Such apparent plainness deceives the eye, but it is twisted and turned. Crystals swarm over entire surfaces, like filters, or meticulously drawn stripes and pinstripes. Gestural cuts turn the body into a construction. Shoes grow into trousers, giving the impression of cloth coming out of the ground.
As ever for LOEWE, the power of the unexpected act turns things around. Tops like giant swatches of fabric, pins included. Accessories that become pieces of clothing. A crystal hummingbird on a shredded brocade top and crystal-embellished sunglasses.
A cerebral palette of soft pastels, and solid blues, black, khakis.
Round-toe Chelsea boots and sandals, ballet shoes, oversized bags such as the suede Pebble bucket and Puzzle Fold totes add further elements to the study of proportions.
Note on the artworks:
The setting of the show revolves around three fountains created by artist Lynda Benglis (b.1941, Louisiana, USA). Over the course of her six-decade career, Benglis has redefined the art object through her ceaseless innovation with form and materiality, exploring the unpredictable behaviour of fluid substances in action. Through a gestural and physical engagement with materials as diverse as bronze, polyurethane, latex, glitter, paper, plaster, and water, Benglis has provocatively defied the conventional boundaries of sculpture.
Benglis created her first fountain, The Wave of the World, for the 1984 New Orleans World’s Fair. Presented here are: Crescendo (1983–84/2014–15), an evolution of The Wave of the World, is a dramatic cantilevered form reminiscent of a crashing wave or volcanic eruption; three monumental towers, Bounty, Amber Waves, Fruited Plane (2021), composed of stacked flower-like forms that conjure living growth or an explosion of water frozen in bronze; and Knight Mer (2007–2022), protruding from the surface of the water like an algae-encrusted rock.
Both monumental and intimate in scale, Benglis’ fountains pulsate with an energy that is infectious, provoking a visceral response and awakening our senses.
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