This is Jonathan Anderson walking on an edge where there is great consciousness on one side, and something very bonkers on the other. “I felt it was better to start the year with something lighter and less measured,” he told Zoom. “At the beginning of 2021 I wanted something that was real. Truth study. ”
Reality? Well, now that that fact has gone awry, the hilarious misconceptions going on in Anderson’s new set of posters are a reasonable enough answer to the zeitgeist. There is Sophie Okonedo, working with gourd, pumpkin, and full of berries, and a trio of straight – faced models making things with cabbage, caramel, and a variety of houseplants. To add to the silliness, all the handwritten subtitles are strangely mixed. Juergen Teller shot the pictures in London. “There’s a lot to do with simplicity, which is why I wanted to use Juergen,” Anderson said. “He is so good at showing sharp truth without any problem. ”
This refreshing explosion of consolation is the latest in a series of memorabilia Anderson has been putting out for his own brand, and Loewe, since the pandemic hit. After designing the display boxes so cleverly last year, he names this one: “Super-simple. You can put it in a clip-frame and hang it. “It’s not as fast as the simple, though. Anderson in Anderson wouldn’t be without putting up enough signs to guide us down rabbit holes of themes and memes – ultra-fashionable entertainment, naturally, in those endless days with nothing to do.
Follow the vegetables: never as sweet as radishes crocheted on a sweater, or garnished with a hoodie; apparently as large prints of random gourds and peach – but also inspired by Anderson ‘s surviving 17th – century Dutch interest, and the work of British painter William Nicolson. A speculative, speculative rabbit hole, this one: “Why do we illuminate something as simple as lemon or radish? Is it thoughtful? ”He asks, astronomically. “So we turned that idea into patterns and images. I like this idea of humor in clothes. Squashes on jeans. Peach in the middle of a jumper. Something that makes you grind. Because fashion is there to make you think, or dream. “
Then, the real pants. Follow those isosceles triangular trouser legs, and you’re down the fort leading to Dada and Surrealist costumes, Voltaire and Bauhaus Cabaret theater, please. Or maybe getting into the checkerboard patterns built by the amazing non-conformist anti-Suristist Claude Cahoun on herself wearing. Said pants are also a real test of JW Anderson in shape – and a 2021 riposte, if ever one, for a time of endemic joggers. “Or maybe,” laughs Anderson, “he’s a traitor?”