Loewe wants to rave, too, with its SS22 menswear collection – i-D

All images courtesy of Loewe/ Photography byDavid Sims.

When fashion really captures the zeitgeist, often its completely coincidental. A couple of things happened this weekend that foreshadowed this writers experience of Loewes SS22 menswear collection. On Saturday, I went on a mid-morning run across Londons marshes, only to stumble upon a rave the size of a small festival. On Sunday, during a stroll across Piccadilly, I watched streets swell with thousands of pilled-up protesters raving in protest of the impact of social-distancing restrictions on the music and nightlife industries. Something is in the air (quite literally: wear a mask). Young people, however, want to go out again. They need to go out again, otherwise theyll go mad. Theres a dangerous time bomb of hedonism and euphoria ticking away.

Fashion which responded to last years fitness craze with athletic ease and this years pent-up sexual energy with exposed skin is also having a rave moment. First, there was Virgil Ablohs neon-hued Metalheadz-inspired Louis Vuitton collection. Now, Jonathan Andersons hedonistic release of a collection, inspired by the electrifying promise of intimacy and the feel of human touch.

Over the last year, during my twice-seasonal Zooms with Jonathan, he never once doubted the power of incredible clothes and his belief that people would wear them. Designing them, one gets the sense, is what keeps him constantly evolving and its why his collections over lockdown have been some of the best hes ever done. Fashion has a capability to change your mood, he explained during a preview of his Loewe collection. It really does something to people. I've been looking at the fantasy of going out, but not necessarily doing it. We are in this weird moment where we dont know if we can or we can't, and we're trying to dress up but we have no idea of where were going. In a weird way, going back to when I first went to university and was figuring out what I was going to wear, that's kind of where we're all at right now.

As per his lockdown tradition, the collection arrived in a box brimming with treasures. There is a book of the German-born, NYC-based artist Florian Krewer, known for turning found or personal photographs he has taken into saturated, chaotic paintings of characters in the public spaces. The paintings were direct inspiration for the Loewe collection. Another book, commissioned by Jonathan, features surreal, digitally-altered photos by David Sims of young men wearing the collection as a dialogue with Florians work. Theres also a dust bag containing three hundred glow-in-the-dark star stickers and a fluorescent yellow leather slap bracelet (one persons rave symbols are another persons way of calming children at bedtime).

The collection itself is also brilliantly chaotic, full of transparent layers of highlighter-neons and wildly trippy textures, like a pair of chartreuse shorts crafted from loops of tubes, or coats sprouting self-described Pringle-shaped metal plaques. It's a weird moment for fashion because it's a moment where we should be allowed to be schizophrenic, said Jonathan. It's about a moment of flushing things out. I needed this year and a half to play with anxiety and things I like and dislike so when I come out of it, I can start rebuilding a new silhouette or new archetype. Its like being at university and doing a dissertation and handing it in.

Anxiety and adolescence, and the giddy combination of both, are ostensibly the swirling undercurrents of the collection. For Jonathan, it goes back to his own coming-of-age (a key theme in his SS22 JW Anderson collection) and the idea of dressing up as a form of self-discovery. My whole thing with clothing and why I enjoy doing this is because I remember, growing up in Northern Ireland when I would buy discount clothing, I bought this orange jacket and tiger-printed trousers and I wore it to a high school thing and I was completely destroyed by this sea of navy and black and beige, he remembers. I never wore it again and went back to wearing a rugby jersey. Ultimately, everything I do, especially when it comes to men and gender and what that is, is an obscure fantasy of what I would love to get up in the morning and wear.

It seems fitting the collection arrives at the dusk of Pride month, at a time when many queer people reflect on their experiences of feeling different. Points of trauma can be transformed into something to be proud of. A pair of sequined zebra shorts, for example, command you to feel fabulous just as they command onlookers to take notice of you. A silver silk dress, knotted at the chest and waist to reveal flashes of skin, and a coat with a twisted chest cut-out that brazenly exposes bare nipples, are not just sexy because they show skin but because of the confidence it takes for the wearer to show it off. If you put one of these looks on the street, there is anxiety around it, added Jonathan. It would be like seeing an animal from the Amazon on the streets of London or Paris.

To go back to those two events over the weekend, it was surreal to see crowds of people sweating and gurning to the beat of electro music in the middle of London. If fashion has a way of serendipitously striking gold on a cultural moment, then Jonathan Anderson is its leading oracle, always glowing a light in the darkness like those little neon stars.

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Loewe wants to rave, too, with its SS22 menswear collection - i-D