LOEWE SPRING/SUMMER 2014 'SKIN' COLLECTION

This season Loewe maintains its focus on its specialist subject: the tactile sensuality of the material it has been master of for nearly 170 years. The collection has been specially designed to showcase the supreme quality of Loewe’s skins. Taking an architectural approach to bag design, Loewe has used clever and innovative pattern-cutting to create structures that fold flat. In order to work, these 2D-to-3D forms require skins that are large, strong, soft and supple with a precise consistency of thickness – and leather of this standard can only be produced with Loewe’s know-how.

 

Two brand-new bags join the Loewe canon this season. When collapsed, these bags take up less space, making them easy to store or travel with. Their shape also draws attention to the surface, amply demonstrating the smooth, even perfection of Loewe’s leathers.

 

The Origami Cubo takes the lozenge shape of a classic bag and rethinks it as a form that can fold flat. Designed with a double handle and a detachable shoulder strap, it’s a versatile bag that comes in three sizes.

 

The Origami Pillow is another geometric volume that is similarly ingenious in its construction. It is unlined so that the superior quality of its leather can be appreciated from both sides.

 

Joining the Cubo and the Pillow this season is the Vega, a flat open tote – a classic from the archive which was revived for Loewe’s collaborative collection with Junya Watanabe for autumn/winter 2013.

 

The colours of the collection elaborate on the theme of Skin with a palette of flesh-like tones, as well as white and black. The Pillow comes in Loewe’s signature material – its light-gold ‘Oro’ suede and napa calf – while the Cubo and Vega use two leather finishes that are new departures for Loewe: a smooth, shiny gloss calf and sleek, supple nubuck.

 

Completing this season’s line-up of bags are the classic Flamenco and Amazona in perforated black leather, and in a python which has been lavished with a sumptuous napa finish. The Cubo and Pillow also come in python, which is used elsewhere on belts and espadrilles, with cosmetics cases and zip wallets in snakeskin.

 

Exotic leathers are not only one of this season’s materials but also a key inspiration and motif. A crocodile pattern features on Loewe’s silk and cashmere scarves, which come in three colours and two sizes. Reptile skins have also inspired the chunky jewellery: the necklaces, chokers and bracelets are made from a serpentine sequence of links whose shapes echo the rhomboid form of snake scales. Made from palladium, these links are variously textured like snakeskin or smoothed with a satin or shiny finish; when joined, they resemble scales themselves, together mimicking the markings of a snake. The snake-like links also feature on the narrow belts for this season.