AnOther Loves: A Space-age Oddity Boot

For their first collection, incoming creative directors Lazaro Hernandez and Jack McCollough push the idea behind Loewe to new extremes. What can define craft in the 21st century? Craft, in short, doesn’t need to look crafty

Until about a decade ago, Loewe was a little-known 170-ish year old Spanish leather house with a touchy-feely penchant for nice suede the colour of Iberian sand, and the Achilles tendon of a pretty much unpronounceable name. In the interim, it’s been catapulted to multi-billion Euro fashion prominence, through collections that clashed eras, recontextualised surreal objets as accessories, and via the Puzzle, one of the few genuinely inventive handbag designs of the 21st century. We now all know Loewe rhymes with duvet, and that that’s a name synonymous with craft in all shapes and forms, be it hand-woven fabric, outscore knits or, of course, those superlatively-worked leathergoods. For their first collection, incoming creative directors Lazaro Hernandez and Jack McCollough push that idea to new extremes. What can define craft in the 21st century? How about injection-moulding, or apparently seamless leather clothes shaped like chassis around the body, or La Isla Bonita Spanish lullaby ruffles abstracted to panes of cloth peeling away from the body. Craft, in short, doesn’t need to look crafty. These booties are a good example: crafted from a single piece of PVC, like hyper fashionable iterations of the humble and much-maligned wellington boot, they are sold with a matching trio of socklets to allow a flash of changeable colour within. The overall aesthetic is witchypoo halloween boot, meets space-age oddity and – especially when proposed in this virulent Bird’s Custard shade of synthetic yellow – it’s a compelling mix. 

The Loewe Emily aqua bootie in PVC is available to buy now.