Fashion, objects and artworks converge as Jonathan Anderson takes his eponymous British label in a new direction

'I like change. I have wanted to change things around for two years now, and finally I feel at one with who I am today and what the brand means,’ says Jonathan Anderson of his label’s new lean into cultural lifestyle. This new brand direction, which takes shape in everything from the JW Anderson store architecture by Sanchez Benton, to the championing of homewares, art and artisanal goods inside them, is driven by Anderson’s love of collecting and curating.

His passion shines through in the joyfully eclectic selection – ‘things that I either want to wear or want to live with,’ says Anderson – which ranges from ceramics by Akiko Hirai to Lucie Rie mugs and Charles Rennie Mackintosh’s Scottish oak stools.

Curating, of course, comes naturally for Anderson, who has developed a distinctive artistic sensibility in his role as occasional curator at institutions such as the Hepworth Wakefield, Offer Waterman and, in October 2025, the Holburne Museum. Art plays a crucial role in the new concept – selected by Anderson, who took an organic, gallery-like approach, the works will be on display in the new stores from November.

Ranging from the abstract to the expressionist, the artworks, which were previewed in July at an installation held at Galerie Joseph in Paris, are united in their quiet consideration of the small moments, defined by a preoccupation with a hidden internal life, often shifting the focus to the unseen or perhaps unnoticed – a mood, a moment, some flowers, some fruit. Colours are striking, with the rich pink or lime green hues of artist Mary Stephenson’s work immediately zinging into focus in a thrilling embrace of the fashion poised around it. Despite eschewing traditional portraiture – unlike her earlier works, the figure is now absent from her paintings – there is a perceptive boldness in her sharp planes, conjuring up an internal world rife with the peaks and troughs of human psychology.

Interiors, too, are key for the late Gwen John, whose muted tones and sparse use of colour are a controlled antidote to the emotions they conjure – a dichotomy also seen in Christina Kimeze’s colourful, hard-to-place landscapes. In the work of the late American artist Robert Kulicke, which Anderson says he has always loved, evocative still lifes, primarily of pears, are intimate in scale. They draw on a rich historicity in their elevation of everyday objects.

‘The idea is how all these things talk together,’ adds Anderson. ‘Ultimately, it’s showing the influence and how I see things, and how it all figures together.’ Anderson has worked with long-term collaborator Andrew Bonacina to bring artists into the fashion context through special projects, making artists an integral part of the new brand direction.

‘I always look back to the early 20th century when the worlds of art, design, fashion and music were much more intertwined,’ says Bonacina. ‘I think artists are once again looking for this kind of interdisciplinary thinking. JW Anderson is a brand, and the stores are commercial spaces, but they have been carefully conceived so that everything that is brought into the space, including art, has a considered dialogue with the things around it.’

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This article appears in the September 2025 Style Issue of Wallpaper*, available in print on newsstands, on the Wallpaper* app on Apple iOS, and to subscribers of Apple News +. Subscribe to Wallpaper* today