How an 18th-century mansion became a Loewe wonderland for Paris Fashion Week

Instead of hosting a typical runway show, this season, Jonathan Anderson had something different in mind. To present his A/W 2025 men’s and womenswear collections for Loewe, the designer took over the 18th-century Hôtel de Maisons in Paris – which is set within the beautiful Saint-Thomas-d'Aquin neighbourhood, just a stone’s-throw from the Musée d'Orsay – transforming its 17 rooms and manicured grounds into a sprawling, day-long presentation for guests to explore.

Sort of like entering an Anderson Disneyland, the event was conceived as a ‘scrapbook of ideas’ by the designer, uniting his new co-ed collection alongside significant past designs and the work of several makers who have inspired him through the years. Fashion editors, friends of the brand and celebrities such as Stephane Bak, Úrsula Corberó and Jamie Dornan (who recently fronted a campaign for Loewe Perfumes) drifted through the airy rooms of the home (once the residence of Karl Lagerfeld), moving between theatrically posed mannequins and artworks selected from the Loewe art collection. Among them were Anthea Hamilton’s giant pumpkin (from the A/W 2022 show set), South African ceramic artist Zizipho Poswa’s spiky vases, and Japanese artist Yoshihiro Suda’s tender flower sculptures. ‘A scrapbook contains things old and new that are gathered at random to be preserved as memories,’ said the house of the display. ‘Mementoes fill the pages.’

Adding to the fairytale of it all, Anderson’s interest in ideas of the surreal – which have steadily deepened over the past few seasons – were on show like a curated album of his greatest hits. The super-sized apple from the brand’s Juergen Teller-shot S/S 2025 campaign took centre stage in the hotel’s drawing room, while inflatable acrobats, playfully nodding to Loewe’s jewellery collection, climbed up the banisters of the staircase. Meanwhile, a cluster of mushroom stools, originally created for Salone del Mobile 2023, sprouted from the garden grass.

The idea of the scrapbook also informed the A/W 2025 collection itself, which saw Anderson drill down into the codes and tropes he has transformed the Spanish leather house with over the past 13 years. Seamlessly blending mens- and womenswear, the mannequins – which were animatedly posed in chairs and the hotel’s corniced eaves – were adorned in the designer’s distorted scales and volumes, tactile fabrics such as leather and shearling, witty trompe l’oeil prints and dramatic, sculptural cuts. As always, Anderson’s love for contemporary art and craftsmanship took centre stage, highlighted by a special collaboration with the Josef & Anni Albers Foundation.

Josef and Anni Albers were pioneers of 20th-century modernism who fell in love at the experimental Bauhaus School in 1922. While each was influential in their own right, they shared an connected understanding of colour and form – Josef in his spacial, geometric abstract paintings, and Anni with her graphic wall hangings and pictorial weavings. Anderson pulled reference from both, translating the maddening vibrancy of Josef’s Homage to the Square series into his A/W 2025 palette, and the knobbly woven masterpieces of Anni’s 1950s textiles into his textures, felt most strongly in a series of gorgeously rich, cocooning coats.

Unfolding over a drizzly day in the French capital, the event felt like a celebration of all that has defined Anderson’s tenure at Loewe – his flair for surreal invention, breathtaking craftsmanship, and deep respect for the contemporary artists who have inspired his collections and efforts at the Loewe Foundation. Though the event reflected on the past, as people mingled and shared in the space, it was evidently just as much about being together in the present moment, too.

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