Jonathan Anderson transforms Loewe into the luxury moment, from Spain to China

Jonathan Anderson sits on the steps of Shanghai's Exhibition Center in worn jeans and a faded blue sweatshirt, looking younger than his thirty-nine years despite the fact that he will soon turn forty. He has been the creative director of Loewe for a decade—long enough to transform a Spanish luxury house that had lost its way into one of the most coveted brands in the world. The building around him, a palace built by the Chinese Communist Party in the 1950s to celebrate Soviet economic triumphs, now hosts Crafted World, the first major exhibition of Loewe's 178-year history. Over sixteen hundred square meters, the show traces the brand from its founding in 1846 through Anderson's radical reimagining of what luxury could mean.

When Anderson arrived at Loewe in 2013, he told an interviewer that luxury was dead. The executives at LVMH, which had owned the Spanish house since 1996, were bewildered. Anderson saw the word itself as exhausted, a marketing tool used to justify expensive products that had nothing to do with authenticity. The brand had become what he calls "bourgeois and elitist in a very old sense." It had stopped speaking to young people. So he set out to strip away the excess and return Loewe to something pure: craftsmanship, culture, art, and Spanish identity. "I'm not Spanish, but I want to make sure that everything I do matters to Spain," he says. "I wanted to build something that a country I don't belong to could feel proud of."

Anderson grew up in Magherafelt, Northern Ireland, during the turbulent 1980s, shaped by an era of IRA violence. He wanted to be an actor but was rejected from Juilliard. He applied to study fashion at Central Saint Martins in London and was rejected again. The London College of Fashion accepted him. By twenty-four, he had founded his own brand. By twenty-eight, he was running Loewe. He spent his first year studying the house's archives, trying to understand what it actually was. "It cost me to understand Loewe," he admits. "And it cost the public too." His spring-summer 2015 collection—complex, conceptual, sculptural, made from unexpected materials—announced the new direction. It was a critical success.

The Puzzle handbag, launched in 2014, became the house's bestseller and remains so a decade later. Its power lies in its difficulty. Made from seventy-five pieces of leather, it takes time to produce and cannot be easily copied. This is the opposite of fast luxury. Anderson has built Loewe around the idea that authenticity and craft are what people actually want, even if they don't know it yet. The brand now generates more than a billion euros annually and ranks eighth in LVMH's portfolio. Last year, it topped Lyst's quarterly index of the most desired fashion brands. The house has more than one hundred sixty stores worldwide and is particularly strong in Asia—Korea, Japan, and China.

Anderson draws inspiration not from Loewe's archives but from artists and cultural moments. He has created collections influenced by the sculptor Ken Price, the textile designer John Allen, the animator Studio Ghibli. His designs are full of references to pop culture, film, television, and music. He has dressed Beyoncé and Rihanna. Every summer, he creates Paula's Ibiza, a collection inspired by the bohemian patterns and carefree spirit of the island where he spent childhood summers. He is fascinated by Spain in the 1970s and 1980s, the Transition and the Madrid Movida, an era that coincided with the golden age of the Amazona bag.

The workshops in Spain have grown steadily under Anderson's direction. He emphasizes that Spanish leather treatment and construction differ fundamentally from Italian or French methods. He has created the Loewe Foundation Craft Prize, an annual award recognizing artisans and craft communities worldwide. His passion for handmade things comes from his grandfather, a textile designer who worked in a factory making clothes for the British Royal Navy. "My grandfather was always making things: weaving, fixing, building," Anderson says. "I needed that humility that craft gives you, that keeps you grounded. The artisan is more important than me because I cannot make a bag."

In the Shanghai exhibition, one room is devoted entirely to Spain. Ceramic plates and vessels made by Picasso sit alongside woven bags and straw baskets. Another room displays sixty-nine of Anderson's creations from the past decade. His favorite piece in the entire show is a small black leather jewelry box from the 1920s, decorated with a tiny silver mouse. It represents everything Loewe is to him: leather, handmade, well-made, with an element of humor. "When I see it, I think about my journey in this house, a journey that is not just about me but about a brand and a country," he says. "I don't work for the Spanish tourism office, but I work for a Spanish brand and I feel the responsibility to do things well."