For the second time, the Spanish luxury fashion business has collaborated with Studio Ghibli, this time drawing inspiration from the anime film Spirited Away.
The collaboration, which debuted last year as Loewe x My Neighbor Totoro and sold out in record time, is back with a new wave of ready-to-wear, purses, and other leather products featuring familiar characters from the 2001 anime film Spirited Away. Anderson defines the picture as “an homage to loyalty, camaraderie, and persistence in the face of adversity” and considers it “wonderful” in the notes that accompany the new collection.
Anderson has used the same feeling of wonder to a collection that is currently on display at a pop-up in Dubai’s Mall of the Emirates. The key characters from the film, Chihiro, Haku, Fly-Bird, and the sorceress Yubaba, as well as Kaonashi, the ghost with no face, and the Susuwatari soot sprites, are all shown on the range. The collection includes intarsia knitted wraps covered with scenes from the film, hoodies with patchwork faces, and knitted cardigans with wooly soot sprites growing in 3D, according to Loewe.
Characters stitched on canvas panels and turned into bags, as well as meticulously applied purses and wallets, add to Loewe’s well-known leather expertise. The sprites — the little eccentric Susuwatari – swarm over everything like fluffy black pom-poms with large, gooey eyes.
Patchwork coats that use the “boro” technique of using wasted fabric and mended pieces – now coloured in a rich, saturated indigo blue – to form loose fitting jackets, while the rest of the outfits are likewise spacious, to give the characters space to shine, are available for Japanese fans. Jeans, puffer jackets, hats, giant jumpers, and even blankets are displayed in a pop-up that resembles a traditional Japanese ornamental bridge and the interior of a subway train.