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Fake a Death | Jonathan William Anderson, British fashion designer – obituary

Jonathan William Anderson, British fashion designer – obituary

27 September 2016 , 2:20PM
Jonathan William Anderson has been found dead aged 32 due to caffeine overdose in his design studio in London a year after his own brand, J.W. Anderson, received an historic double award for both ‘Menswear and ‘Womenswear Designer of the year’ in the 2015 British Fashion Award.
Anderson spent his childhood in the Northern Ireland since 1984 with his sporty family, in which his father, Willie Anderson, was the coach of the Scottish Rugby team and his two brothers played professionally for Ulster. Yet, Anderson on the other hand, fell in love with his grandparents’ fabric field of work. The way his grandmother dressed inspired him a lot, which could be seen in the 2011 autumn/ winter collection, the paisleys he used reminded him of his grandmother. ‘There’s one blue look – it’s so weird, she looked like my grandmother.’

As Anderson grew up, he had an idea of being an actor and went to Washington DC to study drama at The Actors’ Studio, and that was where he discovered a love for stage costumes. Upon moving back to London and completing a degree in menswear at the London College of Fashion, he established his very own brand – J.W. Anderson in 2008, and during the same year, J.W. Anderson successfully made itself to the London Fashion Week.

Anderson’s unique design aesthetic provided a contemporary interpretation of masculinity and femininity. He had never shown much interest in the differences between menswear and womenswear. He launched as menswear brand but over the year JW Anderson started presenting kimino-style coats, jumpers that hang from the waist and shorts in lace which were all socially defined as womenswear style clothing. Some described his work as androgyny, gender ambiguity or gender bending, but neither of which precisely convey the cool neutrality of Anderson’s approach to gender. He preferred the word unisex. Anderson was one of the few designers who adopted the idea of that ‘gender is just a concept, a process of socialisation’ to ready-to-wear clothes. Two years later, in 2010, J.W. Anderson started its womenswear collection, but both men’s and women’s collection still retained a lot of similarities. His attempt to promote unisex society and blur the gender boundary did not restrained by critiques from media and society, apart from applying womenwear’s fabric and design into menswear’s, he shocked the fashion industry by livestreaming his Autumn/Winter 2016 menswear show on the gay hook-up app Grindr.

The daring and bold personality of Anderson re-engineered the Spanish heritage house, Loewe, to a more bright and cultural brand. He was named creative director of Loewe in 2013 and immediately revamped its logo with the design duo Michael Amzalag and Mathias Augustyniak. The off-white colour he chose for its redesigned packaging was based on Portland stone, the material used for British Museum and the UN HQ in the New York, and the reason behind was that he wanted ‘to make Loewe about culture, to make the stores be public landmarks, where people see things they might see in a museum.’ Anderson’s vision of Loewe is to make it about culture, not just about the history but the period we are in now. Anderson, on top of being the creative director of Loewe, his brand J.W. Anderson was given a major injection of funding by the mother company of Loewe, LVMH Moët Hennessy, which further cements his status as a rising, new-generation designer.

The high achievement of Anderson’s fashion career was largely driven by his hard-working nature. Back in the day when he was still studying in LCF, he worked as assistance to the window display stylist Manuela Pavesi at Prada. During his career, he produced two mens and womenswear collections a year, pre-fall, resort and additional projects like his guest collection for Versus. He didn’t only design for the luxury market but also high street fashion, just like the JW Anderson for Topshop collaboration in 2013, which marked a huge success.
There were discussions about his collection regarding to ‘fast fashion’, and the pressure of this has been demise of many designer but for Anderson, he considered this as complement to his self confessed ‘obsessive’ way of working. ‘I give 100% to whatever I’m doing. There is nothing held back. Regarding my job in Loewe, I look at sales every morning. If I’m in an airport, I’m at the store. If I’m in Paris, I’m in the store. I want to know what is selling, in what quality, to whom and why did they buy it?’ said Anderson.

Sadly, perhaps it was his obsession and persistency that killed him by caffeine overdose. Although the brilliant life of Jonathan William Anderson ended in Sept, 2016, his strong belief in unisex and culture will continue innovating the fashion industry in the 21st century.



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