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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