Jonathan Anderson has lead Spanish luxury label LOEWE since 2013, an eternity amidst fashion’s hyper-speed churn. But hardly anyone stays at the top forever.
Rumors suggesting Anderson’s departure from LOEWE have been kicked around for months now, though whispers of one famous designers moving to another famous house are a dime a dozen.
These specific rumblings feel sturdier than they seem. As for the rest of fashion’s rumors, well, who’s to say?
But there’s smoke in case of Jonathan Anderson, which suggests there may be fire.
At Anderson’s LOEWE Spring/Summer 2025 womenswear presentation, held on September 27 in Paris, a few interesting notions were underfoot.
For one, Anderson was noticeably emotional during his post-show bow, as captured by a few professional photographers, while a host of industry insiders (including some third-party LOEWE partners) gave the designer a standing ovation.
Believe it or not, but plenty of people who attend fashion shows offer little more than polite applause at a runway’s conclusion. That several influential folks stood for Anderson’s bow speaks surprising volumes.
Highsnobiety has also heard from an anonymous source that Anderson’s exit at LOEWE has been in the works for some time. It’s not confirmed, obviously, but it’s also not a sudden retirement. There are larger machinations at work. Highsnobiety has reached out to LOEWE representatives for comment.
It’s also worth pointing out that, though Anderson does tend to publish Instagram carousels after every new runway show, his most recent LOEWE slideshow is especially emotive, filled with celebrity friends and captioned with loads of heart emojis.
A couple fashion rumormongers have already pushed the narrative that Anderson isn’t merely leaving LOEWE, but he’s taking the reigns at Dior.
This would lead to a series of high-profile switch-ups that might send Maria Grazia Chiuri to Gucci and Kim Jones to… unclear.
This builds on rumors of Jones’ departure that began circulating at the beginning of the year and would make for quite an eventful end of 2024, what with CELINE efficiently replacing Hedi Slimane who may very well be off to Chanel, which is purportedly planning to announce a new creative director by the end of the holiday season.
And that’s not even to get into the whole situation with John Galliano, who’s rumored to be replaced with former Y/Project overseer Glenn Martens, and former Valentino creative director Pierpaolo Piccioli supposedly in the running for Fendi.
All of that ought to be taken with a grain of salt until it happens (or doesn’t).
Same for Jonathan Anderson’s LOEWE departure, for what it’s worth. But at least in that case, there’s some precedent.