Loewe (fashion brand)

Loewe (stylized as LOEWE) is a Spanish luxury fashion house specialising in leather goods, clothing, perfumes and other fashion accessories. Founded in 1846 in Madrid, Loewe is part of LVMH since 1996, and is the oldest luxury fashion house of the holding.

The company was established in Madrid in 1846 by a group of Spanish leather craftsmen, and the brand was created in 1876 when Enrique Loewe joined the group. By the early 20th Century, many notable people took great interest in Loewe and Queen Victoria Eugenie became a regular customer. In 1905, Alfonso XIII granted them the Royal Warrant of Appointment and thus Loewe became Purveyor of the Royal Household of Spain. The company quickly grew in popularity and was promoted by figures such as Ernest Hemingway, Ava Gardner, Rita Hayworth, Marlene Dietrich and Sophia Loren amongst others.

History


Loewe was founded in 1846 in Madrid by a group of Spanish leather craftsmen, and the brand originated in 1876 when Enrique Loewe y Roessberg, a German merchant of Hessian origin, joined the group. In 1905, Alfonso XIII granted Enrique Loewe y Hilton, a descendant of the original brand founder, the title of Purveyor to the Royal Court. His wife, Queen Victoria Eugenie, frequently visited the store on Príncipe de Madrid street.

By the 1970s, Loewe was expanding into perfumes and fashion with the creation of the Loewe anagram logo, designed by Spanish painter Vicente Vela. Giorgio Armani and Laura Biagiotti subsequently designed Loewe's womenswear collections.

In 1986, LVMH bought the rights to Loewe's international distribution. It acquired Loewe completely in 1996. That year, Loewe had sales of about $200 million, among the smallest of LVMH's companies; ready-to-wear was responsible for 10 percent of that total. By 1997, Narciso Rodriguez joined the company as new creative director and the brand had its first Paris runway presentation at LVMH headquarters in the fall/winter 1998 season. Both José Enrique Oña Selfa (2000–2007) and Stuart Vevers (2008–2013) followed. During Vever's tenure, Loewe scaled back fashion to concentrate on handbags, leather apparel and a substantial gift business based on leather picture frames and leather boxes.

Jonathan Anderson became Loewe's creative director in 2013. His first ready-to-wear collections for Loewe were presented in 2014.

Since 2014, Loewe's headquarters – including the design team, which had previously been based in Madrid – has been located on Place Saint-Sulpice in Paris. The company remains based in Spain. Manufacture, particularly of leather goods, takes place in Barcelona and Getafe, near Madrid.

Members of the Spanish royal family, including Queen Sofía and Queen Letizia, have been seen several times wearing Loewe handbags.

In 2019 lawsuit brought to the Tribunal de commerce de Paris, Loewe invoked a non-compete case related to its employment of designer Bruno Sialelli who became artistic director at Lanvin at a time when he was still bound by commitments linked to his prior position. As part of an out-of-court settlement in 2020, Loewe and Lanvin reached an agreement.

Following high-profile collaborations, including designing several custom performance looks for American singer Beyoncé's Renaissance World Tour and appointing South Korean rapper Taeyong as a brand ambassador, Loewe topped the Lyst's Hottest Brand Index for the first time in the second quarter of 2023, a position previously held by Prada.

Locations
Loewe stores are located worldwide. In 2014, Loewe's then-143 stores were concentrated mainly in Spain and Japan, which respectively had 37 and 27 locations. The first London shop opened in 1963, on Mayfair's Mount Street.

Loewe opened its first American store in New York, a three-story shop at the Trump Tower, in 1983; it closed 1993. Today, the company has four stores in the US: Miami's Design District (since 2016), the Wynn in Las Vegas (since 2018), New York (since 2019), and Rodeo Drive in Los Angeles (since 2022).

In 2016, Loewe opened Casa Loewe Madrid, the brand's first flagship in Madrid and – with 10750 sqft – its largest store in the world. It is located in the ground floor of the company's head office in a landmark 19th-century building. In 2019, Loewe outgrew its London store in Mount Street and opened Casa Loewe at 41-42 New Bond Street.



Loewe Foundation
In 1988, Enrique Loewe y Lynch, great-grandchild of the firm's creator, founded the Loewe Foundation, a private cultural foundation that supports cultural events and exhibitions. Today, his daughter Sheila Loewe is the President of the foundation supporting design and craftsmanship. The foundation received a Gold Medal of Merit in the Fine Arts from the Spanish government in 2002.

Following an initiative of designer Jonathan Anderson, the Loewe Foundation Craft Prize was established in 2017.

Established in 2021, the Loewe Foundation / Studio Voltaire Award international artist residency comes with a year-long studio space at Studio Voltaire, a £25,000 ($32,522) stipend for accommodations and living costs, a production and travel budget, and a professional development program. Recipients have since included Beatrix Pang (2022) and Prajakta Potnis (2024).

Campaigns
Loewe's global brand ambassadors have included Penélope Cruz (2013–2015), Josh O'Connor (since 2017), Tang Wei (since 2022), South Korean girl group Nmixx (since 2022), Taylor Russell (since 2022), Taeyong (since 2023), Yang Mi (since 2023),  Jamie Dornan (since 2024),   Lim Ji-Yeon (since 2024) and Wang Yibo (since 2024). Other celebrities who have featured in the brand's advertisement campaigns include Gisele Bündchen (2017), Tracee Ellis Ross (2021), Gillian Anderson (2021), Greta Lee (2023) and Maggie Smith (2023) and Kit Connor (2024).

During Stuart Vevers's tenure, most Loewe advertising campaigns were shot by Mert Alaş and Marcus Piggott. For his first Loewe ad campaigns, Jonathan Anderson worked with Steven Meisel; he has since worked with Tyler Mitchell (2020) and Juergen Teller (since 2021).