Property of the leading global luxury group LVMH, the Spanish fashion and leather goods firm Loewe already has a store in Miami, its first in North America since the arrival of its new creative director, Jonathan Anderson.
Loewe is one of the Spanish luxury brands best known outside of Spain. Since 1846, it is a world reference for the excellence of its leatherwork. In 1905, King Alfonso XIII gave the Spanish firm the title of Supplier of the Royal House. Its flagship product is the Amazona handbag, which along with the Flamenco, the fashionable Puzzle bag and another completely new model designed by Anderson, are already available at the Miami boutique, which also features the newest Loewe fashion collections.
Located in Miami’s Design District, the Loewe boutique houses in its interior a novel element of high historical and cultural value: a 30-foot hórreo (granary). It is a stone structure supported by columns, typical of the northwest of the Iberian Peninsula. Since the Middle Ages, this kind of granary has been used to store and dry harvested grains and other agricultural products. The one inside the new boutique dates from the 18th eighteenth century and was found in a small town in Galicia, Spain, near the border with Portugal.
According to Anderson, Loewe’s new creative director, this “transplanted” element consolidates the concept of cultural fluidity that characterizes Loewe today. “We wanted to show a fragment of the history of Spain in a modern way: removed from its environment, out of place; a building within a building. Undoubtedly, it reflects the way in which the encoded information of the architecture takes on new meaning when it is repositioned. It elucidates how something that played a very specific function in a particular place takes on a new meaning in an entirely alien environment,” explains Loewe´s creative director. “We brought a barn to Miami and put it in the middle of a white box. It is a fragment of the knowledge and culture of Loewe´s place of origin, transported to another place in the world.” More on fashion and design.
Anderson has created this boutique around an object of great visual impact, transforming it into a bright and open space of pure minimalist style, with stone floors and large glass surfaces. The design is pure Loewe. Luxury lovers who visit Loewe’s new Miami outpost will understand the fascinating combination of tradition and modernity. ■
