JW Anderson SS24: the liberating act of starting from scratch

There’s nothing like the liberating feeling of wiping the slate clean. And that’s what JW Anderson has done this season in his SS24 Men’s and Resort 2024 Women’s collection: let loose, take it easy.

A gigantic space lined with a blue-and-white striped carpet – characteristic of Cornishware, celebrating its 100th anniversary – bears witness to Anderson’s ingenious exercise in (de)construction. For that is what it is all about: deconstructing in order to start again from scratch.

This liberation would thus let an off-center movement appear in a drape, a lapel or a V-neckline. An architectural relationship of straight lines, diagonals, perpendiculars, dots and stripes that give a sense of simplicity and calm, which is not so simple and not so calm.

There were huge chunky sweaters made from balls of yarn, or tops that looked like they were pulled from rugs at home. Shorts, unhemmed, had an outward leg with excess fabric. T-shirts came with long sleeves and short sleeves. It was as if Anderson had begun to develop a collection, and left it unfinished, raw.

Because to go back to the origin is also to free thought from its oppositions, from its limitations to which it is condemned. JW Anderson detaches himself from the established order with the utmost elegance and impeccability. The designer, also in charge of the house Loewe, once again gives us new ways to challenge the norm and with deviations that are hidden in plain sight.

This was Prada show at Milan Fashion Week.