Jonathan Anderson’s verdant display of organic embroidery negotiates the paradox of nature and artifice while serving as a living (and dying) metaphor for fashion’s ephemerality. Featured in Anderson’s spring/summer 2023 menswear collection for LOEWE, the “grass” coat was a collaboration with Paula Ulargui Escalona, a bio-designer whose sustainable practices involve cultivating plants to grow on clothes in order to “raise awareness of our need to reconnect with nature,” as the designer has explained. For her work with LOEWE, Escalona grew oatgrass (Avena sativa), chia (Salvia hispanica), wheatgrass (Triticum aestivum), and ryegrass (Lolium perenne) on jeans, hoodies, sweatpants, coats, and sneakers in a polytunnel greenhouse over the course of twenty days. This coat has started out alive and will slowly die over the course of the exhibition. The accompanying time-lapse video captures its complete cycle from germination to death.
Special thanks to:
Anna-Marie Kellen
Jesse Ng
Wilson Santiago