Loewe Launches Its Latest Paula's Ibiza Collection

The annual Loewe Paula’s Ibiza capsule collections—which sees Jonathan Anderson reworking prints from the archives of the legendary Ibiza boutique—that started in 2017 have come to signify all the pleasures of summertime: the outdoor adventures, the sun-soaked days, the moonlit parties. But this year, with the coronavirus pandemic forcing the world into lockdown and confining people to their homes, that vision of revelry and release has become both a distant memory and an impossible longing.

But the Paula’s Ibiza collection has been a project long in the making—we previewed the fruits of it in Paris all the way back in September of last year—and the house has decided to roll it out in hopes that the collection’s brilliant colours and dreamy prints, as well as the joyful, escapist visuals that accompany them, can be a bit of a balm in these trying times.

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“I know this is not exactly the ideal time to launch products, but this is a project all the craftspeople at Loewe have been lovingly working on for some, giving life to objects that are exquisitely lively and optimistic—as craft always is,” says Anderson on the launch. “This is a happy, undeniably escapist collection, conveyed through colourful and energetic images, and I thought it might cheer you up. As a visual feast, probably, or an aide-mémoire of better times to come,” he muses on what he hopes the collection can inspire.

But the power of fashion lies not only in its ability to provide respite and escape, but also in its very tangible capability to effect change for the better on a large scale. To that end, Loewe will be donating 40 Euros for every Loewe Paula’s Ibiza product sold from May till August, with the proceeds going to charities and educational projects that benefit children from socially vulnerable groups. The brand is working with Plataforma de Infancia—a Spanish alliance of organisations advocating for children’s rights—to reduce inequality and school dropouts, and has donated an initial amount of 500,000 Euros to kickstart the initiative.

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This comes on the heels of the house donating 100,000 surgical masks to the Spanish Red Cross—Spain being one of the nations worst hit by the pandemic—and retooling its Getafe factory to produce non-surgical masks. The launch of the Loewe Paula’s Ibiza collection and the empowering platform it supports mark another laudable initiative by the brand to put out more positivity into the world—a quality we need now more than ever.

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