Following last year’s much-publicised showcase in Shanghai, LOEWE has shifted its focus to Tokyo for its Crafted World extravaganza. Here, the Spanish luxury house will once again flex its artisanal muscle, presenting 179 years of creativity and innovation. Conceived as a travelling exhibition, Crafted World will arrive in the first country where LOEWE expanded to beyond the Old Continent in 1973. Since then, LOEWE has continued to engage in a rich cultural dialogue with Japan. Designed in collaboration with renowned Dutch architecture practice OMA, the 1,300 sqm. (13,993 sq.ft.) showcase will open on Sat – Mar 29, and offers visitors a chance to journey through the iconic designs and cultural collaborations that have illuminated LOEWE’s evolution from merely a leather-making collective founded in Madrid in 1846, to the global luxury powerhouse it is today. And dare we say, much is owed to parting creative director Jonathan Anderson. Steeped in art and culture, Crafted World is a story dedicated to the joy of making things by hand.
The two-week exhibition, held at a newly built events venue in the Harajuku shopping area, transports the audience from the sights and sounds of the brand’s homeland Spain, to the front row of the runway in Paris, and, in a series of interactive rooms, inside the visionary imaginations that have inspired LOEWE’s recent collections — including those of Studio Ghibli and the Kyoto-based ceramics studio Suna Fujita. The Crafted World show also includes a specially curated series of works and architectural interventions highlighting the house’s collaborations and cultural projects across Japan and beyond. These include a video documenting the LOEWE Foundation’s support for the Onishi family, who have been crafting ceremonial Kama tea kettles in Kyoto for over 400 years, alongside works by LOEWE Foundation Craft Prize finalists Tanabe Chikuunsai IV, Moe Watanabe, and 2019 winner Genta Ishizuka, and artist collaborators from LOEWE’s annual Salone del Mobile showcase in Milan, ARKO, Hafu Matsumoto, and Jiro Yonezawa. © superfuture
LOEWE Crafted World
6-35-6 Jingumae (Harajuku)
Tokyo 150-0001
Daily 9am-8pm (last admission 7pm)
Reservation via LINE is required
Publishers Note
Just to be clear – superfuture® is a design blog and not a political commentator. No surprise there. The scope of our content has always been global and borderless, however that can often mean covering projects in countries where we will not agree with the politics or actions of those countries. In a world that’s as screwed up as ever right now, the focus of our support is to those designers, architects and other creatives who aim to make the world a more liveable one – as opposed to people that try their hardest to destroy it. So if a project hits our desk and we like it based on its design credentials, we may choose to publish regardless of its location or creators nationality. superfuture® has always been inclusive and hopes for all current wars, aggression, violence, hate and extremism to end.
