What’s Happening: Two centuries of the Spanish label converge in a new exhibition that honors its leatherworking origins while showing how craft and artistry inform its approach today.

The Download: When it was formed in 1846, Loewe was favored by the Spanish royal family and renowned for its master leatherwork. LVMH acquired the house in 1996 and recruited luminaries like Narciso Rodriguez and Stuart Vevers to enliven the brand before enlisting Jonathan Anderson. At the time, the prodigious designer’s namesake label was cementing its industry standing with accolades from the British Fashion Council and fruitful collaborations with the likes of Topshop and Versace. “They just needed an entire rebrand,” Anderson told Surface in a 2017 cover story. “How do you make a leather company in Spain not feel like sweaty leather?”

The answer is deceptively simple: craft, creativity, and the magic that arises when the two interact. Since Anderson took the helm more than a decade ago, he has helped transform Loewe into a powerhouse that generates more than $650 million per year in revenue, frequently collaborates with high-profile artists like Julien Nguyen and Lydia Benglis, and spearheads a closely watched annual prize that celebrates the maker’s hand—all while churning out a constant stream of well-crafted collections and provocative runway shows to critical acclaim and commercial success. These many multitudes of Loewe now coalesce in “Crafted World,” a newly opened show that charts the brand’s evolution over the past two centuries, with a special focus on artist collaborations.

Anderson has been working to bring “Crafted World” to life for the past two years, collaborating closely with Office for Metropolitan Architecture to collapse two centuries of a storied fashion house into digestible yet thought-provoking bits that cater to how we consume art and fashion today. Non-acolytes may be overwhelmed at the label’s prolific output—more than 150 works from the Loewe Art Collection are on display, as well as an entire room dedicated to the Loewe Foundation Craft Prize. But they may just whip out their phones upon seeing a room filled floor-to-ceiling with weaver John Allen’s vivid carpets or a life-size recreation of My Neighbor Totoro’s titular spirit that has inspired some capsule collections.

Visitors are free to lay on Totoro, sift through a rainbow library of leathers, and play with the disassembled pieces of the house’s coveted Puzzle Bag, underscoring one of the show’s key themes: touch. Almost nothing is put behind glass, which reflects Anderson’s long-held belief that art, objects, and clothing lose their tactility when put in a vitrine, which he compares to taxidermy. It all hearkens back to his sui generis approach that has catapulted Loewe to success for the past decade and, if he plays it right, may broaden his influence even more. “Sometimes fashion is not about selling,” he explained to The Cut in 2022. “It’s about introducing ideas.” That’s not always achieved through looking alone.

In Their Own Words: “In the beginning, it was very difficult actually to get artists to work with a fashion brand, There was a preconceived idea of fashion as the Big Bad Wolf and artists as this island,” Anderson said at a press preview reported by ARTnews. “It was only recently that I realized that, through many, many years of trying to understand the nuances and to make people feel secure in collaborating with a brand and not feel overexposed by it, we now are in a place where I feel confident the artist is in a safe space.”

Surface Says: We just hope more Studio Ghibli collabs are in the works.

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Bruno Mars has been performing in Las Vegas for years and has always wanted a place to throw parties when he’s in town: “A place that felt like my personal penthouse suite, with live music and sensational cocktails,” he says. So he teamed up with Yabu Pushelberg to make it happen at the Bellagio, where they recently pulled back the curtain on the Pinky Ring. Envisioned as a secluded experience separate from the casino floor’s lights and bustle, the 5,000-square-foot cocktail lounge takes cues from ‘70s-era decadence and museum architecture to forge a glamorous, speakeasy ambiance unlike anything else on the Strip.

Guests immediately venture down a mirrored hallway as a palette cleanser from the outside world before entering the main bar and lounge, which sits in front of a sunken conversation pit wrapped with wavy banquettes and dotted with chartreuse velvet armchairs. The downlit environs provide a suave setting to sip signature cocktails like the Hooligan (tequila, agave nectar, lime, jalapeño) and the Mars Mocha (chocolate rum, espresso, banana, sesame froth) as DJs spin vinyl throughout the night. Don’t expect to see much of the Pinky Ring on social media—phones are forbidden—but we don’t need to tell you about what happens in Vegas.

So far, 2024 is shaping up to be a banner year for the French multidisciplinary artist Josèfa Ntjam. Earlier this year, she made her U.S. debut with an exhibition of sculpture, film, sound, and digital collage at Fotografiska New York, immersing visitors in a trippy interpretation of “radical liberation” movements pulled from real life and fiction alike. Now, after having spent the entirety of 2023 in residence with LVMH’s Métier d’Art, Ntjam recently wrapped up a major sculpture exhibition with the French luxury conglomerate.

During her residency, Ntjam worked from the Portuguese and Parisian workshops of Jade Groupe, which fashions metal hardware for garments produced by LVMH maisons. “Une cosmogonie d’océans” shows an ethereal and regal side to her developing practice. Each of the 12 sculptures are informed by West and Central African diasporic mythology and range in scale from handheld to more than six feet tall. Her followers may be more used to a neon-tinged palette of acid-green, fuchsia and turquoise, but in “Une cosmogonie d’océans,” we’re treated to a slate of regal, ethereal beings who are at once of the moment and redolent of antiquity.

Last week, Laila and Nadia Gohar’s art-inflected tableware line brought a few dozen of their closest friends out for a night in the storied halls of Grand Central Oyster Bar. With glasses of Champagne Lallier in hand, guests were treated to no fewer than three musical performances and a surprise marching band. In keeping with Gohar World’s ethos, three illusion cakes in the shape of a fig, pea pod, and asparagus took attendees by surprise—after a round of caviar sandwiches, as one does at the Oyster Bar.

When was it? March 22

Where was it? Grand Central Oyster Bar, New York

Who was there? Ignacio Mattos, Pierce Abernathy, Dion Lee, Chloe Wise, Andy Baraghani, Precious Okoymon, David Haskell, Mike Eckhaus, Hannah Traore, and more.

When: Until April 25

Where: March, San Francisco

What: In her latest show, the farmer and chef-turned-painter reclaims scenes of domesticity and homemaking. Instead, she transforms still-lifes of table settings, food she’s cooked, deserts, and gold inlaid bone china into subversive symbols. She uses the medium of home-set still-life painting, one of the earliest and more socially acceptable ways for women artists to express their talents, into a jumping off point for questions about “class, labor, utility, and tradition.”

The Savannah College of Art and Design is a private, nonprofit, accredited university, offering more than 100 academic degree programs in more than 40 majors across its locations in Atlanta and Savannah; Lacoste, France; and online via SCAD eLearning. SCAD’s curriculum is enhanced by professional-level technology, equipment, and learning resources, as well as opportunities for internships, professional certifications, and projects with corporate partners.

Surface Says: SCAD leverages its vast industry relationships and flourishing alumni network to equip the designers of tomorrow to thrive in a continuously evolving landscape.

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