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    Patrick Carroll presents knitted “paintings” at JW Anderson store

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    Artist Patrick Carroll has used recycled yarn to create hand-knitted painting-style pieces for the Days textile exhibition at JW Anderson’s Milan store during Milan design week.

    Carroll presented translucent artworks that look “as if they are paintings”, which were made using a 1970s flatbed domestic knitting machine and displayed on wooden stretcher bars – the skeleton of a traditional art canvas – in the store.
    Days is a textile exhibition by Patrick Carroll”My stuff is a little bit transparent – you can see the architecture of it all,” Carroll told Dezeen at the JW Anderson flagship store in Milan, where the work is exhibited in a show called Days.
    “I was making clothing initially,” he explained, donning one of his own pink creations.
    The pieces are on display at Milan’s JW Anderson storeCarroll decided to apply his practice to artworks, designing pieces made from yarn salvaged from remainder shops that liquidate the fashion industry’s leftover textiles rather than sourcing new materials.

    Recycled wool, linen, mohair, silk and cashmere all feature in the rectilinear works, which are finished in colours ranging from coral to aqua to ochre.
    They range from big to smallLike Carroll’s clothing, each piece was characterised by one or a handful of words lifted from sources including literature, existing artworks or the artist’s own writing.
    The smallest pieces in the collection were displayed on gridded shelving while larger pieces can be found on various walls throughout the store.
    When viewed together, the works were position to create a “modular chorus”, explained the artist, who encouraged viewers to form their own relationships with the words weaved into the textiles.

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    Days follows Carroll’s first collaboration with JW Anderson in 2022 when the artist designed seven knitted outfits for the brand. The clothes were worn by models posing on chunky blue plinths positioned outside the venue of JW Anderson’s Spring Summer 2023 menswear show in Milan.
    “I think what makes the works a little bit unique is that they have legs in all these disciplines – fashion, design and art,” added Carroll.
    Carroll’s artworks display a mix of single words and phrasesFounded by Loewe creative director Jonathan Anderson, JW Anderson previously created hoodies and tailored shorts moulded from plasticine for its Spring Summer 2024 womenswear show at London Fashion Week.
    Various other fashion brands have a presence at this year’s Milan design week. Hermès has created an installation that uses reclaimed bricks, slate, marble and terracotta to draw attention to the brand’s artisan roots while Marimekko has transformed a traditional Milanese bar into a flower-clad day-to-night cafe.
    The photography is courtesy of Patrick Carroll and JW Anderson. 
    Days is on display from 17 to 21 April 2024 at the JW Anderson store, Via Sant’Andrea 16, Milan. See our Milan design week 2024 guide on Dezeen Events Guide for information about the many other exhibitions, installations and talks taking place throughout the week.

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      “I sometimes feel like I fell into doing fashion” says Jonathan Anderson

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      Loewe creative director Jonathan Anderson set up the brand’s annual craft prize to decode the “chintz” and “pastiche” associations of the discipline, he tells Dezeen in this interview.

      Luxury fashion house Loewe recently announced the sixth winner of its annual craft prize at NYCxDesign, which celebrates applied arts and innovation in modern craftsmanship.
      A spiky egg sculpture by Japanese ceramicist Eriko Inazaki was selected for the 2023 award from more than 2,700 entries.
      “It became chintz”
      Anderson established The Loewe Foundation Craft Prize in 2016 in an effort to honour the brand’s 19th-century origins as a leather-making craft collective.

      Speaking to Dezeen at the awards ceremony for the prize at The Noguchi Museum in Brooklyn, he explained he also wanted to redefine contemporary understandings of artisanal production.
      “I think from the ’80s onwards, [craft] had become this thing which was linked to mid-century, it was pastiche,” said Anderson.
      “In Britain, for example, there was a lot of money put into crafts and the Arts Council to boost this idea of making, and then it became maybe chintz at some point.”
      The winning sculpture by Eriko Inazaki (front) was displayed among an exhibition of shortlisted projects at NYCxDesign. Photo courtesy of Loewe”The reason why I set the prize up was to try to sort of decode that,” he told Dezeen. “It was like it wasn’t marketed right. The work was there, but the platform was not there.”
      Young creatives are now becoming interested in craft once again, he suggested.
      “I think younger people are starting to realise that, as much as it’s interesting being a contemporary artist, it can be just as interesting to be a rug maker or to make ceramics or to work with wood,” said Anderson.
      “It’s a less sort of diminished form of the arts.”
      “I am probably a shopaholic”
      Before being appointed by Loewe in 2014, Anderson founded his eponymous label, JW Anderson.
      Although differentiated by what Anderson describes as an “angst” at JW Anderson and a “heightened perfection” at Loewe, the two brands share an emphasis on art, design, craft and interiors.
      His collections at Loewe often incorporate elements of applied arts – bringing in collaborators and craftspeople, such as metal artist Elie Hirsch who created solid copper and pewter jackets for its Autumn Winter 2023 collection.
      Loewe also presented a collection of decorated wooden chairs during Milan design week that were created by global artisans.
      “Art for me is always going to be a language no matter what brand I’m in,” he said. “Because I think this is a way for me to kind of explain to the consumer, what I love, or things that I’m fascinated with.”
      Anderson works with the internal architectural team to design stores. Photo by Adrià CañamerasThe Northern Irish designer’s love of craft and art extends to the conception of store interiors for both of his brands.
      JW Anderson recently unveiled its first flagship store in Milan during Milan design week, designed by Anderson in collaboration with 6a Architects.
      “I sometimes feel like I fell into doing fashion but ultimately the interior part is what I love the most,” he said.
      “The thing I love about interiors is, it is a singular kind of environment. Whereas fashion is like a transient period that goes in different environments. I quite like with interiors the control that you can have within space.”
      He described his love of shopping for items to appear in stores.
      “I think I am probably a shopaholic,” he said. “I could be at an auction or be in a gallery and I’ll be like, ‘oh, that’s perfect for Korea or that’s perfect for…’.”
      “I think it just adds this element and a pleasingness for a consumer to go in and to a store and to see an original Rennie Mackintosh chair.”

      Needle-felted chair and spiky ceramic egg feature in Loewe Foundation Craft Prize exhibition

      Anderson feels that for Loewe, the design of stores is sometimes more important than fashion shows.
      “I think stores can be more than just like these commercial vehicles,” he said. “I think, for me, the store is just as important as doing a show. It’s sort of even more important because they have to last longer.”
      “I’m in a very lucky position at Loewe where I decide everything,” he added. “I have an internal architectural team, but I decide every artwork, I decide every door handle, every fixture.”
      However, that does not tempt Anderson to cross over from fashion into interiors permanently.
      “I enjoy it because it’s probably more like a hobby,” he said. “It’s something that distracts me from what I do as a day job, but I do it because of the stage of Loewe or JW Anderson.
      “But I would never see it as something where I would be like, ‘oh, I’m going to be an interior designer’,” he continued. “There are other people out there that are actually really good at it. I think I’m good at it to an extent, but I change my mind too quickly. I would like it for like a day and then I would want to redo it again.”
      The portrait is by Scott Trindle.

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      6a Architects brings Soho sex shop windows to JW Anderson Milan flagship store

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      British fashion brand JW Anderson has opened a flagship store in Milan that was designed by British studio 6a Architects and draws on the local atmosphere as well as Soho sex shops.

      The 53 square-metre-store is located on the Via Sant’Andrea luxury shopping street in Milan’s Quadrilatero shopping district. It is set across a single floor and comprises two rooms.
      JW Anderson’s first Milan store was designed by 6a ArchitectsWhile the boutique primarily draws reference from its “bourgeoise” Milanese surroundings, the retail space also pulls from designer Jonathan Anderson’s first JW Anderson store in Soho and from the 2017 exhibition Disobedient Bodies, which was curated by him.
      It was designed by 6a Architects, who Anderson began working with in 2017 after selecting the studio to design the set for Disobedient Bodies at The Hepworth Wakefield.
      It draws on a Milanese atmosphere”I thought [6a Architects] really grasped how to take my visual language and turn it into something which was able to be educational,” Anderson told Dezeen.

      “They’re very good at hybrid, old or new. They’re very good at this combination, they’re great architects.”
      “The store actually is a combination of Disobedient Bodies and a store. It’s a little bit more elevated,” he said. “The front of the building feels Soho, and as you go in, it feels more kind of domestic Milanese.”
      It carries over elements from the Soho storeIn a nod to the store frontages of the sex shops found in London’s Soho area, the windows of the Milanese store were decorated with neon lighting and rainbow-slatted curtains.
      Anderson and 6a Architects used the design as a juxtaposition against the more typical Milanese interior.
      “For me, there is something very sexual about neon lighting,” said Anderson. “I think we associate it with grand gestures and I felt like a window is kind of like a television set. There’s something with neon that it does, it kind of tricks you.”
      Traditional Italian furnishings and finishes fill the interior”There are little alleyways and they have all these amazing sex stores on and these curtains,” Anderson continued.
      “I liked the idea that we have this in Milan and then suddenly you enter into a kind of Milanese setting, something which is very bourgeoise.”

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      Inside, gridded handmade terrazzo covers the floor and visually divides areas of the interior through bespoke contrasting tones of grey and sand.
      Brassy, metallic curtains ripple along the rear walls of the store, in a similar way to 6a Architects’ use of curtains in the exhibition design for Disobedient Bodies.
      Jonathan Anderson selected furniture and artwork for the interiorAluminium scaffolding, which was also carried over from Anderson’s Soho store, was translated into display shelving and brought an “angst” to the interior that contrasts against traditional Italian furnishings, such as fluted walnut panelling that envelops two curved walls.
      “There is something slightly more underground in terms of the construction of a JW Anderson store, whereas, I think Loewe [for which Anderson is creative director] is about a heightened perfection,” said Anderson. “With JW Anderson, there’s always a bit of slight angst to it.”
      “It’s softer inside, and then you have this harshness with the windows where there’s neons and sex curtains and it’s kind of like a theatre. It has moveable parts and in a weird way the store becomes a giant window.”
      It has furniture by Mac CollinsFurniture and artworks personally selected by Anderson fill the interior.
      Designer Mac Collins’ black Iklwa chair was paired with matching side tables, while a Cardinal Hat pendant light by Lutyens Furniture is suspended from the ceiling of the main space.
      Oil paintings by Chinese artist Hongyan appear to float on the ripples of the brass-coloured curtains, and images by photographer Wolfgang Tillmans sit on the walls of the store’s fitting room.
      An image by Wolfgang Tillmans is placed in the fitting room”I don’t believe that stores should be completely cookie-cutter,” said Anderson. “I feel like the key is to make sure that each store has a different universe because there’s no point in having something which is just a duplication, duplication, duplication.”
      Jonathan Anderson founded his eponymous label JW Anderson in 2008 and was appointed creative director of Spanish luxury house Loewe in 2014, which recently announced the winner of its sixth annual craft prize.
      During London Fashion Week, JW Anderson presented a “parallel world of people trapped in their computers” for its Spring Summer 2023 collection.
      The photography is by DePasquale+Maffini, courtesy of JW Anderson.

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