From the Chiasmus archive: "JW Anderson. Spring 2022 Ready-to-Wear." Posted September 23rd, 2021 by CHIASMUS MAGAZINE BLOG

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(Images: JW Anderson 2021)

Jonathan William Anderson’s pop art manifestations as a wearable aesthetic has continued on throughout the 2020/2021 pandemic and now onto the 2022 seasons. As the fashion industry slowly recovers from a year of lockdowns and supply chain shortages, it will be interesting to see, moving into 2022, how the opulence of past designs post Covid-19 have been stripped back to its bare essentials due to rising costs and lack of materials. Which should, as a discipline, force designers to become more creative in producing forward seasonal collections and Anderson over the last year has shown his nous within this new paradigm of the fashion industry.  

Collaborating with fashion photographer Juergen Teller, who by definition represents the humanist perspective of defining modern fashion photography, although reflective of the selfy-esque template that was devised at the dawn of the smartphone and publicized with gusto throughout the 2000's by the now disgraced fashion photographer Terry Richardson. Teller no doubt holds that mantle for establishing the “amateur” esthetic and for Anderson’s lookbook he has certainly offered his photographic stylizations as a kitsch styled calendar to promote the U.K. designer’s Spring 2022 Ready-to-Wear collection. Despite the novelty overtures, it does feel slightly contrived as a visual theme, yet the lingerie outwear trend from 2019 is evident throughout Anderson’s latest collection, which, despite all the calamity in the world, is still holding its ground. And it makes sense, as mentioned, if material shortages and rising costs are holding fast across the industry, maybe less is more in fashion thus the residual trends of the skimpy outfits pre-pandemic such as these eros styles are maintaining the interest.  

Anderson, over many of his past seasons has shown that he can delineate a clean feminine look without it being overly extravagant, whilst expressing an overall modernist directive to his styles, which for the most part his Spring 2022 collection follows the Anderson template whilst offering a more daring investiture. But, the ultimate question leading up to 2022 is: How close are we to the all clear in a post Covid-19 world? And with uncertainty abound and the future looking darker by the day, Anderson maybe reflecting through his Spring collection a possible theme intertwined within its urban and kitsch setting, the Eastern esoteric philosophy of Kāma; that in simplified terms represents sex, life and death.

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(A.Glass 2021)