“I’ve been on this crusade, kind of, to build instead of a luxury brand, a cultural brand. Cultural brands have to have responsibility, but that doesn’t mean that they have to be boring,” says Jonathan Anderson over the phone. He’s just arrived in New York to celebrate his latest—very not boring!—project for Loewe: a series of T-shirts printed with the artwork of David Wojnarowicz whose profits will benefit Visual AIDS, an organization that supports HIV+ artists. At $99 each, the three styles of tees will be on sale from today at Printed Matter in New York and on Loewe’s own website.
The project is one of many Anderson has undertaken at Loewe—if you’ve been following his Instagram you’ve seen his new Resort 2019 collection for the label featuring a Charles Rennie Mackintosh collaboration—but it’s one of the most personal yet. The designer first fell for Wojnarowicz’s artwork years ago while a student at university. “I remember going to Montreal, going into a bookshop, and picking up a book of Peter Hujar’s that has that incredible portrait of Wojnarowicz because they were friends,” Anderson begins. “I bought the book for about $10 and I became, like, obsessed. That moment in American art is so incredible. You have Peter Hujar, you have Wojnarowicz, you’ve got Paul Thek. It’s something you can kind of see today, where there is a real response to what’s happening in society. Where we are in today’s political landscape and cultural landscape, it is necessary to remember that speaking out is important.”
Anderson’s method of getting the word out and raising money draws on his belief in the importance of “cross-pollinating in terms of creativity and different fields to help to bring awareness to things.” Loewe worked closely with P.P.O.W., the gallery that represents Wojnarowicz’s work and archive, to make the capsule collection more of a collaboration than a mere stamping on of some art images on white tees. As a longtime fan, Anderson used his own understanding of Wojnarowicz’s work to select primarily his stencil pieces, which the artist occasionally made on t-shirts in his lifetime.
The exception is one shirt with a photographic self portrait. “The image of him buried in the ground, for me, is this idea of taking iconography and kind of introducing it to people who may not know his work. I think that’s always the most important thing in doing this: to really bring awareness to people that others don’t know about,” Anderson says.
The collaboration with Wojnarowicz’s estate will be feted tonight at Printed Matter, a store that holds a special place in this project’s birth. “There was an amazing man who used to work at Printed Matter called Shannon, who passed away last year, and I used to go to him and he made me completely obsessed by David Wojnarowicz,” Anderson explains. “When Shannon introduced me to Wojnarowicz’s work, it enlightened me, and then every time I would come over to shoot with Steven [Meisel] I would go into Printed Matter, and I would hound the team there, like, ‘Do you have any other books? Do you have other ephemera?’” Consider this project Anderson’s way of paying it forward for a new generation of creatives—and a way to raise money for a foundation close to Wojnarowicz’s heart.
Shop Loewe's David Wojnarowicz shirts here.
