Rugby scion who has knocked fashion out of the Loup

When a parade of male models appeared on a catwalk wearing leather dresses, knee-length boots, and frilly shorts, some members of the press could barely stifle their chuckles. “At J.W. Anderson the humiliation of the models was made truly complete,” wrote a critic about the designer’s Spring 2013 collection. “One blonde looked so down in the dumps it’s a wonder he didn’t tear the offending garment off and run for the hills.”

Jonathan William Anderson, the Northern Irish fashion designer, has experienced a good deal of criticism since establishing his brand in 2008. At one stage, the reviews were so bad he considered giving up fashion. These days, he’s the one laughing. Only a few months after his Spring 2013 show, Burberry introduced lace shirts, a key element in Anderson’s brand, as part of their catwalk show. “J.W. Anderson is the most exciting and challenging designer of our generation,” announced influential fashion magazine i-D in 2015.

In exploring gender fluidity through clothing, Anderson foresaw a cultural shift, driven by popular figures such as Caitlyn Jenner and Laverne Cox. “He blurs lines,” explained Shelly Corkery, fashion director for Brown Thomas in Dublin, where Anderson briefly worked. “He doesn’t go along with what’s happening. He nearly thinks of what is not happening.”

At this month’s London Fashion Week (LFW), the designer continued to explore androgynous aesthetics with a spring/summer 2017 collection of womenswear apparently inspired by Henry VIII. “I like the idea of a woman wearing something that is so masculine. The shape is very empowering,” he announced backstage.

It was probably no coincidence Versace’s LFW collection also explored a re-imagined and tougher femininity. In 2013, Anderson designed a collection for Donatella Versace’s spin-off label, Versus, during New York Fashion Week. The Italian designer compared her young protégé to her late brother, Gianni.

“[Jonathan] is not afraid to dare, he is not afraid to provoke. He’s not afraid of a mistake,” she said. “It’s very like my brother – if you criticise less, you’re safe. I hate that word. I hate that way of thinking. What’s different about Jonathan is that he thinks about the marketing, the buying. He sees everything together – the provocative, the daring, but also how they’ll wear it.”

How a 32-year-old from The Loup, a small village near Magherafelt in Co Derry, became one of the influential designers in fashion is a mystery to his critics. “Like it or not, there are people who simply cannot get their heads around some of his more outlandish creations,” wrote one fashion blogger. His brand is often described as the marmite of fashion.

Colleagues reckon he inherited an unconventional approach from his father, Willie Anderson, a former Ireland international rugby player who was capped 27 times in the 1980s. In 1989, he led the team into a face-off with the All Blacks during their Haka war dance at Lansdowne Road – a daring move that other teams have since imitated.

“Watching videos of him in action, Willie Anderson seemed like a leader and a rebel,” said Paul Galvin, the former Kerry GAA star turned fashionista. “These are traits that can be seen in J.W.’s design approach too.”

International fashion has taken notice. In late 2013, Moët Hennessy – Louis Vuitton (LVMH), the €29bn luxury conglomerate, handed him a job as creative director of Loewe, a Spanish leather-goods brand. Anderson redesigned everything, including its logo and 150 stores across the world.

“The pencils, the door handles, the style of the press release, the stone of the buildings, the choice of photographer – all of these questions had to be asked, because ultimately you need to make people forget what the brand looked like before, and get them to believe the brand was always like this,” he explained.

Every week he commutes from London, where he works on the J.W. Anderson brand, to his Loewe office in Paris. He carries three mobile phones; a French number for Loewe; a “personal number I’ve had since school and the other one is J.W. Anderson”.

“He is very driven, completely focused for a young designer. Very ambitious,” said Corkery. Charlotte Hall, Anderson’s friend and co-founder of London store LN-CC, described the designer as uncompromising, “always thinking way, way ahead. You can almost hear his brain whirring. It’s hard not to be excited by him and what he’s building.”

Born in 1984, Anderson grew up on the family farm in The Loup. He first encountered design through his grandfather who worked for a textile company. Although he had no interest in sport, his father’s international travels had an impact. “While I was growing up… surrounded by fields and cows, he was travelling and coming home with the treasures of the world. I think in terms of drive and ambition, that was everything for me.”

At 18, Anderson moved to America to study acting at the Shakespeare Theatre Company in Washington DC, but discovered he preferred the costumes to performance. He moved to Dublin, where he briefly worked in the menswear department of Brown Thomas, then enrolled at the London College of Fashion. He has described a job assisting Manuela Pavesi, the late Prada stylist, as the inspiration for starting his own brand.

J.W. Anderson was initially launched as a menswear label. In 2010, he added womenswear. Two years later his collaboration with Topshop, the high-street retailer, was a sell-out. Nowadays, his brand is stocked across the world. His 2013 Versace appointment upset some older designers in London, who considered themselves more qualified for the position, according to a colleague. But Anderson has surrounded himself with seasoned professionals such as Steven Meisel and David Sims, the fashion photographers, and stylist Marie-Amélie Sauvé.

Anderson might break convention through his designs, but his ambitions are long-term. “I want this to be a brand that outlives me,” he said. “That’s my goal.”

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