Loewe and Junya Watanabe Comme des Garçons Collaboration

A unique collection celebrating the special relationship between Spain and Japan will be launched in September, 2013. Loewe and Japanese designer Junya Watanabe have collaborated on a unique collection using Loewe's luxurious napa and the know-how of its ateliers. Loewe and Junya Watanabe Comme des Garçons marries Spanish leather with Japanese denim in a creative exchange that brings together the world-class expertise that each brand is renowned for.

The collaboration is also timely, as 2013 sees the anniversary of two important milestones in the relationship between Spain and Japan. It is 400 years since the countries first established a formal dialogue after Hasekura Tsunenaga set out from Tokyo to Madrid to create a trade agreement with the Spanish royal family. And it is 40 years since Loewe first became available in Japan.

The two designers set about building the collection, sending ideas back and forth across the world by email.

Loewe and Junya Watanabe Comme des Garçons presented casual clothes executed to the highest luxury standards. There are plenty of nods to Watanabe's urban utilitarian aesthetic in the collection, which cut-and-pastes Loewe's super-soft napa with Watanabe's denims in easy-to-wear pieces featuring a plethora of patches in tartan and polka dot as well as denim and leather.

This capsule collection consists of a jeans-style jacket made in napa, a patchwork leather skirt, a miniskirt in leather and denim, and two styles of leather and denim jeans for women; and for men, a denim jacket with leather sleeves and leather and denim jeans. The same interplay of denim and leather is featured on the bags. Available in four sizes, Loewe's signature Amazona comes in patchwork leather and in leather decorated with denim patches, along with pouches, purses and a tote.

This creative dialogue between the Spanish and Japanese brands is two-way, as Loewe has manufactured several of the pieces in Junya Watanabe's collection for autumn/winter 2013, which was presented at Paris Fashion Week in March, 2013.