How the Loewe prize became the ultimate craft competition

Times

2 days ago

In 2012 Sheila Loewe took over the Loewe Foundation, which had been created by her father, Enrique Loewe Lynch, 25 years earlier 'to give back to society what society had given to the company'. She admits that at the time she came with 'zero, but really zero' knowledge of the craft world. 'I had a little bit of an eye for beauty and the things that I admire, but otherwise I really knew nothing,' she says.
Art, design and culture had always been a cornerstone of the Spanish leather brand, founded by Enrique Loewe Roessberg, a German craftsman, in 1846. But since the Loewe Foundation's Craft Prize was started nine years ago at the suggestion of the recently departed former creative director Jonathan Anderson (now at Dior Men), craft is as celebrated by the brand as fashion.
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Anderson had long been a collector of ceramics, textiles and glass, so knew his stuff, but they needed other specialists, too. So Loewe sought the opinions of leading names in the art, craft and design worlds to make up a jury of 13. Today these include the former Design Museum director Deyan Sudjic and the Spanish designer Patricia Urquiola, and on expert panels the likes of the leading contemporary jewellery artist Ramón Puig Cuyàs (who has worked on previous Loewe fashion collections with Anderson) and the British metal sculptor Kevin Grey, one of last year's finalists. Every year the jury and panels sift through the thousands of applications from as far as Congo, India and Brazil.
Finalists vying to win the €50,000 top prize explore myriad ambitious techniques, technologies, materials and forms. One Korean textile maker, Dahye Jeong, revived an endangered 500-year-old hat making technique to sculpt ethereal, 3D vessels with horsehair. Others have fashioned brooches from Chilean micro-basketry techniques and reimagined Korean ottchil lacquered pots in glossy primary hues. There have been tapestries woven with tiny, hand-formed ceramic beads; glass bowls hand-etched to intimate the knots and grains of wood; and strips of leather hand-coiled like clay to form tall, elegant vessels.
The prize, Loewe suggests, has changed not only the perception of craft internationally, but the lives of the finalists. In 2018, one woven work (which now hangs in her father's home), crafted from hundreds of wheat strands, came from an indigenous Purépecha couple from Mexico. 'They had no English or even a wifi connection; the foundation had to help them get passports,' she says. This year's finalists include an 85-year-old indigenous Australian master weaver who has worked fine strips of native leaves and bark into a strikingly monochromatic basket; the Nigerian designer Nifemi Marcus-Bello, whose bench with bowl uses aluminium reclaimed from the car industry; and the Beijing-based artist Xiaodong Zhang's abstract paper piece has been created using ancient bookbinding techniques.
Since Loewe took over the foundation, craft has become her greatest passion. She now travels the world to meet artists and craftsmen, to attend fairs and exhibitions and to sit on juries such as the Spanish National Craft Awards. 'Wherever a craft can be supported, I am there,' she says. 'In Spain, we say 'amor con amor se para' [love begets love]. My ethos is if you support them, then they will support you.' The foundation has also supported Spain's Compañía Nacional de Danza; collaborated with the London-based, non-profit arts organisation Studio Voltaire; and on Writing the Prado, a programme which invites renowned authors to conjure magical short stories inspired by the museum's rich history and art collections.
Loewe's appreciation for craft and design is apparent in her own Madrid home. On one wall of an otherwise pared-back, minimal dining space hangs a vivid work by the British textile artist John Allen, who advised during the conception of the prize. In the living room, a monochromatic abstract by the Spanish painter and sculptor Gustavo Torner (who once designed one of Loewe's stores in Madrid) sits above a swirling wrought iron sculpture by La Rioja artist José Antonio Olarte. In another corner, a copy of David Hockney's A Bigger Splash sits on its own Perspex pedestal.
Alongside photographs of Loewe on her wedding day and with the current king of Spain, Felipe VI sits a handblown glass vase and a framed box-within-a-box textile work, woven from abaca fibres and barberry root, gifted by the previous Korean Craft Prize finalists Joonyong Kim and Yeonsoon Chang. These are the only finalists' work she has. 'If I could buy every piece by every finalist I would,' she says, 'but in the end I've never bought a piece because it would be too hard to choose.'
An appreciation for the skill of a craftsman was instilled in her from an early age. 'My grandfather and father taught me and my two sisters that anything done by Loewe was always going to be the best,' she recalls. 'We have always said we have the best hands in Spain working for us — they are our heroes. And when these heroes work with an amazing creative director, then magic happens.' In this, she not only references Anderson (replaced at Loewe last month by the Proenza Schouler designers Jack McCollough and Lazaro Hernandez) but past creatives such as the prominent artist Vicente Vela (the genius behind Loewe's quadruple-L anagram, inspired by cattle branding irons) and the fashion designers Giorgio Armani, Stuart Vevers and Narciso Rodriguez.
Almost a decade after the prize started, the works of its winners and finalists are shown in the world's leading galleries and museums, at the brand's flagship Casa Loewe stores, during Salone del Mobile in Milan (this year's themes was teapots, both functional and whimsical), and in initiatives like the recent Crafted World in Japan. A vibrant, playful and immersive exhibition of fashion, objects, art, sculpture and moving images it charted Loewe's evolution from its origins as a Spanish royal favourite to one of the most admired fashion labels in the world (the brand was acquired by LVMH in 1996).
For Loewe, the Craft Prize has been 'the craziest and best thing I have ever done' she says. 'We were very fortunate to have Jonathan on this part of the journey — in a magical way, he was this young, cool, powerful, attractive, irresistible designer who understood how craft was embedded in the origins of Loewe, and in a way, helped bring to life the dream of my father. But what we have created will survive without him, without me,' she says. For the craft community, winning the competition has become like a holy grail. 'In countries like Korea and Japan, they tell me that they once dreamt of having a piece in a museum like the V&A,' says Loewe. 'Now they dream of being part of the Loewe Foundation Craft Prize.'
The work of this year's finalists will be exhibited at Thyssen-Bornemisza National Museum in Madrid from May 30 until June 29 2025, loewe.com