On the Chinese lunar calendar, 2023 celebrates The Year of the Rabbit – and Spanish luxury fashion house, LOEWE, helmed by Jonathan Anderson, has reinterpreted the festive knot and launched a unique collection of bags, ready-to-wear and charms adorned with the house’s iconic Bunny ears to welcome The Year of the Rabbit.
Drawing on over 170 years of the atelier’s expertise in leather craftsmanship, LOEWE’s Bunny bag is a design classic, one which has been re-imagined for Chinese New Year and given a special twist to celebrate the Year of the Rabbit. With the ‘knot’ signifying human connection and good fortune among Asian societies, artisans create exquisite knots as decorations and gifts for good wishes. So, to celebrate the Year of the Rabbit, this January LOEWE honors the knot’s cultural tradition in a new capsule collection which knots floppy rabbit ears over the house’s iconic Bunny bag, as well as the Basket, Hammock and Pocket bags.
The Bunny bag builds on the atelier’s practice of creating adorable, three-dimensional animals from a clever pattern and just a few stitches applied to the finest of materials. In the case of The Year of the Rabbit capsule, the bags are made from buttery soft nappa calf leather, in a new, playful colour palette of Peach Bloom, Ghost, and Dark Yellow, used to ensure the rabbit’s floppy ears are as soft to the touch, along with the featured pompom tails made from shearling.
These oversized ears, much simpler and modern in form than the elaborate knots of tradition, appear tied atop nappa calf Pockets, nugget-sized Hammock bags, and of course, the Bunny bag—also available in a suitably fluffy shearling—which hang from a festive lurex strap with a pattern of the LOEWE Anagram in glittery jacquard. The Basket bag sees these techniques translated to handwoven, natural raffia, and pairs the bag with a tonal calf strap and soft shearling tail.
Complementing the craftsmanship of the accessories is a range of T-shirts and sweaters in the capsule’s colorways adorned with the outline of the pattern used by the atelier in order to create these knotted rabbit ears. To mark the good fortune the Spring Festival brings are a few carefully chosen charms: Bunny charms in nappa calf with a fluffy shearling tail; Bunny Dice, a felt Bunny charm—and also a range of candles crafted in blended wax, and cut-out Bunny origami set in lucky red.
The Year of the Rabbit capsule for LOEWE is introduced by actor Tang Wei who celebrates how this special time of year brings people together in a video where she unboxes a giant fluffy bunny rabbit received in the post, and takes it on a road trip through the Chinese countryside for a reunion with a little bunny.
