Time Magazine
Time Magazine
British designer Stuart Vevers is taking the Spanish luxury brand Loewe by storm—from heritage to handbags
Some years after Ava Gardner first arrived in Spain to shoot the 1951 Albert Lewin film Pandora and the Flying Dutchman, she returned to Madrid to find herself in love with a bullfighter and out of love with her husband Frank Sinatra. It was at this time that her friend Ernest Hemingway took her shopping at Loewe. On that warm afternoon, the green-eyed beauty, who was garnering quite a reputation for nights spent dancing on tabletops, emerged from the Gran Vã­¡store looking absolutely a lady, her chic ensemble accessorized with a chocolate brown crocodile handbag.
No surprise, then, that among the first bags offered by Loewe's creative director, Stuart Vevers, who joined the company last January, is a hip remake of that Ava bag, now in white croc punctuated by shiny gold hardware. Add to that the Paloma, a structured bag that manages to be both proper and sexy and is named after Paloma Picasso.