Speaking in AnOther Magazine Spring/Summer 2021, the creative directors of Jil Sander reflect on simple pleasures and living in the moment
This article is taken from the Spring/Summer 2021 issue of AnOther Magazine. To celebrate our 20th anniversary, we are making the issue free and available digitally for a limited time only to all our readers wherever you are in the world. Sign up here.
“Now, more than ever, you can’t help but get up in the morning and connect to what’s happening around you, the changes in the world that are happening every day. At the moment, the future is hard to predict – planning is impossible. So the present has become all the more important. People seem to be gaining a better appreciation of things – time, nature, books, music, art, flowers, cooking a good meal. Friends, family, loved ones – simple pleasures. Most importantly, real freedom, equality and justice. We are finding ourselves much more in the moment, mentally. We definitely don’t want to waste time any more, but want to live life fully, to do what we can to improve the world. It’s a ‘new now’ that requires new ideas, a new way of thinking. We’ve never found it necessary to look back – our job is to create something new. It’s about living in the right now.”
Despite the five-decade history of the Jil Sander label, creative directors Lucie and Luke Meier – the wife-husband team who began their tenure at the house in 2017 – are rarely found contemplating collections past. Instead, their approach is grounded in the present: what do people want to wear now? Working this past year in Milan, the first European epicentre of the pandemic, proved challenging but energising, leading the designers towards something softer, more intimate – supple leather overcoats and delicate organza tailoring, airy plissé gowns and cushion-like bags – a reflection, they say, of the current mood. It is this emotional, intuitive approach that lies at the heart of their reinvigorated Jil Sander. “I think we are all aware we don’t need any more clothes,” they say. “Whatever we create has to be really special. It has to have emotional value, it has to be something you want to have for your whole life.”
This article originally featured in the Spring/Summer 2021 issue of AnOther Magazine which will be on sale from 8 April, 2021. Pre-order a copy here and sign up for free access to the issue here.