Attention, muggles. Dame Maggie Smith has found her latest role, and it’s one fashionphiles will surely be obsessed with.
The 88-year-old English actor has lent her magical charm to LOEWE’s new Spring/Summer 2024 pre-collection campaign, proving any naysayers who doubted Professor McGonagall sauntered around the halls of Hogwarts wearing a Puzzle Bag. (Of course, she opted for the luxuriate’s Flamenco clutch for jaunts down to Hogsmeade with the third-years.)
Without stretching the Harry Potter lexicon, Smith’s helming of the Jurgen Teller-lensed campaign is undoubtedly one you’ll want to say accio to. We just know that TikToks tearing down the IRL posters of the campaign for them to plaster on the bedroom walls will be coming once the advertisements hit the streets.
Of course, it’s not unlike Jonathan Anderson to do things in halves. Just look at his celebrity-laden front rows for evidence.
So, although Smith’s modelling debut is undoubtedly the pièce de résistance of the campaign—drawing rightful comparisons to when the late Joan Didion commanded a Phoebe Philo-era Céline campaign back in 2015—she’s not the only poster girl to make the cut.
Accompanying Smith is long-time LOEWE muse, Josh O’Connor, newfound ‘It’ girl Greta Lee, the original uptown girl, Dakota Fanning, and the internet’s collective baby girl, Mike Faist.
For the uninitiated, Faist will star alongside O’Conner and Zendaya in Luca Guadagnino’s new steamy tennis ménage à trois Challengers, with the costumes designed by Anderson himself.
Though Smith has hung up her cap as Dowager Countess Violet Crawley in the Downton Abbey franchise, it’s clear from the response to the portraits that she’ll always be welcomed as Lady Loewe, should she be interested in reprising the part.
And though the pieces Smith is wearing in the campaign—including a very Rihanna-esque two-toned fur coat and polite navy blue shirt dress—won’t be available before Halloween for those hoping to dress as the actor as a last-ditch costume, it’s clear that a witches wardrobe won’t accept anything less than luxury.
