Loewe Makes Bags and Charms From The Nightmare Before Christmas, Out November 12

Loewe has a Nightmare Before Christmas collection, and it's out on Thursday, November 12. The house put a coming-soon page for LOEWE and Disney Tim Burton's The Nightmare Before Christmas on loewe.com and has been rolling it out on Instagram since Wednesday: bags, accessories, ready-to-wear, fragrance and leather goods, made, Loewe says, with unprecedented access to the film's archive, so the collection is anchored in the original sketches and puppets of Jack Skellington, Sally, Zero and the other characters, translated through Loewe's craft.

What Loewe has shown so far is mostly bags and charms, and they're odd in the way Loewe's animal bags are odd. A clutch woven from small leather scales in orange, white, brown, burgundy and blue sits on thin green wire legs with a crest of red ostrich feathers; a bucket bag in orange, black and white weave has a crowd of orange leather creatures with eyes poking out of its sides; a spotted tortoiseshell duck opens a jaw full of teeth; a black bag with orange-and-black striped plush horns, black feathers and a zipper-toothed mouth stands on a plinth. The charms include what looks like Zero, a white-headed figure with an orange nose and a skirt of pale leather fringe, and a crowned, feathered figure on a leather cord.

Loewe, photographed by Paul Kooiker

The clothes and the rest get less of a look. One photo is a cream wool scarf with a black reverse and a grey fringe, Jack Skellington's face and bow tie drawn across it in black and LOEWE lettered near the edge. Loewe says the characters and scenes are worked in leather marquetry, embroidery and print alongside its other signature techniques, and its page describes the result as "a highly-crafted, wearable surrealism". The fragrance is on the list too, though Loewe hasn't shown it yet.

Loewe, photographed by Paul Kooiker

Burton's drawings

Loewe's Thursday post put Tim Burton himself up front, in a black suit with striped shirt cuffs, with photos of hands at a desk over ink and watercolour sketches of Jack Skellington and an orange-and-white swirled round box topped by a tiny Zero among the paints. The caption's pitch: Burton starts by drawing by hand, and the drawings are translated into three-dimensional forms frame by frame. Loewe's page says that process "resonates closely with LOEWE's own approach to craft". The campaign film, which Loewe captioned "It's a strange world", features David Jonsson, Eva Victor, Jordan Firstman and Sandra Bernhard; the stills are by Paul Kooiker.

Loewe

Our read

A film tie-in is the easiest thing in luxury to do badly, and Loewe's answer is to make it about the making: the archive, the drawings, the marquetry, with the film's characters turned into objects rather than printed on them. It's why the duck and the feathered clutch read as Loewe things first. What's still open is the practical part: Loewe has given no prices, no list of stores and no word on how much of the collection reaches each region, and the fragrance and ready-to-wear haven't been shown. November 12 is six days out, and Loewe hasn't said when the full lineup or the prices will be published.

Loewe, photographed by Paul Kooiker