As usual, the Gratacós fabrics have also been present in the latest edition of the Mercedes-Benz Fashion Week Madrid in the Spring-Summer 2019 collections presented by the best designers of current Spanish fashion. Consolidated firms that confide in us such as Juan Duyos, Menchèn Tomás, The 2nd Skin, Malne, Moisés Nieto, Palomo Spain and also young designers who are building a promising future in the sector such as Juan Carlos Pajares who is already integrated into the official calendar of the Madrid show, after his participation in the catwalks of emerging talents.

Here we reveal some details of the collections for the next summer season, as well as the fabrics and colours that were shown that most caught our attention. Roughly speaking, we would highlight the success of colour, the fabrics that radiate light, the metallic fibres and the sequins that also conquer the street looks and add that air of sophistication.

Duyos’ light

Juan Duyos pays homage to the light, in an ode to feminine beauty that shines the brightest. It is for this reason that in the collection ‘Light’, luminous fabrics such as metallic, paillettes, lurex, lame and several metallic threads stand out and capture all the flashes – and looks – on Madrid’s catwalk. In contrast to the bright materials, this proposal is tinted in ice green, lavender, lime or peach that coexist with gold and silver.

The strength of Anonymous women

Juan Carlos Pajares, one of the most successful emerging talents of Spanish fashion always surprises on the Spanish catwalk. This time, the designer from Madrid has found in the Amazons his source of inspiration in a collection that pays tribute to all those women who hid behind pseudonyms and even had to stop working or doing what they were passionate about. In the show, this spirit is transmitted through colour with a palette that includes pinks, greens, oranges, blues and greys. The blends of textures, oriental reminiscence prints and the superposition of urban garments made in formal fabrics are also noteworthy: mikado and silk ottomans, cottons, neoprenes, crepes, paillettes or vichys with touches of lurex.

In cuban lands

“Me desordeno, amor, me desordeno”, recites the poem by Carilda Oliver, one of the most reknowned contemporary poetesses in Cuba who has inspired the new Menchén Tomàs collection together with other artists such as Catalina Lasa and Lidia Ríos who lived in the greatest splendor of Cuban society before the revolution. It is precisely in the heart of the Havana where the Barcelona designer finds inspiration for her spring-summer fashion show. A sophisticated proposal arranged in three parts. The first begins with pure white, “the colour of Santeria” according to the designer ” with textured details. In the second part, the clothes turn quartz, the stone of the subsoil of the island. In the last part, there is an explosion of colour resulting in a happy and optimistic result.

Malne and the empowered woman

The creative duo behind Malne: Paloma Álvarez and Juanjo Mánez have presented a collection that plays with the mix & match in fabrics and prints for women who feel strong and free and transmit that spirit of rebellion. The animal print combines perfectly with dancer touches and maxi volumes with ruffles and feathers forming a solid and well-constructed proposal that structures the entire collection. Only suitable for the daring…

Palomo Spain

The enfant terrible of Spanish fashion, who revolutionizes the male wardrobe with his glamorous looks. This time he has inspired himself in the cabinets of curiosities to dress men in sophisticated style. Thus, Alejandro Gómez Palomo fills the catwalk with his exotic models that include wild silks and extravagant volumes, tortoiseshell buttons, sophisticated outfits in velvet jersey that are crowned with luxurious mosquito-net hats inspired by the explorers of the XIX century. The proposal by Palomo Spain is enriching, the kaftans, the jacket sets and the skirts in laminated fabrics and linen for the pure and traditional lines.

A full volumen Spring

Juan Carlos Fernández and Antonio Burillo presented ‘The Garden’, a dreamlike proposal inspired by a romantic garden. In this spring collection, The 2nd Skin focuses on dresses as main axis, maxi volumes, oversize garments and floral print as the basis of this evocative collection with a marked eighties air. In terms of fabrics, the mikados stand out, embroidered sequins -symbol of the brand- along with other lighter ones like tulle or silk chiffon.

Sorry, this entry is only available in European Spanish.

Sorry, this entry is only available in European Spanish.

In fashion and speaking in general terms, what is the deal with us and orange? It is appealing to the naked eye, favours the skin tone and with its vitality lights up garments in neutral tones, brightening up any summer or winter look. Knowing all these goods traits, why are consumers so reluctant to bet on this colour? Hereunder, we position orange in the place it deserves.

It is true, orange is not an easy colour to carry off and the excess of stridency that the hottest tones sometimes entail, makes it difficult to mix with the majority. However, there are many celebrities and professionals in the industry who have opted for this tone so far this year in the street style of the main fashion catwalks. And if the sector has surrendered to radiant yellow, the hardest tone of all, why would the same thing not happen to orange?

Orange is a warm color that radiates enthusiasm, energy, joy and freshness. It is the tone that is linked to creativity, fun, triumph and spontaneity. A tone that can be vibrant and dull in turn, without losing all of its attributes.  This Spring- Summer 2018 season, the colour that has dominated the catwalk, according to Pantone is called Safety Orange. A striking and bright tone, which pulls towards neon and attracts everyones attention. A colour ironically translated into “security orange” that contrasts with the rest and rarely goes unnoticed, tos ay the least it is practically impossible. Firms such as Jeremy Scott, Tom Ford, Adam Selman, Marc Jacobs or Calvin Klein have not hesitated to take it on stage.

And how is it combined? The first and most daring option is to wear it in its total look version: from head to toe in the same tone or varying the hue to others more pale like peach: one bright garment mixed with a duller one. In this case it works with a long dress, jumpsuit or a two piece outfit. The most daring combination would be with fuchsia pink or Klein blue creating attractive colour blocks. The second option involves opting for an orange garment that is excessive and that highlights the whole look. The rest will therefore have to be combined with neutral tones such as nudes , earths, beige or rose so that they do not steal the garment’s protagonism. A good idea, for example, would be to opt for a jacket with soft textures or a printed blazer where orange is the main color.  Orange also works very well with jeans and denim garments, adding that elemento of joviality and ease to any outfit. Finally, a combination that also works is to delegate this energetic color in a modest background playing only with accessories such as bags or shoes. Any detail counts!

In Gratacós we like orange in any season. Whether it be in its most lit up version in silks, tulles or chiffons, or in pastel shades in subtle jacquards or fine texture embroidery. We also like prints where orange intermingles with other colours in the form of flowers, stripes or fantasy prints , to cite a couple of examples. We invite you to discover the whole selection!

When you ask us where we draw the inspirations to design each year the collections of fabrics of the season, the answer always remains in an eternal mystery. Does it come from something concrete or is it a visual accumulation of personal experiences? We do not know for sure what are the exact connections that drive creativity, but we can conclude that we are constantly nourished by the multidisciplinary arts, and especially those more sensory, to find those engines that require the association of ideas that then give way to the elaboration of the different shapes and textures of the tissues because in the end, everything is interrelated.

This month, we highlight some of the most inspiring exhibitions of PhotoEspaña , the consolidated international photography festival in Madrid that represents the ideal meeting point for lovers of portrait art. This edition, the contest celebrates two decades, since its creation in 1998, and brings together 530 photographers in 90 different exhibitions under a more transgressive vision that combines different languages. Of all the extensive program of events and activities taking place during the summer (until the end of September) , we highlight the following selection that we consider essential for some reason or another.

Cecil Beaton. Myths of the 20th century

Cecil Beaton’s camera has immortalized different characters that have marked the history of the twentieth century: avant-garde creators, cultural icons of Hollywood, European aristocracy… From Audrey Hepburn to Marlon Brandon to Salvador Dalí or Queen Isabel II of England, emblematic personalities who have surrendered to Beaton’s flashes and are all part of the Canal Foundation exhibition.

Carmen Calvo. Stillness and vertigo

The Valencian artist rescues old photographs of family albums found in street markets , during the 40s and 50s, to decontextualize them and give them new meanings . Images taken out of oblivion that have a second life and are loaded with a new meaning. Carmen Calvo has built a complex and mysterious world with a certain irony and humor, in which feminism, social criticism and religion are intertwined.

The camera to make poems

From Lorca to Brossa, from Kavafis to Neruda. This  exhibition tells us about the relationships that are established between photography and poetry, starting   with a selection of Ibero-American books in which  the alliance of these two disciplines is essential.   Photographs that turn a poem into a photo story, poems that invade photographs, photographers who make poetic anthologies, photographic poems and poetic photos.

Fashion! Spanish design through photography

Around hundred photographs dialogue with exclusive designs in this exhibition that pays homage to Spanish fashion. Great international photographers like Richard Avedon, Henry Clarke or Irving Penn fall rendered before the designs of Spanish designers like Balenciaga, Pertegaz or Elio Berhanyer. A relationship that with the appearance of the big fashion brands would place Spanish textile on the international scene. An exhibition that has the support of the Ministry of Education, Culture and Sports and the Costume Museum that unites efforts to enhance Spanish fashion through international photography.

Maria Švarbová Swimming Pool

‘Swimming Pool’ is the most emblematic project of the Slovak photographer who started in 2014 motivated by the search of suggestive locations and by her fascination with public swimming pools: her sterile and geometric beauty generates the tone of this photographic series. Despite the retro air of the scenarios, the images evoke a timelessness that moves between a parallel future and a fantastic broken utopia. Precisely, the evocative snapshots of Maria Švarbová inspired Josep Font, creative director of Delpozo, in the conception of the current Spring-Summer 2018 collection, where beyond its similarity with the tonalities (turquoise, green water, coral …) there is a nod through silhouettes with dresses with ruffles, voluminous blouses or tops with pleats that make up this aquatic universe. The exhibition can be seen in the firm’s boutique in Madrid (Lagasca, 19) until August 26th.

Sorry, this entry is only available in European Spanish.

Sorry, this entry is only available in European Spanish.

2018 is the year of the new MODA-FAD . Located in the Disseny Hub de Barcelona, the fashion association integrated in the FAD (Promotion of Arts and Design) gives voice and visibility to local designers. It is an entity formed by fashion professionals from different areas, from clothing to footwear, which presents initiatives that help to give continuity to designers with a commercial vocation, a titanic task in these times.

In April MODA-FAD emerged with a new board of directors and with commitments, challenges and projects that value the professionals of fashion, design and craftsmanship that we hope will set a new clarion cry. In this first stage of the association the designer Edgar Carrascal assumed the presidency accompanied by his right hand, Mireia Playà, who specialises in vegan footwear. Also participating in the initiative are Elisenda Oms and Elisabet Carlota of Carlota Oms, Antonio Calderón and Pau Esteve.

The spirit of the new Association for the Promotion of Fashion makes clear its intentions to defend the Barcelona brand and to seek internationalization, to contribute to the business development and the industrial fabric of the country and the “dignification” of trades related to fashion. It also has the didactic aim of sharing knowledge and assuming a teaching role in the consumption of fashion, aiming to provide the necessary tools for conscious and sustainable consumption.

The MODA-FAD Awards

Within the framework of Barcelona Design Week, the new MODA-FAD Awards are to be promoted in a ceremony and afterwards a party that will take place next Wednesday June 6 in the Disseny Hub Barcelona. Awards are aimed at recognizing the work of professionals and companies in the world of fashion and who have made contributions to the sector during the last year. In total prizes will be awarded in three different categories: Merit in Fashion Design, Merit in Fashion Innovation and Talent of the Year Award. Special recognition will also be granted to a designer or brand that is not active, but whose contribution in the fashion sector is valued.

The winners

In this first edition the designer Víctor von Schwarz with his Double Life collection, 2018 is the winner of the Merit Award in Fashion Design . His tendentious presentation highlights the precariousness of the sector and the difficulties faced by emerging designers, “the new generation” whose double life between creativity and reality usually lasts no more than 10 years. As a representation of this ‘Double Life’ the collection is divided into two parts: one purely in black and white with shapes that are inspired by office attire, the other more imaginative with glitter, voluminous shapes and pastel shades.

The Merit Award for Innovation in Fashion goes to Piñatex ® by Ananas Anam, a company that is developing a product in which commercial success is integrated and social, ecological and cultural development is promoted in parallel. Working from this perspective, Piñatex ® opts for a non-woven natural base material that consumers can use as a sustainable alternative. The material is made from pine leaf fibres, a product from the agricultural industry that does not require large amounts of land, water or pesticides to produce the raw material.

The Talent of the Year Award goes to Pepa Salazar, one of the most promising talents in Spanish fashion. Established in Madrid, this Valencian designer presented her first collection in 2013 for which she won the Mercedes-Benz Fashion Award Talent in the next edition. In the Autumn-Winter 18/19 collection, the designer presents a universe marked by the images of the absurd, fictitious and utopian, belonging to the mythology and paganism of primitive cultures. The jury considered that her latest creation is rich in colours and textures, has character and strength and an identity of its own recognisable in all of Pepa Salazar’s collections.

Finally Gori de Palma receives the Special Award from the Board of the New MODA-FAD. The essence of the designer is condensed into the industrial and the dense, all within a post-punk filter. Her signature is that of a refined and obscure author, with a perverse touch based on sub-cultural movements.

In the first edition of the awards tribute will also be paid to the figure of the Catalan dressmaker and businesswoman Carme Martí Riera (1872-1949), a professional with strong ideals who fought to dignify the profession of dressmaker, besides being the creator of the Martí System , the first technique of pattern making with a technical rigour that was celebrated world-wide.

Attendees of this annual celebration of Barcelona’s fashion talent will also be able to see the exhibition “The best design of the year”, where pieces by the winners of these awards will be on display. This sample in addition brings together 500 finalist works and winners of the different prizes awarded by the associations of the FAD in the various design disciplines.

Sorry, this entry is only available in European Spanish.

London revives the essence of Azzedine Alaïa through an exhibition at the Museum of Design which pays homage to the career of this master of couture through his most iconic and representative dresses. The Tunisian designer died last November at the age of 77, leaving behind a long legacy that conditioned the making of garments. Known as the sculptor of the female body, Alaïa was a pioneer in experimenting with bold patterns and applying innovative materials to his creations. ‘ Azzedine Alaïa : The Couturier ‘ was conceived months before the death of the artist together with Mark Wilson, collaborator and curator of the show on which they worked together . Finally the exhibition opened to the public on May 10 and will be open to visitors in the British capital until next October.

The garment sculptor

Azzedine Alaïa was a fashion designer of Tunisian origin who settled in Paris in the 50s – where he met André Malraux and Joan Miró – to start one of the most prosperous and established careers in the world of fashion. In his first period the designer began working at Christian Dior under the creative direction of Yves Saint Laurent and continued to train in companies such as Guy Laroche or Thierry Mugler before setting up a company under his own name during the 80s. The son of farmers of Spanish origin, the artist used to wear black and made all his textile production in his small atelier – which also was his home – in the Parisian district of LeMarais. It was in the workshop where he began to experiment with the techniques used by the couturiers of the time to perfect them and thus expand their possibilities. He was helped in part by his studies of sculpture and fine arts that gave him a broader vision in the making of dresses which understood the forms and needs of the female body.  One of the achievements of the company was actually to mark the sensuality of women through bold garments like tight dresses with marked waists, skirts that played with ruffles, the use of skins, latex and metallic mesh with a net effect as his main fabrics. Alaïa was also the first to reject the traditional fashion calendar, showing his collections when he thought they were ready. He himself made all his clothes by hand, cutting the patterns meticulously.  He was famous for his obsession with perfection and total dedication to his craft as a couturier.

From the beginnings of the company, the Tunisian designer produced exclusive dresses for Parisian high society and in a short time his name became popular throughout the world. Grace Jones and Greta Garbo were just two of the celebrities closely associated with the designer in the 80s and 90s, and the model Naomi Campbell became the muse of the firm. The new millennium brought with it the birth of a new generation, where Alaïa positioned himself as one of the designers of reference for Kim Kardashian, Rihanna or Lady Gaga.

A multidisciplinary exhibition

The more than 60 garments exhibited in the British capital are grouped according to the conceptual idea that dominates them, without following a chronological order; they contain examples of his most famous collections, such as “Exploring the volume”, “Fragility and strength”, “Gathered forms” or “Black silhouettes” – which bring together dresses dating from 1982 to 2003-.

‘Azzedine Alaïa :The Couturier’ also has the photograph by Richard Wentworth taken during the couturier’s last months and a series of videos about the Franco-Tunisian, prominent among which is a short film directed by the photographer Ellen von Unwerth , which portrays intimate moments of the artist at the beginning of the nineties.