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With fashion weeks, fashion festivals, and fashion events, invading our lives the whole time, it’s hard not to have a hint of cynicism reading about another. If Art Basel in Paris features Miu Miu what chance does a small event stand in “standing out”?
This was my third CLEC, but also a year after Valencia’s appalling floods immediately after last years festival. It’s also a difficult fashion business right now with high streets and volume brands struggling, only to be matched by luxury names also struggling. In the world economic and political situation, where many people’s finances are under stress, fashioning is not always a priority.
However, each year Miquel Suay and his amazing team pull the proverbial “rabbit out of the hat.” During forty eight hours of fashion, fun, music, sustainable activities, and thoughts, they offer inspiration, delight, and debate. Local dignitaries and councils support the whole event, the three fashion courses in the immediate vicinity, and many volunteers. It’s a fast paced eye boggling all day experience with over twenty own label collections on the runway and many more looks from designers in collective shows for sustainable fashion and emerging designers.
The first huge advantage it the location of the event. The City of Arts and Sciences is a complex of building’s including L’Hemisferic and L’Àgora, a series of multifunctional events spaces. They look as if they’re made from bleached prehistoric monsters’ skeletons and are placed in shimmering pools of water and the key structures are covered in shattered white tile mosaic. When the sun shines it’s dazzling in every sense of the word.
This season the event had orange from the burning up of the earth as its key colour and many attendees wore at least some orange, whilst orange curtains swayed in the breeze sectioning off the backstage, the talks, the entrance, and VIP lounge.
After the opening ceremony and a dance performance illustrating the struggle of heat and the earth, we plunged straight into showtime. A group sustainable show was the first catwalk event. I would like to single out a few people from this show, firstly Stefania Díaz, Duna Cárdenas, Irene Garcia, and Ignacio Ortlando. They all showed menswear which was terrific and strong. Ignacio showed a Regency dandy style with a tulle cloud in place of a jabot attached to a shirt come frock coat, and Una a layered look with white cotton cord which managed to be military without exaggeration in white on white. Stefania cropped a Peter Pan collared shirt/blouse with back lacing to romantic but sexy effect, and Irene cut curves around the body creating sculptural lines. Emma Llorach used vintage linens and lace textures in a romantic look for womenswear, Alejandra Marulanda used water colour tie and dye that rippled across the surface of the pieces and created a chic resort feeling, whilst Natalia Martinez and Alba Domingo respectively did neat Edwardian seaside pieces with great charm and a floating floor length graphic art coat over a long,long white shirt and black pants.
We then went into the emerging designers and full on collections shows.
Andres Lacarcel from Madrid mixed space age and punkish themes in a collection full of shine on the surface of the fabrics and some brilliant fluo colour work. Stand out items included a silver jacket covered in stitched on black patches which merged abstract art and giraffe pattern, a simple flowing dress half flame red and half acid yellow, and an iridescent dress with studding holding the shape and panels in place, had a wild fringed hem, and a reverse unicorn headdress in the same material as the dress again with fringe.
Alvaro Machero is also from Madrid. If chain mail and the name Paco Rabanne conjures up disco nights Alvaro Machero takes that idea and ramps up the volume. Rabanne was also Spanish, although he trained and worked in Paris. The chain, links, metallic cut outs, metal rings, loops, and hoops were fashioned into mini dresses, tiny skirts, tops, and endless variations on the theme. It was a brilliantly handled update on the whole story with freshness in the swing and movement of the pieces. The extraordinary complexity and construction never faltered, not one metal piece dropped off, everything fit the models perfectly and there was no sign of discomfort as they swept past jingling and sparkling under the light. Terrific.
Manuel Conejero won the emerging talent award with a collection balancing sculptural shapes with extraordinary knitwear techniques. Bubbles of fabric, or long swaying deepest azure blue fringed knit, deep sap green texture or black leather. It sounds confused but like any confident designer, it was a strong series of ideas and thoughts presented in a few minutes relishing the challenge and offering excitement that in a season of some brilliant debuts still stood out in the memory a day later. His work showed knowledge of construction and silhouette, it had a powerful sense of Spain in its balance of rigour and lavishness, severity mixed with flamboyance; real winner.
“Isabel is my name” designed by Isabel Peña originally from Chile now Valencia, was the winner for emerging talent in 2024. The collection shown was evidence that this is a true fashion designer. Although based in the language of fashion, with an especially Spanish influence running through, every look contained an element of surprise, a twist, or a variation of the unexpected. Red splashed into the black and white collection as did ruffles and drape bringing the power of Spanish culture into fashion but without any overstatement of parody. Back views were as important as front views as was the same with Balenciaga, and the contrast between slick clean tailoring and soft fluid looks was perfectly balanced.
Day two opened with fashion talks, including the wonderful Daniel Lismore who spoke without notes about his life and journey to an enraptured audience. Then it was onto the shows. Dolores Cortes swimwear was based around exotic patterns and styling. The cut and construction on every model were perfect an absolute lesson in knowing your craft and its requirements. Swimwear is a specialised area of fashion, and it was clear that this well-established brand is expert at this from draped swimsuits to floating cover-ups to minuscule bikinis.
We also saw in the second group show Miriam Muñoz offer us romantic floral looks that somehow seemed inspired not just by gardens but by artists and designers. Monet and Dior seemed close as the models stepped past the in pieces that were touched with lightness, and a palette that breathed the perfume of past narratives yet were modern.
George Black from Valencia was based around sexy rock chick glamour and certainly whooped up the crowd on a Saturday evening, and it seems certain many of them were mentally shopping as the collection sauntered past.
Devol Studio from Alicante who use “discarded textiles and forgotten garments.” It was such a witty collection with mismatched, mix and match and patchworking literally flying past in wild stripes, florals, checks and textures. The sheer elan and joy was super and I would definitely pop some of the shirts made of wildly disparate patterns in my wardrobe. The collection where hand painted flowers, ribbon ties, bands of lace and other details merged into the festival of patterns yet never looked messy or overworked. The perfect example was a huge oversize black hoodie worn as a dress, at the neck was a beautiful striped bow which on closer inspection turned out to be a tie.
Agatha Ruiz de La Prada from Madrid is a huge brand in Spain and other Latin countries. Her designs are absolutely fabulous in their colour and pattern combinations and also her understanding of scale, silhouette, and proportion. Her models always smile and laugh and twist and jump showing how her clothes react to movement and joy. As they ran around the catwalk for the finale it was a fittingly upbeat ending to the showing of collections at the festival.
