Amidst the “out of this world” architecture of the City of Arts and Sciences, in the Hemispheric CLEC Fashion Festival, number four has just been held. The key theme was the climate, and the fashion businesses’ efforts to recycle, remake, restore and repair.
The brainchild of. Relative Director and designer Miquel Suay the event drew big crowds and fashion commentators from not just around València. The guests included Spanish Maria Querol, at nineteen more than an influencer, she is developing her skills as a writer, French philosopher Gilles Lipovetsky and Anna Molinari, an inventive designer from New York who’s recycled magic with trash creates corsets, and fashion pieces, which are so amazingly constructed they head towards works of art. Legend Agatha Ruiz de la Prada also attended and showed her current joyous collection to a packed audience.
Ten new young designers selected from over a hundred applicants presented on Friday and Saturday and I was amongst the team presented with the daunting task of judging the three awards, first, second and third.
The winner Gonzalo Villamax showed a collection for the modern stylish purchaser of beautiful clothes. Mainly monochromatic it flowed and moved, wrapped and draped in pieces that invited the viewer to try them on, to add to their wardrobe. It wasn’t minimal, but it was understated, it wasn’t architectural, but it had rigour and a sharp eye for editing. The finish and construction were of couture standard with, for example, the line of a deeply pointed collar echoed in the construction of the top of a jumpsuit. Second-place winner Alvaro Alamo told us life is a circus, but we can choose who we want to be. With bold prints, sharp colours and some brilliant accessories the designer played with proportions and offered flirty, sharp, sexy and dynamic answers to a modern wardrobe.
The third collection by Genius Betrian was a wonderful confection of punk, rock and roll, trash, deconstruction and a kind of fashion “collage”. I asked how he’d pieced together an extraordinary jacket of dozens of bits “I kept moving it all around until it was right”! Finally, a mention for Fabiola Ricci, who told us she had created her collection for aliens. Extraordinary, moulded plastic corsets and wonderful Roesbach-like appliqués. When I asked about toiles, she explained she’d made everything in paper first. Well, it certainly worked, and her bold vision made me think of Wagnerian Valkyries having a good Ho Jo Ho.
Amongst the many collections also shown by established names, mention must be made of Visori whose show set the room dancing and whooping. Glittering, splintering, gyrating and storming down the runway there is an amazing energy to this collection. It’s evident that to many Spanish designers the red of flamenco and the glitter of toreador’s “suits of lights” are still visible in their work, yet in unapologetically modern ways. Just as the rigour of Balenciaga often underlines pieces, the creative contrasts are not always seemingly Spanish, yet so strong and passionate they can only be drawn to the roots of this culture.
words. Tony Glenville
