Let there be light
Catalan chic this month takes a look at how fashion evolved from the time of the dictatorship until the present
When 18-year-old Andrea steps off the train at Barcelona's Estació de França she has fond memories of previous visits to Barcelona and her family there and so now, recently orphaned, she has the feeling that her new life will go well for her.
Sadlly for Andrea, the heroine of Carmen Laforet's 1945 novel “Nada” (Nothing), nada es igual, nothing is the same, for her, her family, or the city. The clock has been turned back 50 years and her once-prosperous bourgeois family are now impoverished, the city is grey and unwelcoming and the vibrance of its streets has faded. At university Andrea discovers the vast economic and social inequalities which have taken over the country in the few short years of Franco's regime. New friends, the children of the wealthy, remind her daily of what she is not, and what she will never be.
These friends, and certainly their families, would be able to buy dresses crafted by Asunción Bastida, or from Pedro Rodriquez and browse in the sumptuous salons of Santa Eulàlia or shop at El Dique Flotante, but for Andrea and her class, the days of even aspiring to such luxuries are gone.
Fashion, in this new context, did what it always does: adapt and survive. The middle class as a client group may have disappeared but the wealthier classes, which had been less visible during Republican days, returned. Still, this was not enough. The “big five” design houses were forced to look outward and this led them, as a group, to Madrid. Spain's capital opened doors to contacts and contracts, new clients from the ruling class, influence and patronage and, most importantly, access to the exterior. As the Cooperativa de Alta Costura, they quickly attracted other participants and grew in influence. At a time when other sectors were toiling under the weight of Franco's bureaucracy, alta costura was happily left to go about its business. Few sectors of society had such access to external travel and as the industry showcased the very best of Spain to the world, the regime wisely chose not to interfere.
The cooperative was exclusive in both outlook and membership. These were still the days of haute outure as the Spanish translation implies, so the clientele who could frequent the fashion parades and buy the merchandise both here and abroad were an elite, but the other focus of exclusivity was to membership and even though new designers were welcomed over the years, the door remained firmly shut to others of unquestionable talent.
The Catalan designers who could travel were welcomed on an equal footing in Europe, and as the Marshall Plan aided the rebuilding of the continent, European-US relations opened new markets there. Previously unknown designers, such as Pedro Rovira, Carmen Mir, Roser Pujol (Rosser, and strangely, very late in the game) benefited from the resources of the Cooperativa.
Here, things were slow to change, and despite designers or repute, such as Pertegaz and Balenciaga advocating the rebirth of prêt-à-porter in the 50s, the cooperative was loath to move away from a more traditional focus. This was about to change, thanks to Hollywood, internal immigration, tourism and Christian Dior.
The regime had handed over our souls to the church and the men and women in black did a fairly enthusiastic job of controlling our morals, at least publicly. This influenced how we dressed, and what we read, or watched on the big screen. The censor's scissors were seldom idle but little by little, slightly scandalous Hollywood films would find their way into the cinema. And worse still, real scandal found its way in the form of Ava Garnder, Liz Taylor, along with a host of other flesh-and-blood stars, onto our – Heaven forbid – beaches.
We flocked to watch them filming. Ava Gardner supposedly fell in love with Mario Cabré while on set (or off), Orson Welles brooded darkly in S'Agaró, Dirk Bogard, Maureen Swanson, Madeleine Carroll, Joan Fontaine, Ann Baxter... they were all so glamourous, and we asked ourselves why we couldn't be like them.
The reindustrialisation of the area around Barcelona opened the doors to massive internal immigration. These “new Catalans” did not exactly find the promised land but they turned the Catalan economy around completely and in doing so a more settled and prospering middle class, fostering consumerism was reborn. Good news for fashion, perhaps. Tourism also was getting off the ground and, like the Hollywood stars, we loved the tourists not just for the jobs they provided, but also for the window on the world they opened for us.
We developed a heathy and inquisitive envy as year by year they crossed the border and bought with them new habits and ever-changing wardrobes, thanks mainly to Monsieur Christian Dior.
As Europe was dragging itself through of the post war years, Dior realised that the profound changes that were taking place in society were opening doors to opportunity for fashion as well as creating demands which he believed the industry was obliged to respond to. He created the “new look”, known also as the “weekend look” or the “sports look”. The concept was simple: giving every woman the opportunity to create and recreate herself as she saw fit. The key to this was threefold: affordability, accessability and constant change and the only way this could happen was to completely reinvent prêt-à-porter. Modern fashion was born.
New Catalan designers saw a light finally shining on their future and there was an explosion of talent, creativity, and excitement. They went to extraordinary lengths to develop their skills and make their dreams come true. Armand Basi and his brother hopped on pilgrim buses bound for Lourdes (with many passengers in fact headed to see Last Tango) and did the rounds of the French shops, returning with inspiration and fashion magazines. Others opened DIY fashion stalls-cum-boutiques in local markets selling ponchos, shawls, bell-bottomed jeans, and T-shirts such as the Andik brothers (not even dreaming about Mango) or Custo Dalmau.
It was not long until mainstream fashion accepted that the future would be different and began to actively contribute to the revolution and it was in many ways thanks to their previous excellence that the Catalan version of the new look soon gained international recognition. New names appeared: Tráfico de Modas, Antonio Miró, Celia Vela, Teresa Ramallal, Javier Simora, Sita Murt, Txell Miras. Some create here in Catalonia but all of them, like their predecessors, have taken Catalonia and its fashion to the world.
Las Columnas, 1843
Joe HoganWhat we know today as fashion centre Santa Eulàlia, named after Barcelona's patron saint, began life next to the city's market in 1843 and has served Catalonia ever since. The original name, Almacenes las Columnas, came from the columned street façade of the pla de la Boqueria. The shop eventually found its way to passeig de Gràcia. The history of Santa Eulàia is intertwined with that of the city and of that of the world of fashion in Catalonia from the beginnings of benchmark fashion in the early 1900s, hosting the country's first fashion parade in 1926, collectivisation during the republican years and the comeback following the Civil War. Santa Eulàlia was one of the founders of the Cooperativa de Alta Costura and took Catalan fashion all over Europe and to the United States. A grateful city awarded the institution its Order of Merit in 2011.
Rags to riches, literally
Joe Hoganf you want to get an idea of just how big Mango is, go to its website's customer service page and hit the “shops” link. An internal search engine opens where you will be able to find your nearest store. Next, click the “country” link, and scroll. And scroll.
It seems impossible that two Turkish immigrants have been able to build on what were basically market stalls in Barcelona, open a prêt-à-porter fashion outlet in 1984, watch it grow so quickly that in 2010 they boasted they would open 365 new shops in the same year, reach that target, and the following year, open 500 more. It is everywhere. You walk into a shopping centre off-the-beaten-track Malacca in Malaysia, Shiraz in Iran, Pretoria in South Africa, and there in front of you is this piece of Catalonia. As well, of course as London, New York, Seoul, Rio, Paris, Rome and an endless list of etceteras.
Mango is far from a clothing and apparel store. It has fashion at its heart and soul and is recognised as such throughout the industry world-wide. Brothers Isak and Nahman Andik read the changing mood of the country and its youth in the early 1970s and gave young people the opportunity they had long waited for to express themselves through the clothes they wore. Better still, they were able to anticipate the changing moods and tastes of a youthful and energetic society, understanding the concept of trending before the word was in use. Recently, Steve Newbold of the fashion consultancy WGSN Trends stated that Mango, like Zara, went beyond creating tendencies and were in fact “reinventing retail”.
But what does Mango do? Basically, everything. From its much-lauded business model, its production line system, its visionary franchise operation, its state-of-the-art distribution system, shop design strategy, the excellence of its on-line sales system, enviable in-service training but, most importantly, never forgetting the basics: fashion, quality design and designers, vision and reading the market before the market even knows what page it is on.
Mango speaks directly to its clients as individuals and as equals and seems to have answers for everything. New services and products are continuously offered, H.E. Mango for men, Mango Kids, Mango Touch for accessories and recently Violeta, Mangos' latest venture aimed at larger sizes which has come in for criticism from change.org
Lights, camera, action (all in one sentence)
So you are a former architecture student from a small Catalan town who gets the idea of designing strikingly, head-turning T-shirts with strange patterns and you sell them at lightning speed in Barcelona before opening a store in New York's Soho district around the time that you and your brother are discovered by some of Hollywood's top actors and actresses who then happen to wear your creations on TV sitcoms and have the phenomenom baptised as Customania by the New York Times and only one year after opening the shop you are invited to show in the Big Apple's fashion week and in only 15 more years you get your own slot on the NY runway because you seem to have moved into up-market fashion of every type up to and including Harley Davidsons (for God's sake) for everyone yet without turning your back on the individuality which set you apart in the first place and just never seem to stop either with the breathtaking designs or opening shops in Italy, France, Spain, Switzerland, the US, Central America, Saudi Arabia and Egypt and in technique, design, marketing, online sales, getting your creations to any client anywhere basically the moment it has been shown on the runway in New York or create a collection especially for the Lidl supermarket group in Spain which caused a bit of a kuffufle but really it doesn't matter or it does because you are Custo Dalmau of Custo Barcelona and that's what you do. Get it?
Rags to riches, literally
Joe Hoganf you want to get an idea of just how big Mango is, go to its website's customer service page and hit the “shops” link. An internal search engine opens where you will be able to find your nearest store. Next, click the “country” link, and scroll. And scroll.
It seems impossible that two Turkish immigrants have been able to build on what were basically market stalls in Barcelona, open a prêt-à-porter fashion outlet in 1984, watch it grow so quickly that in 2010 they boasted they would open 365 new shops in the same year, reach that target, and the following year, open 500 more. It is everywhere. You walk into a shopping centre off-the-beaten-track Malacca in Malaysia, Shiraz in Iran, Pretoria in South Africa, and there in front of you is this piece of Catalonia. As well, of course as London, New York, Seoul, Rio, Paris, Rome and an endless list of etceteras.
Mango is far from a clothing and apparel store. It has fashion at its heart and soul and is recognised as such throughout the industry world-wide. Brothers Isak and Nahman Andik read the changing mood of the country and its youth in the early 1970s and gave young people the opportunity they had long waited for to express themselves through the clothes they wore. Better still, they were able to anticipate the changing moods and tastes of a youthful and energetic society, understanding the concept of trending before the word was in use. Recently, Steve Newbold of the fashion consultancy WGSN Trends stated that Mango, like Zara, went beyond creating tendencies and were in fact “reinventing retail”.
But what does Mango do? Basically, everything. From its much-lauded business model, its production line system, its visionary franchise operation, its state-of-the-art distribution system, shop design strategy, the excellence of its on-line sales system, enviable in-service training but, most importantly, never forgetting the basics: fashion, quality design and designers, vision and reading the market before the market even knows what page it is on.
Mango speaks directly to its clients as individuals and as equals and seems to have answers for everything. New services and products are continuously offered, H.E. Mango for men, Mango Kids, Mango Touch for accessories and recently Violeta, Mangos' latest venture aimed at larger sizes which has come in for criticism from change.org
Picking up the gauntlet
Joe HoganIt could be a Les Paul, a Strat Red or a cheap ukulele, but you hear it and you know it is Mark Knopfler. It is not that it is different, it is just that it is not the same. As anyone. Desigual. And that is what Swiss brothers Thomas and Christian Meyer started doing in Ibiza and then they started not doing the same in Barcelona's mecadillo and then in shops all over Catalonia and Spain, and then in more than 60 countries. Small clusters of designers set with different conceptual objectives (none of them “the same”) turn out singular fashion that is as unique as Stephane Grappelli's violin. Desigual has teamed up with Cirque du Soleil and asked clients to turn up in their underwear for the sales in Madrid, and then in other major cities “Come in undressed and go out dressed”. In reality, Desigual asks every prospective client to be not the same, they throw down the gauntlet and challenge buyers to take the risk of being not the same as everyone else. It is a tremendous concept for fashion and perhaps an even better definition; nothing is the same.