080, license to thrill

We are in Barcelona's maritime museum, the magnificently restored Drassanes Reials or Royal shipyards. It is an enormous and impressive building and its past is interwoven with the history of Catalonia. Right now, this immense space is filled with expectation as something fascinating, something thrilling, is about to begin. This year, the organisers of 080 Barcelona Fashion, have chosen this setting to proudly present a whole industry to the world. They could not have chosen a better and more apt venue.

Catalonia's ventures into the world of commerce outside its borders go far back and, indeed, few realise the importance of the role of this small country in the history and development of trade. What we know today as Chambers of Commerce began in cities such as Barcelona, Marseilles and Genova in the 13th century. In 1258, the Charter of the Coast of Barcelona established what would become the Consulates of the Sea, spread around the Mediterranean, which regulated and protected commerce and permitted the practice of fair trade and led to the creation of industry and wealth. It opened Catalonia to the world, and even the events of 1714 could not turn back the clock. The country's first autonomous institution following the end of the War of Succession was in 1758 with the establishment of the Assembly of Commerce, which had far-reaching administrative powers.

So, here we sit and what we are about to witness bears a direct relationship to this past. From this grew the textile industry which shaped the face of modern Catalonia as a political, social and cultural entity. The textile and ancillary industries gave us the noucentista movement, the expansion of the arts, architecture, industrialisation and the country developed a wealthy middle class which, as we saw in our first article in Catalan Chic , created new demands and led to the development of a modern fashion industry.

Since the mid-19th century, fashion outlets and salons offered private showings for individual clients and this practice was taken into the new-fangled department stores that employed models who would be called on at any time to walk for clients. In Catalonia, fashion parades were part and parcel of the Universal Exhibition in 1929 but Santa Eulàlia and others had been putting on shows before this. But like London Fashion Week, or that of the Big Apple, something like 080 is different; it is an “event”, and a fashion event is something that has created its own definition. This is something that we can document and date. New York, 1914, and we even have a name: Edna Woodman Chase. The show was called “Fashion Fete” and was a series of parades over a few days displaying the work of different designers. It was an immediate success. Perhaps too successful, even for its founder, who went on to become editor of Vogue, so much so that in 1954 she wrote: ”Now that fashion shows have become a way of life … a lady is hard put to it to lunch, or sip a cocktail, in any smart hotel or store front from New York to Dallas to San Francisco without having lissome young things … swaying down a runway six inches above her nose.”

Post-war Catalonia saw the beginnings of fashion events with the Cooperativa de Alta Costura and this even took our fashion on tour throughout the US and Europe. It was highly successful, if not somewhat exclusive. Following Franco's death, the new democratic fervour took fashion on to the streets and there was a joyful and productive anarchy. Part of the industry saw the need to put the house in order, and the answer was the Saló Gaudí.

Perhaps it was the wrong moment, perhaps it was the crisis in the textile industry, perhaps it was trying to do too much, or perhaps, as one of the designers involved said, “We spent too much time thinking about what they were doing elsewhere and not thinking about what we were or weren't doing here.” Whatever it was, there was something missing and designers looked elsewhere and Gaudí could not find its footing on the international catwalk.

Enter 080 Barcelona Fashion and a complete rethink on how things should be done. If Saló Gaudí presented designers, then this Generalitat sponsored organisation presents an entire industry and its aim is to promote and develop the industry on all levels. Is it exclusive? Fashion tends to be exclusive, so to some extent yes, but there is a real effort made to represent the enormous wealth of creativity this vital industry has to offer here in Catalonia. The cooperative de Alta Costura was establishment with the occasional invitation for new designers thrown in. 080 makes a serious attempt to put our talented and innovative new faces on the same level as world renowned Catalan designers and fashion houses. Of enormous value and interest is the Barcelona Fashion summit, a series or round-tables and conferences given by leading figures in the fashion world, which is held on the last day of the event. As creatives, conferences tend to be different to other trade related gatherings, which at times concentrate on solving industry related problems. Instead, talks such as these are exciting and vibrant affairs with creatives welcoming new challenges and the opportunities they present.

Is there a danger of events such as 080 disappearing in this digital age? IT savvy fashion designer Núria Serra says no: “There is not a single photograph or YouTube video that can capture something like a catwalk. It's what people want to see, it's the real thing. It's magic.”

And so it begins. The lights dim and we hold our expectant, collective breath, we know we are about to witness something special, we know there will be a moment when something we cannot describe happens. Surprisingly, a catwalk will last from 20 to 40 minutes only, but each moment is filled with magic and we cannot help but fall helpless victims to the thrill of it all.