I heard someone say Madrid dresses the wife and Barcelona dresses the mistress. I believe Barcelona dresses the simply not interested. The woman I saw on the runway (who changed entirely from brand to brand) held onto one thing. Freedom. And if there’s one word to quickly describe 080 Barcelona Fashion Week, that’ll do. It always does, as long as the city isn’t trying to sit on the fashion capital map, busy with its own commercial agenda. Set against Port Vell for its 37th edition, here are three labels I liked enough to Google before I even trusted myself to spell them right.
Doblas
Carlo Doblas has a thing for sharp tailoring. And by sharp, I mean I saw a leather coat so stiffly rectangular it could slice your vegetables with its shoulders, leaving no room for sleeves, just a one-sided peekaboo pocket. His “Collapse” collection went on to play with proportions, structure, tension, and maybe even fashion’s ongoing thing with the ‘tradwife’ idea.
Benavente
I’ll let you guess where Paco Benavente’s inspiration came from. Your clue is the collection’s title, “Les Muses de l’Empereur” (French for The Emperor’s Muses). Catchy, if you were only ever in history class for the love stories. Napoleon and Josephine, Henry VIII and Anne Boleyn, battle uniforms and ball gowns, all squeezed into modern clothing.
Bibencia
Roberto Montes Sanz took a trip down memory lane too. Though his went further back. The collection “Penélope,” got its name from Odysseus’ wife and is “a manifesto about good fortune.” The woman waited 20 years just to find out whether her husband was dead or not. Not sure “good fortune” is exactly how you’d describe poor Penelope, but edgy corsetry, feathers, and flowers, is how you’d describe the collection.
