Effortlessly bridging the gap between fashion, design and architecture, 080 Barcelona Fashion Week has now drawn to a close – here’s what happened.
As 080 Barcelona Fashion Week draws to a trendy close, we’re feeling well and truly fed. Aren’t you?
Having missed the magic of IRL catwalk offerings since Covid-19 shook up the world last year, the innovative platform offered us a way to fill that incredibly large, fashion-sized void in all our hearts, whilst also endeavouring to show the Spanish capital and all of its wonderful design talent as they deserve to be seen, in the spotlight.
080 Barcelona Fashion Week kicked off its 27th season last Monday, offering a mix of dynamic fashion films alongside runway displays from the likes of The Label Edition, Antonio Marcial and Álvaro Calafat. Taking place at Casa Milà, the city’s most emblematic civil building designed by Antoni Gaudí, organisers wanted to bridge the gap between fashion, design and architecture. Even the move to online was calculated in this way, opening up the Barcelona fashion stage to the world, and it suffices to say we loved what we saw.
Day 2 saw Paloma Wool, Txell Miras, Y_COMO, Paola Molet and ESCORPION offer their takes on the tumult of the past year, be it through tributes to the friends who helped them through lockdown, the power of love, or, quite simply, a good old fashioned throwback to the 80s. As for Day 3, a vibrant mix of capsule collections (Pablo Erroz), visuals that fuse earth’s natural beauty with the desires of the cosmopolitan woman (EIKO, Lola Casademunt by Maite), and a successful hunt for the style of the summer (LR3).
Wrapping up on Thursday, Day 4 was all about texture and colour. Whether it was IS COMING’s functional two piece sets made from natural fabrics, Victor Von Schwarz’s striking ode to the club in Disco 2000, or ONRUSHW23FH’s collection of rave ready denim and shapely formal staples, the day was abound with creativity, and a hunger to return to our pleasure-seeking pastimes once the world sorts itself out for good.
And the best part? We didn’t even have to leave our beds to experience it. That’s the future of fashion, baby. And speaking of fashion’s dreamy future, might we introduce some of it’s boundary pushers that took to the runway this season?
Sergio De Lázaro is a mainstay on the Barcelona fashion calendar, rustling up greatness on the runway for over 19 years under the fashion capital’s many big houses. Going it alone in 2019, he’s since been raising hell under his own moniker, giving us a collection about all the emotional wonder trapped inside our bodies. Manifesting as a staple shoe, or perfectly fitted jacket, these connections are raw, real and devastatingly rare.
Victor von Schwarz
5 Words: Fruity, Rave, Dance, Pattern, Bold
Victor von Schwarz is another designer with a firm foot on the neck of the Spanish fashion world. His AW21 offering, Disco 2000, was a striking ode to club fashion, featuring mutant Pacha cherries on shirts, bucket hats, hoodies and furry jackets and just about anything you can think of. Sticking to a refined palette of bright reds, pastel pinks and the occasional muted mustard, the collection itself is a review of Schwarz’s adolescence, an ode to Britpop, and an example of nostalgic fashion done so, so right.
Zerkalo, Russian for ‘mirror’, is a fashion film (and collection) that endeavours to use objects as a metaphor for feelings of vanity and narcissism. These contradictions are an ongoing internal struggle for us all, re-affirmed by the beast that is social media, that materialise on the runway as silver fabric motifs, or layered skirts and chaotic shapes that jump off the body.
Avellaneda
5 Words: Feathers, Smart, Exciting, Elegance, Short
Juan Avellaneda is Barcelona’s resident design multi-hyphenate, working across fashion, print and even an online boutique. For AW21, after such a tough year, he desired to bring beauty, joy, fun and escapism back to fashion. And that’s exactly what he’s done, be it on red carpet frocks with thick ruched skirts, elegant formal wear that hugs the bust and decorates the torso, or the slightest feathery embellishment on a crisp cream sleeve.
Menchén Tomàs
5 Words: Elf, Sorbet, Colour, Dainty, Vintage
From tailor-made bridal gear, ready to wear and haute couture, Menchén Tomàs does it all. This season, prints are on the menu, and in a big way. Opting for a colour palette that reminds us of a juicy ice lolly in the heat of summer, Tomàs sculpts elegant dresses out of blue paisley, jagged trousers out of monochrome plaid, scarves of silky lime green and bright, audacious orange, all inspired by the film Elf. It sounds a little crazy, but bloody hell does it look good.
5 Words: Comfort, Style, Warm, Deep, Global
From Barcelona to Scotland, Lebor Gabala’s AW21 collection transcends countries and oceans. A longtime devotee to the world of wool, Gabala embraces Harris Tweed with open arms, in natural colours, as wide jackets and coats, in cashmere or extra-fine virgin wool, whatever the combination. It’s about the artisanal nature of traditional textiles, plain and simple, an exercise in colour at its most entrancing, and, by the looks of things, comfortable too!