The flamenco dress is the only regional costume that is governed by the dictates of fashion. It evolves with trends and adapts to the tastes of each generation of women who have dressed it. It is one of the singularities that defines the Andalusian fashion industry, which has a turnover of more than 600 million euros a year (in data prior to the pandemic). And if this is so, it is thanks to Marcelina Fernández, Lina (Seville, 88 years old), undisputed master of flamenco couture, who came to be crowned as the visionary designer who knew how to lower her waist and adjust her chest to the one known in Andalusia as
gypsy costume
, turning it into a haute couture product.
Lina died last Tuesday in Seville after more than 60 years dedicated to the trade, since she was a child.
Marcelina Fernández and her husband, the late Francisco Montero, created the firm Lina in a workshop in the Seville neighborhood of Triana in 1960. Only six years later, in 1966, the then Princess of Monaco and formerly Alfred Hitchcock's muse, Grace Kelly, visits the April Fair and places Lina on the market exit track and international recognition: her image leaving the historic Alfonso XIII hotel in a horse carriage and, later, walking through the Real dressed in flamenco by the Sevillian designer, copa the covers of all the newspapers and magazines of the time.
Grace Kelly, Princess of Monaco, at the 1966 Seville Fair Gianni Ferrari / Getty Images
That white dress with pink embroidered straps that the Princess of Monaco wore was followed by other designs such as the red and white that the then Princess Sofia of Greece wore in 1968 at the same event. Both invited by Cayetana Fitz-James Stuart, Duchess of Alba, Lina's great ally in the screening of her creations.
Today, flamenco fashion is experiencing a moment of recognition and boom - despite the pandemic, which has left Seville and many other towns without two years of fair and forced to close dozens of stores - in which they have been established even specific catwalks dedicated to this textile, such as SIMOF, which planned to settle in Madrid in 2020 and which in its latest edition showed more than 1,700 suits from 80 different brands. And all of this was partly thanks to the vision of Lina, who had an eye for turning the flamenco dress into a changing fashion, for which she created an almost annual need for purchases in many women who are fond of these designs. The market grows every year: in 2006 it had a turnover of 120 million euros, a figure that has multiplied by five in these 15 years.
The then princess Sofía de Borbón dressed as Lina in the pilgrimage of the Virgen del Rocio in the sanctuary of Almonte, Huelva, in May 1972.
“Lina, whom we all know as the teacher, has been the one who has marked the foundations of the flamenco dress we know today.
She created a trend, she dared to lower the waist to better fit the suit on the woman's body, closed her armhole and incorporated the shawl as a key garment in this dress.
Lina is very characteristic of her exquisite way of marking the female figure ”, explains the Sevillian businesswoman Raquel Revuelta, founder of SIMOF and personal friend of the designer.
From there, the entire rosary of new stars of the Spanish song who regenerated the genre from the seventies fell into their hands and needles: Carmen Sevilla, Lola Flores, Marifé de Triana, Pepa Flores (Marisol) and, later, Rocío Jurado, and the one who to this day has been his great muse and friend, the Sevillian singer Isabel Pantoja, for whom he made the wedding dress at her celebrated wedding with the bullfighter Francisco Rivera
Paquirri
.
The singer has fired her on her social networks with a couple of photos: “Goodbye, Lina.
You were the first person to dress me.
And I will always take you with me.
I love you forever".
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A post shared by ISABEL PANTOJA (@isabel_pantoja_martin)
The bailaora María Rosa has been a client of Lina since 1964, as well as a “friend of the soul”, as she defines it, sharing parties, field days, Rocío and Easter. For her he was “a Christian Dior of flamenco fashion”. “The person who has been the most faithful to him, more than anyone, has been me. He has made clothes for me, until the last day I danced, and for my ballet, always ”, he recalls, remembering“ how well Lina's bata de cola could move, it didn't weigh you down, you could turn around ”. "I trusted her a lot, she had my measurements, she sent me everything without trying on me and perfect, she sent her the measurements of the entire ballet and she made it exact," she says. They saw each other for the last time last April, at the designer's home. “It was a very big blow, despite your age, you never get used to it. A great sewing star and a great friend have been lost ”.
In 2007, the firm celebrated another milestone related to international haute couture when Lina was visited in her atelier by John Galliano, then Creative Director of the House of Dior.
The designer originally from Gibraltar wanted to learn from the great master of flamenco fashion the great keys to this clothing, which would later serve as inspiration for many of her designs.
Lina returned his visit to Paris, where she taught part of the team at the French haute couture house to sew ruffles.
Suri Cruise, with her parents, actors Tom Cruise and Katie Holmes, wears a Lina design during the Seville Fair in 2009.Europe Press Entertainment / Getty Images
In recent years, Lina has even dressed the actress Katie Holmes and her daughter Suri Cruise, coinciding with the stay in the Andalusian capital of her then husband Tom Cruise, for the filming of the movie
Knight & Day
. The name of this fashion firm has also been linked to the world of cinema. It was in 1991, when Lina was nominated for the Goya Awards for best costumes for the film
Yo soy esa
, directed by Luis Sanz and starring, precisely, by Isabel Pantoja.
Lina was able to celebrate in January 2020, just before the coronavirus health crisis, the 60th anniversary of her signing on the SIMOF flamenco fashion show in Seville, the main showcase of this industry that has suffered dramatically the economic consequences of the pandemic.
Gratitude, 60 years wearing flamenco
it was the title of his last collection that, as an epitaph, was presented as a review of his entire career. Lina, who was still maintaining her public projection, attended the premiere and was surprised by her daughters, Rocío and Mila Montero, with a cake. Both are, since 2005, responsible for the firm. “We continue to maintain the maximum of craftsmanship and exclusivity. Each suit can take an average of 60 hours to make. It is made to measure and we do not make more than two or three of each model. At the fair, no one likes to see a repeated suit, "explained Mila Montero in an interview with this newspaper. Those who know her affirm that Rocío is the heir to her mother's great needle.
Lina's designs have always been characterized by their purely handmade confection and a perfect balance between the preservation of tradition and an openness towards avant-garde trends. “Lina would surely have been tremendously proud if she had been able to see Anna Wintour, a symbol of fashion refinement, walk the red carpet at the last Met gala dressed in a suit, not flamenco-inspired, but a flamenco dress in any rule ”, adds Raquel Revuelta. "Because Lina has been the architect of all this happening and flamenco fashion is positioned in this way."