Starting this season, it costs ten euros to enter Cibelespacio, that is, Ifema's pavilion number 14, which from Thursday to Sunday will be full of stands for household appliances, airlines, cosmetic brands and will house a small area for emerging designers to exhibit. his creations.
And 60 euros costs to live what the organization calls "the experience": go to a single parade and then access the VIP area, where for half an hour, after the
show
, some of the national celebrities invited drink in hand.
And, judging by this first day of Mercedes-Benz Madrid Fashion Week, the organization is taking advantage of the matter: there were queues at the entrances, in the bathroom and a concentration in the stands never seen in previous years.
The truth is that in the last year, two of the cult brands of the moment, Diesel and Marine Serre, have done so in Milan and Paris, respectively, although at lower prices.
Balmain brought fashion to the pinnacle of entertainment in 2021 with a music festival in which various international artists held concerts for an entire day before and after the show.
If we listen to the discourse that associates fashion as a cultural expression, it should be accessible to the public, like the cinema or concerts.
The question may be whether or not Ifema sees the catwalk as one of the fairs for professionals that are usually held there, with the exception that the profits here cannot be quantified in stands of brands interested in exhibiting their product.
The "experience" is not quantified in space: 7,000 euros plus VAT are paid by the brands for parading, to which the disbursement of each sponsor would be added (this year Turismo de Marroco is added, with some of its creators parading next Saturday).
Hence, the sale of tickets is perhaps a way to get more out of a space that does not benefit as much as other fairs.
Two models wear designs by Agatha Ruiz de la Prada during the Mercedes Benz Fashion Week Madrid, on February 16, 2023.
In any case, and as is obvious, for many, stepping on the Ifema catwalk, that is, parading within this fashion week, is still necessary.
"I can't think of any other way to make ourselves more visible," Nuria Sardá, creative director of Andrés Sardá, the lingerie firm that her father created in 1962, told EL PAÍS. Thanks to its fashion shows, which wisely mix their commercial product with exuberance and entertainment came, he says, to be contacted by Law Roach, Zendaya's stylist and one of the most important in the world.
Andrés Sardá knows how to sell (the group to which he belongs since 2008, Van de Velde, has billed 97.6 million euros in 2021) and knows how to put on a show.
This time it was about lingerie in the snow, "a whole day, from when a woman gets up, she goes skiing until she goes to a party in the snow",
Nuria explains.
Between Dulceida, who opened and closed the show, the models wore pieces of underwear and corsetry together with down jackets or long fur coats.
Dulceida walks down the catwalk in the Andrés Sardá fashion show, on February 15, 2023, in Madrid. Eduardo Parra (Europa Press)
Sardá was the second to parade on the opening day;
the first, for a long time, is Agatha Ruiz de la Prada, a position of honor because she is the one who manages to grab headlines and television minutes, in case she herself did not already do so without taking into account the schedule.
At the exit of her
show
there was a stall selling her recently published autobiography.
Inside, her partner sneaked onto the catwalk to pick up the template that had come off one of the models before the incredulous look of Antonio Banderas, one of the guests.
If what the public was looking for were "experiences", these are the sixty euros best invested so far.
Jorge Vázquez, the third of the day, presented a collection that spoke of the cross between the Spanish and Moroccan visual imaginary (one of the sponsors of this edition) with daring color combinations and games of volumes between kaftans and lace.
An audacity that was also perceived in Pedro del Hierro, yes, ossified, as it is the most solvent and commercial banner on the calendar: Nacho Aguayo, female creative director, and Álex Miralles, male, imagined the different profiles that attend the premiere of an opera “because not everyone goes to this type of event with the same style, even if it is an event that you have to attend as a gala”, commented the first.
An intelligent strategy, because it not only allows them to position themselves on the red carpets to come or give their regular clients that aura of luxury and aspiration, but also because it allows them to experiment and break stereotypes without straying from the story, mixing textures, colors and garments, on everything in his men's collection, where velvet was combined with knitwear or alpaca coats with lace-up shirts.
Tamara Falcó and Iñigo Onieva attended his parade in one of their first public appearances after their reconciliation.
Her fashion brand, TFP, is also owned by the Tendam group, owner of Pedro del Hierro.
In fact, some of their clothes have appeared in the parade, although since the firm they have not pointed out which ones to show that their respective styles match naturally.
Several models wear the creations of the designer Ángel Schlesser in his show at the Mercedes-Benz Fashion Week Madrid, on February 15, 2023.chema Moya (EFE)
Although if someone knows how to unite fashion and entertainment it is Eduardo Navarrete, who for some time now has become a local celebrity who far transcends his fashion production.
On Wednesday night, he moved a diverse audience to the Chamartin skating rink to enjoy a show in which several famous friends of the designer skated, some more talented than others, wearing underpants, robes, umbrellas or floats.
Eduardo Navarrete during the parade of his new N-61 collection, a tribute to his roots and the Mediterranean, which is held within the framework of the Mercedes-Benz Fashion Week Madrid, on February 15, 2023, in Madrid.Fran Guerra ( Frank Guerra)
Navarrete presented his collection on the day called Off, that is, outside Ifema but present on the official calendar.
Here there are no tickets for sale, but, in some cases, private sponsors who pay for different venues in the capital.
In the case of Ángel Schlesser, the main sponsor was his own fragrance, Femme.
A curious but not unique case, although fashion traditionally served or rather served to increase the sale of perfumes and small accessories, there have been cases, perhaps Mugler and Viktor & Rolf the most famous, in which the small fish has eaten the big.
Ruiz de la Prada, without going any further, put his flacos as a headdress today.
Schlesser, however, did it bluntly.
The brand owned by Óscar Areces, after the fluctuations of creative directors that followed the departure of its founder in 2016,
But, without a doubt, the best collection of these two days of fashion shows took place outside the official calendar and even outside the media spotlight.
It was presented yesterday by the artist Ernesto Artillo at the We Collect gallery under the title
The most expensive sewing collection in history
.
It was.
It was made from the garments that Artillo was finding on the beaches of Cabo de Gata.
Garments of people who had managed to cross into Spain and that Artillo had intervened: tracksuit jackets with the phrase "Viva España" embroidered in Arabic, jackets that fused the face of the Malaga Christ of Mena with those of an unaccompanied foreign minor (mena, in its acronym), jewelery made with pieces of the lighters that the survivors use to light bonfires upon their arrival... Yes, fashion can and sometimes should be a cultural and social expression.
Artillo's is real.
In addition, the entrance was open to the public and free.
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