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FASHION

Meet Spain’s up-and-coming fashion designer taking haute couture back to the pueblo

Thanks to a combination of the pandemic, shifting attitudes and technological advances it is now easier than ever to work remotely. Álvaro Villalobos meets a Spanish designer who has gone back to the pueblo.

Meet Spain's up-and-coming fashion designer taking haute couture back to the pueblo
Photos by Cristina Quicler / AFP

Trained in Milan, up-and-coming Spanish designer Nicolas Montenegro has dressed Beyonce and Kylie Minogue, but with the pandemic, he’s gone back home to his village to launch his own brand.

Thanks to the internet and air links “there is no need to live in a big city,” the lean 31-year-old told AFP at his atelier in Lantejuela, a village of some 3,800 residents about an hour’s drive from the southern city of
Seville.   

Sketches and fabric samples cover one table while wedding dresses are piled high on another in a room decorated with family photos. His three employees, all local residents, are busy cutting fabric.

Going back to his village, which is surrounded by asparagus farms, is part of a global trend.

A combination of the pandemic, shifting attitudes and technological advances that make it easier than ever to work remotely, are prompting waves of people to move out of large cities and permanently relocate to more sparsely populated areas.

After studying at Milan’s prestigious Istituto Marangoni, Montenegro worked for four years at Italian fashion house Dolce & Gabbana where he dressed big names including Madonna, Beyonce, Kylie Minogue and Melania Trump.

Then in 2018, he moved to Barcelona to work at Yolancris, where he designed the spectacular pleated tulle dress worn by Spanish urban music singer Rosalia to the Latin Grammys that year.

But when the pandemic hit in March and a strict national lockdown was imposed in Spain, Montenegro decided to move back to Lantejuela to be closer to his father who had cancer, and who died in November after catching Covid-19.

Online fashion shows

Encouraged by his father, Montenegro launched his own brand and first collection of wedding dresses called “Abril”, or “April”.   

His sober, elegant gowns which mix vintage classics with a daring splash of exquisite cotton lace and dramatic bows have sold in Spain, Britain and Greece for €2,500 ($3,000) a piece.

Montenegro is now preparing an autumn/winter ready-to-wear collection.    

This time, his inspiration is drawn from the exotic tapestries decorated with tigers, deer and peacocks that his father brought back after his military service in Western Sahara in 1971, at the time a Spanish colony.

Montenegro plans to promote his collection in Madrid as well as online, a medium which has more scope than traditional fashion shows which “are over very quickly”.

“You don’t have time to enjoy it, and then everyone forgets,” he added.    

“I launched the wedding dress collection online, I made promotional footage and each dress had its own video,” said Montenegro, calling this approach much more “functional”.

‘Helping us a lot’ 

His venture has boosted the local economy, which has been hit hard by the pandemic despite being home to generations of expert seamstresses who make flamenco dresses and children’s clothing.

“He is helping us a lot because there is nothing else” here, said Estefania Ponce, a 38-year-old mother who works at the atelier.    

Unlike his Spanish peers who have found success abroad with unisex clothes for men, Montenegro — who as a child liked dressing dolls — focuses on women’s fashion.

He says his role model is his friend Alejandro Palomo, the 28-year-old designer behind the popular Palomo Spain brand which mixes Spanish traditions with modern twists.

Thanks to Palomo, Spanish designers “are once again being looked at abroad,” said Montenegro.

Palomo also has an atelier in his hometown of Posadas, located about 75 kilometres (45 miles) from Lantejuela.

“Without the village, we would be nobody,” said Montenegro.

By AFP’s Álvaro Villalobos

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FASHION

Paris exhibition celebrates 100 years of French Vogue

A new exhibition in Paris will tell the story of 100 years of French Vogue - from the post-war 'New Look' of Christian Dior through the sexual liberation of the 1960s to the dangling-cigarette waifs of the 2000s.

French Vogue celebrates 100 years
French Vogue celebrates 100 years. Photo: Thomas Olva/AFP

But as well as celebrating the magazine’s storied history, the exhibit comes at a time of turbulence for the publication.

Just last month, it was confirmed that its editor of 10 years, Emmanuelle Alt, was out and wouldn’t be replaced.

She was not alone.

Looking to cut costs, owner Conde Nast International has axed editors across Europe over the past year, and put international Vogue editions under the direct control of global editorial director, Anna Wintour, in New York.

New York-based Anna Wintour now has overall control of French Vogue. Photo by Christophe ARCHAMBAULT / AFP

Like much of the media industry, Vogue is struggling with tumbling sales and ad revenue in the digital era.

But the latest twist is also part of the endless push and pull between New York and Paris going back to its early days.

“The whole history of French Vogue is one of back-and-forth with Conde Nast in New York – growing more independent for a while, then being reined back in,” said Sylvie Lecallier, curator of the new exhibition, “Vogue Paris 1920-2020″, which opened this weekend after a year’s delay due to the pandemic.

The Paris edition was often the loftier, more bohemian sibling to its more hard-nosed New York version.

But it was also the hotbed in which much of 20th century style and womenhood came to be defined.

“Paris was the place to hunt out talent and content and bring it to New York,” said Lecallier.

The exhibition charts the evolution from art deco drawings of the 1920s through the erotic image-making of photographers like Helmut Newton in the 1960s and 1970s.

Its last peak was under editor Carine Roitfeld in the 2000s, who brought back a provocative Gallic identity by ridding the newsroom of foreign staff and becoming a fashion icon in her own right.

Her successor, Alt, was a quieter presence, though she still oversaw key moments including its first transgender cover star, Brazilian Valentina Sampaio, in 2017.

But internet culture has created “a perfect storm” for Vogue, says media expert Douglas McCabe of Enders Analysis.

“The first 80 years of Vogue’s life, it had the market to itself, it was the bible for fashion,” McCabe told AFP.

“But online today, there are so many other ways to get your information. Influencers, Instagram, YouTube — everyone’s a threat.”

In a world where new fashion trends can blow up around the world in seconds, it has become much harder for a monthly magazine to set the pace.

“It’s not that they can’t survive for another 100 years — but they will be differently sized,” McCabe said.

Vogue has tried to branch out into different areas, including events.

“I used to work for a magazine, and today I work for a brand,” Alt said on the eve of French Vogue’s 1,000th issue in 2019.

But the big money was always in print, and Vogue Paris sales are dropping steadily from 98,345 in 2017 to 81,962 to 2020, according to data site ACPM.

It is perhaps unsurprising that the new top job in Paris, redefined as “head of editorial content”, went to Eugenie Trochu, who was key to building the magazine’s online presence.

She declared herself “thrilled to be part of Vogue’s international transformation”.

For the curator of the exhibition, it is ironic timing.

“We had no idea it would end like this when we started work on the exhibition,” said Lecallier.

“Who knows where it will go from here.”

The exhibition Vogue Paris 1920-2020 is at the Palais Galliera in Paris’ 16th arrondissement. The gallery is open 10am to 6pm Tuesday to Sunday and is closed on Mondays. Tickets for the exhibition are €14 (€12 for concessions and under 18s go free) and must be reserved online in advance. 

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