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CULTURE

What to know about Spain’s amazing Corpus Christi carpets

At the beginning of June, various towns and villages throughout Spain celebrate the festival of Corpus Christi by creating intricate floral carpets to decorate the streets.

Published: 7 June 2023 16:45 CEST
Updated: 10 June 2023 07:00 CEST
What to know about Spain’s amazing Corpus Christi carpets
What to know about Spain’s amazing Corpus Christi carpets. Photo: DESIREE MARTIN / AFP

What is Corpus Christi?

Corpus Christi is a religious celebration, meaning the body of Christ. It is held around 60 days or nine weeks after Easter and this year falls from Thursday, June 8th to Sunday, June 11th. 

It is celebrated in churches and on the streets with various festivities, processions and decorations.

Castilla-La Macha is the only region where June 8th is a holiday in all its provinces (Toledo, Guadalajara, Cuenca, Albacete and Ciudad Real). It’s also a local holiday in Seville and Granada.

How is it celebrated?

Corpus Christi is celebrated in different ways all over Spain, but some of the best celebrations are those involving elaborate street carpets made from flowers, plants or coloured sawdust. Locals spend many hours creating these intricate designs that will last just a few days.

READ ALSO: Why you should visit Barcelona’s quirky egg dancing festival

They were made to create a special route for the Corpus Christi processions that typically run from the church and through the town or village. Somehow it has evolved so that the carpets have become more and more intricate and locals try to outdo themselves, and other streets, to create the best.

People make carpets out of sand and flowers during the Corpus Christi festival. Photo: DESIREE MARTIN / AFP
 

Origins

The origin of Corpus Christi dates back to the Middle Ages when in 1208 the nun Juliana de Cornillon came up with the idea of ​​celebrating a festival in honour of the Body and Blood of Christ. Later in 1264, Pope Urban IV endorsed this religious festival.

Already in the 16th century, it was decreed that every year the body of Christ should be carried in a procession through the streets of the towns.

There are various theories as to how the tradition of the carpets started, but they vary from region to region and town to town. Read on to find out how they started in each place. 

Hundreds of people watch the carpets made of flowers to mark the Corpus Christi festival. Photo: DESIREE MARTIN / AFP
 

Where to see the best Corpus Christi carpets

Elche de la Sierra, Castilla-La Mancha, June 9th – 11th

The small town of Elche de la Sierra is located in the Albacete province of Castilla-La Mancha. In 1964, 10 neighbours decided to make a beautiful carpet out of coloured sawdust as a surprise for those in the Corpus Christi procession. The tradition has continued until today and each year locals try to excel making them better than the year before. The weekend is filled with festivities including concerts and sports competitions.

Ponteareas – Galicia, June 11th

In the Galician town of Ponteareas, carpets are created out of spectacular floral arrangements and petals. All through the night before the Corpus Christi procession, the residents of the town gather to help them. The origins of the tradition here date back to the beginning of the 20th century, when the potholes along the route would be covered over with flowers.

La Oratova – Tenerife, June 15th

The flower carpets in this Canary Island town are a little different from the detailed patterns of the other tapestries. Here, the decorations depict religious scenes and ornamental motifs. The sand tapestry that covers the Plaza del Ayuntamiento, takes an entire month to complete and is famous throughout the country. It’s made using volcanic earth and sand from the Mount Teide National Park. At night, a procession passes along the route marked by the floral carpets and ends in the Plaza del Ayuntamiento with a religious ceremony. 

This huge mosaic is made with volcanic sand extracted from El Teide National Park to mark Corpus Christi. Photo: DESIREE MARTIN / AFP

Sitges, June 8th – Catalonia, June 11th

The coastal resort of Sitges is the best place to see the Corpus Christi carpets in Catalonia. Here, many of the town streets are covered in elegant floral tapestries made mainly from carnation petals and other organic materials. Judges award prizes for the best carpets, which will later be walked over during the procession of the Blessed Sacrament. Other events that take place at the same time are the National Carnation Exhibition, the Bonsai Exhibition, and the Contest of Floral Ornamentation of Facades and Balconies.

San Cristóbal de la Laguna, Tenerife – June 11th

This celebration takes place on the Canary Island of Tenerife. It’s also known as the festival of flowers because petals, shrubs, plants and heather are used to create the intricate street rugs. References to the celebration of Corpus Christi here date back to the 15th century, but the tradition of decorating the streets with flowers did not arrive until the beginning of the 20th century. 

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CULTURE

Spain’s flamenco dress, an Andalusian classic evolving with fashion

Luis Fernández's workshop in Seville's Old City is buzzing with customers who have come to try on his dazzling array of flamenco dresses, their vibrant fabrics replete with voluptuous ruffles and polka dots.

Published: 19 April 2024 10:03 CEST
Spain's flamenco dress, an Andalusian classic evolving with fashion

Flamenco fashion hits its annual peak in springtime when towns and cities across Spain’s southern Andalusia region hold their annual week-long ferias, when everyone puts on their finery to go out and eat, drink and dance into the small hours.

One customer is Virginia Cuaresma. Under the watchful eye of the designer, pins at the ready to make any necessary adjustment, she stands before the mirror in a traditional midnight blue gown, ruffles adorning the skirt and the sleeves.

Then she tries one in aquamarine, twinned with an embroidered fringed shawl in the same colour. Then a more modern styled red dress, which leaves a lot of skin on show.

“Right now, everything is in chaos, we’re up to our eyes… these are the last few fittings” before the clients return to collect their gowns “and enjoy the feria,” Fernández told AFP, referring to this southern city’s prestigious fair which attracts hundreds of thousands of visitors and this year runs from April 14th to 20th.

The most traditional design, which dates back more than 100 years, is a floor-length dress which is closely fitted to the thigh, fishtailing out in a ruffled skirt and matching ruffles on the sleeves.

READ ALSO: ¡Olé! Five things you didn’t know about Spain’s flamenco art form

To complement the dress, women accessorise, wearing a fringed shawl round the shoulders, earrings and bracelets, their hair pulled up in a bun and pinned with a comb with a single flower in an ensemble that has become the image of Andalusia and even used abroad as a symbol of Spain.

“The flamenco dress brings out what’s most beautiful in a woman,” explains Fernández, pointing to the wide neckline and “hourglass silhouette” which highlights the contrast between the narrow waist and the hips and bust, in a style that’s “very flattering” and makes the wearer look “beautiful”.

“When I chose a dress to go to the feria, I look for something that will enhance my female figure, says Cuaresma, a 34-year-old geographer with a dark complexion and long dark hair.

For her, dressing up for the feria is a way of “carrying on Andalusian traditions” and connecting with her late grandmother Virginia, who used to sew flamenco dresses when she was a child.

Luis Fernández’s workshop in Seville’s Old City is buzzing with customers who have come to try on his dazzling array of flamenco dresses. (Photo by CRISTINA QUICLER / AFP)

A style evolution

A Seville native who grew up loving the fair, Fernández started working as a designer in 2012 alongside fellow couturier Manuel Jurado, and from the start he knew he wanted to make flamenco dresses.

For him, it is a unique regional costume “that evolves with fashion and the only one which incorporates new trends,” he says with pride.

The garment has its roots in so-called “majo” costumes “worn by working class people” in Spain in the late 18th and early 19th centuries and often captured in the paintings of Spanish master Goya, explained anthropologist Rosa María Martínez Moreno, who wrote a book called “El Traje de Flamenca (“The Flamenco Dress”).

With the start of the Seville fairs in the middle of the 19th century, the style began to be adopted by the wealthy classes at a time when there was a pushback against all things French, including its aristocratic fashions.

READ ALSO: A guide to Seville’s Feria de Abril in 2024

Thrown into the mix was the dress of the gypsy women who sold doughnuts at the fair and who wore dresses and skirts adorned with ruffles.

By the 20th century, the flamenco dress had evolved into its current form and become popular, thanks largely to the growth of flamenco as an art form and the expansion of schools teaching this Andalusian dance form, which women often learn to perform at the fairs, Martinez Moreno said.

Springtime is their heyday as towns and cities across the southern Andalusia region hold their annual ferias. (Photo by CRISTINA QUICLER / AFP)

Image of Spain

During the 1960s, the dictatorship of General Francisco Franco set out to “sell Spain as a tourist attraction” and to do so used “popular stereotypes” such as the flamenco dress which “began to be recognised as the image of Spanishness” abroad, she adds.

READ ALSO: How Spain became a cheap mass tourism destination

In recent years Andalusian dress has inspired big name designers such as Christian Dior, who in 2022 showcased a new collection in Seville’s iconic Plaza de España.

Fernández says the sector in Seville has become more professional with designers who follow “the trends from Paris and Milan”, and who have since 1995 staged a yearly international flamenco fashion show in the city.

An outfit from an atelier like the one Fernández runs can range from several hundred euros to over one thousand.

But there are cheaper options today in an era where fashion has become more accessible.

That is a relief for women like Cuaresma, who says she usually buys “at least” one flamenco dress each year because for the fair, or at least the opening day, “we don’t like to repeat” the same outfit worn in previous years.

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