Spanish fashion graduates

“In the country where the father of sewing masters, Cristóbal Balenciaga, was born, his signature fashion does not have the consideration it deserves.” A widespread lament in the sector that is given voice by Héctor Jareño, creative director of the Reliquiae firm and patron of the Spanish Fashion Academy Foundation (FAME), with which it is hoped to put an end to this mournful situation. It is a non-profit organization promoted mainly by the Spanish Fashion Creators Association, whose objectives include promoting the development of the sector, interconnecting design and creation with fine crafts, training, research, innovation, technology and business.

The magnificent news will be announced next Thursday May 26 at the Costume Museum in Madrid. A debut in which his first projects will be announced, among which are some annual awards and a training school for high crafts, “aimed at promoting the conservation of trades and restoring their social prestige,” Jareño told this newspaper , which specifies that the aim is for there to be a demand for training “close to the reality of the workshops, transferring knowledge directly”. Luckily, “there are young people who are interested in the world of embroidery, of sewing leather… but they have to see a future”, adds the patron and designer Juan Duyos, a defender of Spanish crafts, from the leather of Ubrique (Cádiz), to the excellent lacework of Camariños (Galicia), passing through the embroidery of Lagatera Toledo) or the footwear of Elda and Petrer. “There are areas where there are five or six women maintaining a job” because it is not appreciated that “they slowly make a piece of you.”

Author fashion «is today the most sustainable fashion that exists and not only at an environmental level, with higher quality materials for a longer useful life of the pieces, but also socially. “It has the ability to keep the trades alive, generate quality local employment,” explains Jareño, who manufactures “absolutely everything in Gijón” for his brand, Reliquiae, fighting, like many other national designers, against the fact that the productive fabric is outside the country, strengthening our industrial fabric. The future of the sector goes through a collaboration between the textile industry and author fashion. Companies such as “Adolfo Domínguez or Pedro del Hierro show that you can make signature fashion with an industrialized business model,” says Jareño.

To begin to lay the foundations for this new relationship, and coinciding with the presentation of FAME, the ‘Analysis Conference on Author Fashion in Spain and International Models’ will be held on May 26 and 27 at the Museo del Costume. They will be a meeting point for the most relevant European institutions in the fashion industry with outstanding professionals from the sector with multiple profiles. The conclusions obtained and the professional report extracted at the end will be the first step to open the debate and present proposals for action at the Author Fashion Table. The idea is “to build a strategic plan based on a comparative model to see what they do better than us in other countries and us better than them. Formulate a plan free from apriorisms with which we know what makes us unique to turn it into strengths”, emphasizes Jareño about the FAME plan, which will work globally, inside and outside our borders.

The academy is chaired by the designer Modesto Lomba, president of ACME, and Pepa Bueno, executive director of ACME, who leads its vice-presidency. The board of trustees is completed by Beatriz González-Cristóbal, counselor and expert in the international fashion and luxury industry, and designers Helena Rohner and Juanjo Oliva. Renata Mendaña and Cristina Mesa, lawyers and partners at Garrigues, hold the secretariat and deputy secretariat, respectively. A solid body of collaboration between entrepreneurs, freelancers, companies, administrations and public or private institutions to carry out the change of the productive model in the “complicated” sector, Duyos adds, always at the foot of the canyon to value what is ours.