Organisers claim the 47th Madrid Fashion Week will be the best ever

Pasarela Cibeles, Madrid's most important fashion event, opened on Monday with no further setbacks following the rejection of three British models for not making the minimum weight demanded by regional health authorities.

Designer Ágatha Ruiz de la Prada was chosen to open the 47th Madrid Fashion Week with a collection that did not stray from her trademark style of multicoloured garments, flowery prints and cut-out hearts reminiscent of a naïf painting. For the first time, however, the Madrid designer has combined traditional materials like wool and cotton with others such as plastic.

Jesús del Pozo, another heavyweight of the Spanish fashion scene, presented a completely different collection based on austere lines and the chivalric virtues of femininity as depicted in epic medieval literature, with a spectacular mise-en-scène where models wearing capes and bonnets stepped to the sound of horses' hooves and ringing church bells.

The mood changed again with Duyos, whose collection "Theorems" had women dressed in geometric figures and natural colours with a preference for browns, greens and off-whites. His accessories were especially striking, including the woolen eye-and-ear caps shaped like squares, rectangles and circles.

Next up was the Basque designer Fernando Lemoniez, who at the opening of Cibeles referred to the government's recent initiative to change clothing sizes to better fit women's bodies as an issue relating "not to a problem of anorexia, but to a problem of obesity."

The best of the best

Other designers due to present their wares on Monday were Angel Schlesser, Victorio & Lucchino and Elio Bernhayer, all major names in Spanish fashion. Some other relevant names on the roster were David Delfín, Miriam Ocariz, Ailanto, Amaya Arzuaga and Ana Locking. This last designer's proposals will be analysed with particular interest as her collection represents her first solo effort since she and her partner split up, putting an end to the successful brand Locking Shocking.

In all, 37 fashion designers are participating until Friday in what organisers are touting as "one of the most comprehensive" Madrid fashion weeks ever.

This year, managers of the facilities where Pasarela Cibeles is taking place - the Juan Carlos I convention centre - have sought to create synergies by joining this event with the ARCO contemporary art fair, which is also housed here. That is why for the first time a Brazilian designer, Gloria Coelho, will take part in Cibeles, since Brazil is the guest country at ARCO this year.

Criticised by some as being of little importance compared with its rival shows in Milan or London, Cibeles nevertheless has its supporters - especially among Spanish designers.

"Spain was nothing when it came to fashion," says the two Andalusians who make up Victorio & Lucchino. "It was a desert and in these years since our colleagues and we began our work with Spanish fashion, Spain has played an important role in the international catwalks."

Missing from the show will be Custo Barcelona, one of Spain's biggest fashion names abroad.

February 2008

[Copyright El Pais / SUSANA URRA 2008]