080 Barcelona Fashion Week SS23: a round-up

On Friday night, the 30th edition of 080 Barcelona Fashion Week came to an end after four days during which 23 national brands presented their latest collections.

After the two years of online editions due to the pandemic, the event returned to its pre-covid format with physical catwalk presentations at the beautiful Recinte Modernista de Sant Pau in the centre of Barcelona. This edition of 080 Barcelona Fashion Week was characterised by technological innovation, circular and timeless fashion for all body types, slow fashion, local production and, of course, international designs with the ‘made in Spain’ label.

080 Barcelona fashion SS23 featured everything from red carpet looks to streetwear proposals designed to turn the street into an everyday catwalk, along with swimwear presentations. The most recent edition made a point of putting the environment first and captured national and international attention by presenting not only a selection of national talent, but also immersing its audience in the digital world with designer LR3 Louis Rubi, who presented his new collection in the form of an experiential journey that fused technology, art and fashion.

"The return to a physical catwalk event was very stressful due to the live show aspect, but seeing the designs on the catwalk surely compensated for all of this".

The line-up of this edition included established national brands: All That She Loves, Avellaneda, Custo Barcelona, Eiko ai, Eñaut, Escorpion, Guillermina Baeza, Lebor Gabala, Lola Casademunt by Maite, LR3 Louis Rubi, Martín Across, Menchen Tomas, Reveligion, Simorra, The label Edition, Tíscar Espadas, Txell Miras and Yolancris in addition to labels that made their debut in Barcelona such as Tíscar Espadas, Amlul, Habey Club, Is Coming, Larhha and the acclaimed Dominnico. The return to the physical format was slightly nerve-wracking for both the established designers and those making their debut, despite the majority of the designers having prior experience with the format.

In the modern city of Barcelona, designers showcased know-how and were able to translate their multidisciplinary interests into unique creations that take their audience to their creative personal universe.

Migual Marín and Natalia Lorca were an example of this. The creatives behind the fashion label Larhha presented at 080 Barcelona Fashion for the first time with their SS23 collection. Established designer Txell Miras, who has previously participated in various editions of the event, created a sense of peace with the contrasting geometrical shapes in her own proposal for the SS23 season.

LR3 experience: a symbiosis between real life and the world created by the designers

As virtual reality continues to claim its place in the fashion world, fashion labels are becoming more interested in presenting completely or partially digital collections. The new collection of Spanish designer LR3 Louis Rubi, is a good example of this. The designs were presented in a multisensory experience composed of three different scenarios that combined technology, art and fashion.

The disruptive fashion brand which was founded three years ago has a clear goal to “encourage change through the fashion industry”.

The tour began in the digital world, which one accessed from an orange room - LR3's signature brand colour - full of monitors that used virtual reality goggles. Once inside this universe imagined by the creatives, the tour began, accompanied by avatars of various kinds who presented the designs while guiding us through the different virtual scenarios of the experience. The virtual scenarios varied from a magical forest to a sea, a futuristic city, a labyrinth of infinite columns or a simple white room that we could visit physically in the second room of the route before going on to enjoy the collection in a physical way in the last room.

The collection was presented as if it were an exhibition, suspended on mannequins ‘floating’ through the space. It played with volumes, proportions and movement, and with contrasting fabrics such as silk, denim, velvet, cotton and guipur. In addition, the designs included prints with floral motifs that intertwined with cross symbols in a red to yellow gradient colour palette.

Ethical and environmentally-friendly fashion

With his SS23 collection 'Under', designer Eñaut aimed to highlight the importance of corals to clean the air we breathe, while another designer, Tíscar Espadas, took a commercial risk with a proposal that was "neither winter nor summer, neither feminine nor masculine", but also handmade in the area, just like Amlul, who proposed a timeless wardrobe consisting of pieces produced in limited quantities.

The brand Is Coming, which participated in Barcelona Fashion week for the first time in an on-site format, showed off its slow fashion business model based on the circular economy. Dominnico, the most talked about name of the second day of the event, also made his debut at this edition. His garments are characterised by meticulous pattern-making, research into new fabrics and materials, sustainable processes and a futuristic vision of fashion.

080 Reborn

In line with these principles of sustainability embodied by various fashion labels, the first second-hand apparel fashion show of 080 Barcelona Fashion was also held in Sant Pau, with the aim of transmitting a clear message in favour of reuse and sustainability, arguably one of the most pressing problems in the industry.

The stylists Fermin+Gilles showed that it is possible to be fashionable without sacrificing planet earth along the way. The outfits that were showcased as part of the 080 Reborn section of 080 Barcelona Fashion Week were created using second-hand garments from collaborating local shops such as Humana, PinkFlamingo, Le Swing and Las Pepitas.

In fact, according to data collected by the Catalan Waste Agency, each person living in Catalonia consumes around 22 kilos of new garments a year, and only 11 percent are recycled correctly.

080 Reborn at 080 Barcelona Fashion is part of the 'Pact for Circular Fashion', an initiative that promotes the transformation of the textile sector into a more sustainable model.

Furthermore, as part of this edition's programme, 080 Barcelona Fashion Week, which since its inception has strived to champion innovations in sustainability, hosted the TexMeeting 2022, a presentation during which new production models and the opportunities of recovering used fibres and the use of bio-based materials were analysed.

A programme that highlights diversity

With its SS23 edition, Barcelona Fashion Week also reached a milestone in terms of body diversity, with models of different sizes, genders, origins and ages in the casting, including the model Lorena Durán, who was awarded the prize for best model during the last edition of Mercedes Benz Fashion Week Madrid and defends body diversity on the catwalk and the importance of feeling good about oneself, and the model Neus Bermejo, who walked the catwalk while pregnant.

As shown by its most recent edition, 080 Barcelona Fashion is establishing itself as an open, plural, multidisciplinary and international fashion platform whose main objective is to promote the culture of fashion and its link with both art and architecture.

This article was originally published on FashionUnited.ES and has been translated and edited into English by Veerle Versteeg.

Editor’s note: This article has been edited after publication.