Fashion’s Next Big Things

Fashion’s Next Big Things

* Cover [manifesto reche]. Photo: Alex Rivera. Hair & Make Up: Manu Fernández for Kiehl’s & Bobbi Brown.

Design is a huge concept that includes areas such as “industrial”, “interior”, “graphic”… And attending to its social repercussion and economic figures, fashion is one of the most profitable. But becoming a fashion designer isn’t easy: rivalry within this field requires upcoming creators to control much more areas of knowledge than decades ago. A 21^st century fashion designer has to be a multidisciplinary creator.

In addition to having a broad theoretical formation, young professionals need to be known. One of the best ways to achieve this, are initiatives like EGO, Madrid Fashion Week’s promotional platform for upcoming designers. Guess when did the last edition take place? Just last week!

Once again since 2006, EGO put a remarkable stand –called Cibelespacio– for young creators and opened Fashion Week’s catwalk for a day. But being at EGO isn’t the final goal; Moisés Nieto knows it. Born in 1984 in Úbeda, Spain, Moisés was 2012’s EGO L’Oréal Prize winner and this year his collection was presented along the big names: Victorio & Lucchino, Hannibal Laguna… a dream come true for this former furniture and graphic designer.

“EGO is what made me known, it’s my second home. Being part of this kind of platforms while beginning is necessary,” says Moisés Nieto. He also values his experience in plastic arts as a complementary knowledge to fashion design, “they are different languages with the same meaning.” But tradition and technology are as complementary as the different disciplines of design and that’s why, for him, experience and knowledge have the same importance as innovation: he admires historic fashion companies’ know-how the same way he loves new materials and textile innovations.

People could think that renowned designers would feel threatened by upcoming creators. “I’ve noticed great acceptance from lots of acclaimed designers like Ana Locking or Juanjo Oliva. They, more than anyone, know how tough this is” assures Moisés in this regard. For him, the best collection shown in this edition of EGO was the proposal of POL –Paula de Andrés– and he speaks great about it… In EGO, young designers help the even younger!

Looking forward to become as successful as Moisés, 20 young brands attended EGO’s Cibelespacio last week. For Nerea Lurgain, a designer who first worked as a fine artist, it’s her 4^th time: “this edition has been weaker than the previous ones (in Madrid the economic crisis is always present) but it’s still a good platform to establish professional contacts”. For Natalia and Sandra Escudero, the faces behind [manifesto reche], EGO is also “really important to get media attention” (We hope this experience had been helpful for them: we loved their architectural inspired sweatshirts!)

Another of the 20 brands present at EGO was elSuso, a company created by Núria and Bernat Gil, fashion and graphic designer respectively. Miguel Bodegas, elSuso’s PR Manager, talked with us about the close relation between graphic design and fashion: “we constantly use graphic design in geometries but also while creating patterns and volumes”. You see? Matching different areas of design again!

So, if you’re a young designer who wants his brand to become the next big thing: be multidisciplinary and try with platforms like EGO!