38th edition

8- 11 March 2012, Lisbon

Text by Luísa Santos
Photographs by José Pedro Cardeiro

Between the 8^th and the 11^th March, (a great deal of) Lisboners forgot the crisis and presented beauty at Lisbon Fashion Week, Moda Lisboa’s 38th edition, with prospects for the next autumn/winter collection. Under the theme “Freedom”, the designers have presented their creativity in collections that promise a lot of cheerfulness and sensuality.

The second day of Lisbon Fashion Week revealed a host of new trends and the creativity of designers surprised the audience.

Katty Xiomara, Portuguese-Venezuelan designer with a very coherent 16 years long career presented her collection on the second day of Lisbon Fashion Week in an unexpected space: a bank. Despite the lightning, the space itself is interesting because of its oddness and the transformation of a quotidian non-space into a catwalk.  She feasted originality with a very unusual entrance. Starting with what the audience would expect to be the end (models entered and left together on the catwalk, the music stopped and the lights went out) the designer managed to surprise with glamour, sweetness and bits and pieces of magic. After the initial moments, the models returned one by one dressed in the enchanting collection by Katty Xiomara. In addition to basic black and gray, blue, pale pink, nude and purple tones made all the difference in the collection, giving lightness and femininity to the look. The colorful details in the collars, bars, printed and flowered laces, shoulders and wrists gave extra charm to spare. With the exception of glasses painted on the models faces, the makeup was very light, just eyeliner, long lashes, coral lipstick and peach blush.

After Katty Xiomara, we entered another space of Moda Lisboa, a bigger space, which would have been more appropriate for Xiomara. The grand entrance of Dino Alves with projections creating patterns (or should I say creating stories instead?) was only the prelude to his enthusiastic collection.  The beginning was the best part by far: one model stepped a big plinth wearing a white dress. Slowly, birds projected onto it inhabited the dress creating a multiplicity of possible stories. The goal of the designer was to play with shadows and what they can reveal more than hiding. The contrast between stamped or saturated colored parts and the simple and neutral colors was the major point of his collection. Besides the many prints, gigantic pieces mixed with fitted ones, asymmetry and many cuts helped to compose a lengthened silhouette, creating severe and smooth pieces in the collection. Another highlight was the use of color: red, gold, blue gray, gradients and prints. The use of transparent fabric and overlaps as well as the oriental inspiration remain in this collection.

As a non-fashion designer what stroke my attention, above all, was the audience. People dressed up for the event in a very non-Lisbon way, almost as if London had came to (a small part of the) town for a couple of days. Despite my opinion on what is or isn’t coherent with the times we live, I have to say it’s truly fun and inspiring to see how an event can change people – even if a very small amount of people for a short time.