A Look at 080 Barcelona Fashion 2022

The fourth online 080 Barcelona Fashion Week was billed as a “platform for Barcelona’s creative talent.” Barcelona still claims to be the only city in the world to host its fashion weeks in its most iconic buildings, despite being 100% digital. This season was MACBA’s turn, one of the city’s most outstanding examples of contemporary architecture.

To produce a compelling fashion week online is a massive task especially in the time of COVID. But, The Generalitat de Catalunya’s aim, through the Department of Business and Work, to create “an open, plural, multidisciplinary and international fashion platform that uses the diversity of the participating fashion designers and labels to project Barcelona as a creativity hub.” which “seeks to help promote the fashion culture and its ties to art and architecture….fully committed to innovation, creativity and sustainability.…” is a big mission statement given the great artists this city has produced and its famously exquisite architecture.

An advantage of streamed fashion weeks is that everyone can have a coveted “frow” seat—even sitting at home in yoga pants and slippers, rubbing shoulders with their cat, rather than in designer clothes and Monolos rubbing shoulders with Ms. Wintour. A disadvantage is the huge challenge to designers of recreating online, the buzz and pizzazz—the full experience of IRL fashion shows—which are a big part of fashion’s mystique and excitement. Just as with online shopping we lose the joy of physical shopping—with good reason the French call it faire du lèche-vitrines (licking the windows!)—so too with online shows we lose the emotion and feeling behind a collection.

How can designers convey the rustle and swish of the fabrics? Can computer screens reproduce the colors accurately? Online it can feel cold and soulless. Going digital is certainly a massive creative challenge for the designers, but IRL shows are not without their own challenges. Digital shows could offer possibilities that IRL shows cannot, but to a large extent this depends on budgets. Doesn’t everything?

International designers with the financial backing of the luxury conglomerates can produce Hollywood standard show videos. But even some of the Big Four international fashion weeks are partly returning to IRL shows. 

The Trends

The 22 designers at 080 offered a smorgasbord of contemporary styling from instantly relatable commercial to more niche directional styles. So here’s a look at the trends that emerged at 080BCNFASHION22

Colors

Possibly reflecting the zeitgeist, the spring-summer 2022 and fall-winter 2022-23 palettes were quite subdued, with neutrals and muted, burnt earth tones predominating and just a smattering of icy pastels and acid brights. Block colors reigned supreme, with a few bursts of print and dye techniques and florals replacing the 1970s’ geometric prints of recent seasons. Even Custo, known for its colorful prints, showed fewer than expected, using metallics that hinted at a sneaky peek at Barbarella, instead.

Artelier’s very urban collection was the only one to feature mainly prints. It was an exuberant celebration of clashing prints and dye techniques, although not straying too far from the earth-toned palette.

Other standout prints were Avellaneda’s ikat: a highlight of a very wearable, commercial collection. A huge, highly stylized floral Chinese-inspired print at Is Coming popped in a Scottish inspired collection of tweedy houndstooth checks and Fair Isle based knits.

Style

Contemporary fashion is much less prescriptive than it used to be, so at each fashion week there are so many trends to appreciate from afar, envy or adapt to our own lifestyle, budget and figure. But there are limited ways to clothe the unchanging human form, so how can designers continue to innovate? Well, they continue to dip into other cultures and decades for inspiration. Fashion is cyclical after all, and their creativity brings excitement to each new iteration.

Catalunya’s designers took us through pretty much the entire 20th century, from the 1930s’ and 1940s’ Oxford Bags, 1950s’ Harrington jackets and bowling shirts at The (Real) Garcia, to the 1960s for a glance at Barbarella style bare-all metallics, and Saint Laurent’s safari suits, through the 1970s for a glimpse at tank tops and romantic maxi dresses, visiting the 1980s for paper-bag top trousers and oversized jackets before finally arriving at the 1990s for reimagined cargo pants. If Laver’s Law still held good, we'd be fainting in horror at anything after the 1980s. James Laver obviously didn’t foresee the speeding up of the fashion cycle in the last twenty years of the century. 

The cultural journey took us to monastic purity, Japanese asceticism and origami, Chinese and Indian prints, Scottish knitwear and tweed. Even medieval minstrels and peasants got a look in. There are rich pickings for the creative eye. 

Macro Trends

Balletcore and Crinis

Reveligion paid homage to Gaultier and Westwood with a tulle collection where girly frothiness flirted with deconstruction and nihilism. There was significant nod to Molly Goddard’s now iconic pink confection for Killing Eve’s Villanelle and the current balletcore trend pirouetting along the international catwalks. Eñaut’s nihilism took balletcore to another level making no bones about humankind’s road to nowhere.

Yolancris’ approach to balletcore was punk Black Swan meets Wicked Fairy Godmother. Yolancris’ background in bridal wear is evident in the delicacy and elegance of this collection. It is directional, but still offers occasion pieces for women of all ages and styles with great surface detailing. 

Transparent Overlays and Lace

Women's Trousers

Women’s trousers were mostly wide Oxford bags or paper-bag tops, while more casual styling harked back to the 1990s’ cargo pants. The hemlines finished wherever you want them, but all began at the natural waist. Despite the rise in trouser waistlines, the current erogenous zone is a flat, toned midriff.

Men's Trousers

Men’s formal and smart casual trousers were slim, except for a revisit to 1990s’ cargoes.

Tíscar Espadas’ Capítulo Abierto was reminiscent of medieval minstrels, peasants and strange otherworldly creatures. Not the easiest collection to wear as seen on the runway, but for the fashion forward who dares to be different, the individual pieces offer a chance to stand out from the crowd in style. The collection of cream tan, rust and dark denim also featured a hand drawn print.

Oversized Jackets and Coats

Back to the 1980s with oversized, gender fluid jackets and coats.

Micro Trends

Avellaneda gave more than a passing nod to St Laurent’s 1960’s safari look in women’s and menswear as did The (Real) Garcia in the mens’ utilitarian workwear led collection.

Safari

Orientalism

Standout Pieces

Simorra’s The Meaning of Paper.

Origami as fashion in purest white with lace, pleating and ruching.

KM by Lange, Zemilia

A directional day and outerwear collection in black and white, putty and ecru. Pleated detailing on coats, elegant draping and intelligent deconstruction of menswear tailoring for women with unusual hints of underwear—suspender belts on winter trousers suits was intriguing. The designer aims to achieve sustainability by using organic or deadstock fabrics with limited production runs.

Standout Collections

KM by Lange

Simorra

Yolancris

Reveligion

Antonio Marcial

Eñaut

Diversity

The days of stick thin models should be over by now, but apparently not. Despite the trend towards much healthier, curvy figures, the catwalks were still dominated by adolescent, anorexic, sickly-looking girls. But it was good to see non-binary models and models of color, although there were very few plus size, or older models and not one differently abled. It was wonderful to see guys in dresses and skirts as serious fashion statements at Antonio Marcial. This has to be the way forward.

Sustainability

The fashion industry is one of the most polluting industries on the planet, and it’s subject to greenwashing at every link in its supply chain. The catwalks showed what we’ll be wearing in the months to come, but behind the scenes was a good barometer of the fashion industry in general. The commitment some of the designers expressed to sustainability is encouraging, but given the opacity and complexity of global supply chains, not to mention the added costs of sustainable production, complete sustainability in the industry is not easy to achieve and we have to expect our fashion to become more expensive.

The Consumer’s Role

Consumers can’t sit back and expect the brands, retailers and designers to clean up their acts. We have to play our part. It’s estimated that we own five times more clothes than our grandparents and we wear approximately 20% to  30% of what’s in our wardrobe 80% of the time. According to The Ellen MacArthur Foundation, less than 1% of used clothing is recycled and it is estimated that every year some USD $500 billion in value is lost due to clothing that is barely worn, not donated or recycled, or ends up in landfills. By prolonging the life of an existing garment, we avoid the often highly polluting methods of recycling fabrics, which uses millions of liters of water.

Buy Back Programs

An intriguing way in which consumers and a fashion brand can work together to achieve this was expressed by the designers at Is Coming, who explained their “buy back” concept: customers can sell their garments back to the label within a year and reclaim 25% of the value. The company will send these garments to theatre and cinema wardrobe departments, giving them a second life on the stage or screen.

It would be interesting to see brands presenting collections of reimagined clothes at the next 080. It’s a real test of innovative design for them and for the consumer; to wear a much loved, reimagined garment can evoke such fondness as it rekindles memories—a garment’s “emotional journey” to quote one of Barcelona’s designers.

Using Deadstock

KM by Lange and The Label Edition claim that they use deadstock—fabric originally bought, but unused by other companies. Only limited quantities are available which means smaller production runs, which should then result in less unsold stock and a greater level of exclusivity to the consumer. KM by Lange also claims that its garments are “handcrafted by women for women in Ukraine by carefully selected manufacturers.”

Keeping Production Local

Some designers say that, with premises in Catalunya and Barcelona, they can keep production local. Let’s hope this may be possible for the sake of the planet and local employment.

The Artelier claims to manufacture in Barcelona using mostly ecological and sustainable fabrics, with dyes that conform to the OEKO-TEX standard. Authentication of fabrics is essential because of the greenwashing that goes all the way down the fashion supply chain making it hard for designers to be sure of the claims made by suppliers. Only 0.7% of global production is organic, implying that much of what we are sold as organic, cannot possibly be so. Yet another issue to consider are the human rights records of cotton producing countries. China is the world’s biggest, but the difference between the minimum and living wage in that country is also one of the highest in the world at 46%.

We talk about sustainable fabrics and production methods, but what about the trend towards online shopping? It’s not as environmentally friendly as it may appear. The huge amount of returns generated is often unsaleable and adds to the rag mountain. The carbon footprint involved in deliveries is enormous.

What’s Next?

There are so many hurdles to overcome in creating a sustainable, diverse industry that the future for fashion sounds pretty gloomy but each small change in our behavior can make a big difference. Barcelona can look back on a successful, thought provoking and enjoyable online fashion week that showcased some of the best local designers making beautiful directional and commercial fashion as well as taking steps towards more environmentally friendly production.

But could Barcelona be slightly behind the curve when some of the Big Four international fashion weeks have returned, in part, to the glamor of live shows? Let’s see what the metaverse brings us next.