The month of June is an essential time for fashion lovers in Barcelona. The city is immersed these days in the celebration of the Barcelona Design Week, an event that fills the Catalan capital for twenty days with exhibitions, installations, debates, and conferences, among many other activities. The 2022 edition also coincides with the European Year of Youth, established by the European Union, with the aim of incorporating young people into the main political, social, and economic debates that will determine their future.
An ideal framework in which IED Barcelona has decided to commemorate its twentieth anniversary with a fashion show at the Fundació Joan Miró in Barcelona. The event, titled Fashioners of the World, presented a total of 25 fashion collections, designed by recently graduated students from the Bachelor's Degree in Higher Artistic Education in Fashion Design and the BA (Hons) Fashion Design. About 400 attendees enjoyed the students' proposals while models walked the runway among the works of the Catalan artist.
The outgoing class has been marked by developing part of their academic training under the restrictions caused by the arrival of the coronavirus. Circumstances that, despite everything, have not prevented the students from showcasing all their talent on the runway.
Pilar Pasamontes, organizer of the event and scientific director of Fashion at IED Barcelona, highlighted the effort and work of the students after the interruption of their training. "They have been deprived of knowing the meaning of fashion. Fashion is seeing, observing, touching different fabrics. Fashion is in-person," the teacher assured.
Six months have been dedicated by the twenty-five final-year students to thinking, organizing, and creating the four pieces that make up each collection. The fashion show also featured the presentation of the Franca Sozzani Award for Best Fashion Collection, chosen by an international jury composed of Marta Coca, director of 080 Barcelona Fashion; Huma Humayun, editor of Schön Magazine; Modesto Lomba, president of the Association of Fashion Designers of Spain; and fashion designer Ronald van der Kemp.
Elisa Serrano has won the award for her collection Crisálida, an intimate proposal that reflects the student's personal and creative evolution, establishing a comparison with the metamorphosis of butterflies. For this, she uses a palette of vibrant colors, a mix of fabrics such as taffeta, velvet or silk, and prints with illustrations of her own creation.
Likewise, the Awards for Best Fashion Film, chosen by film director Isabel Coixet, and for Best Photography, presented by photographer Manuel Outumuro, have also been awarded. As a novelty, this year the award for Best Fashion Illustration, granted by Jordi Labanda, has been added.
With this parade, the IED adds 17 editions of an event that has just returned to the in-person format. Since its arrival in Barcelona two decades ago, the institution has fulfilled its desire to guide future generations of designers from a critical, committed and humanist perspective, and to establish a close relationship with Catalan society and the city's business fabric.
Part of the school's success formula, according to Pilar Pasamontes, is the freedom they give students to experiment in their creations and find their own style, so that someone different always feels represented by their proposals, given that "not everyone dresses or would like to dress like a Kardashian".