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The flamenco fashion , that inspires the great designers from around the world, is going through its worst. Closed shops and workshops, customers who cancel or have not yet picked up the orders, investments made and the entire lost season.
At the beginning of the confinement because of the COVID19 they hoped that the fairs that take place in summer or the one in Seville that could be held in September would give them a little oxygen. But none of this will be viable, ruining your expectations .
The associations Mof & Art and Qlamenco have come together to carry out a study that will include all the sectors that make up flamenco fashion and with this, to send a letter to the administrations demanding their needs.
EL MUNDO has had access to this document, which shows that the sector groups around 500 or 600 companies and segments according to the work of each one: custom flamenco fashion designers, flamenco fashion clothing designers in production, retail stores flamenco fashion and crafts, designers of fashion accessories and flamenco crafts, embroidery crafts applied to flamenco fashion, companies of flamenco fashion appliqué and trimmings craftsmen and suppliers of flamenco fashion textiles.
Faced with a non-existent activity, and with zero income, they demand the following measures to prevent the collapse of the sector and the families who live from it:
Aid to credit, subsidizing interest rates and opening a specific ICO line for this sector, in the medium and long term, in addition to a reduction in the social security costs of workers, all with a minimum duration of one year.
They also ask for subsidies and aid without obstacles to access them, as well as regulate the contribution of the part-time freelance and suspension of this quota until the return to normality, which in his case would come with the first flamenco fashion fairs and events.
They also demand a reduction in corporate tax pressure, such as deferral of interest-free tax payments and VAT reduction, as in the cultural industry. And you help 100% in technological advances in view of the changes that will be in consumer buying habits and new business models.
Free specialized training is another of its intentions, as well as the inclusion of flamenco fashion and crafts within the cultural and tourist industry, to also be beneficiaries of the strategic plans that are drawn up for these other two sectors, while requesting the name Flamenco Fashion special as a quality brand.
The president of Mof & Art, Pilar Vera , comments that they are trying to make this study "as accurate as possible, and in it we also want to reflect how many have remained unemployed. The losses are being 90% if they are not 100 % for many. Most have had to do ERTE. They send us to work, but in what? There is no point or interest in having a shop or workshop open when, in eight or nine months, the company will not start moving again. flamenco fashion ".
Pedro González, artistic director of SIMOF and president of Qlamenco, affirms that "the discomfort is very great, but things will have to be done as circumstances arise", although he already thinks, along with Mof & Art, of different promotional actions that they will present "in due course". To start, they have created the hashtag #pontelunares .
On the document that both associations are preparing, he comments that it does not include economic scales because "it costs a lot of money; it should be a ministry, like the Ministry of Culture, who does it, since that is where fashion is integrated."
As a graduate in Art History and a fashion expert, González predicts the change that is coming in fashion, because yes, there will be changes. "What has happened is going to stay in the consciousness of the people, and little by little it will come out to the creatives through their designs. Anthropologically speaking, all trends are the consequence of reactions; it is still early, because people are still very blocked. And when one is mentally blocked, one does not want baroque, but simplicity, "he says.
Yes, flamenco fashion is color and that may be the immediate reaction, but when this takes hold, fashion trends - not just flamenco - will go easy in the long run. " I see a return to absolute minimalism ; a triumph of technological fabrics, reflective fabrics; and the growth and development of technology applied to pedestrian safety. The trends will reflect the uncertainty, detachment and security of the people," he predicts. .
Add a return to "the hygienic, the aseptic, as imaginary of all the History of the places that have to do with the disease. There will be a range of brutal targets, metal, silver ... Because there is an obsession with order and cleanliness, which is what unlocks the mind in a case like this. And a detachment from animal skin. "
And he predicts "the absence of sexy , a return to demure and covered. Simplicity and cleanliness also in cuts and patterns. Rationalism in volumes. Clean will be the trend in the next five or ten years."
The positive will be that "when they say that life goes on, although it will never be the same as before, people will want to consume and spend. And especially in Andalusia, we make a lot of life on the street."
Reinvent yourself
The uncertainty of the sector is their day to day, thinking about what they will do next year. Present the same collection? It would be an option, since "the customers who have bought their suits this year have not been able to wear it, and the suits are almost always valid from one year to the next. But it would be absurd to present the same when everything is already seen on the Internet. Of course I want to sell those suits next year, but perhaps a small collection can be made to complement them, "says Pilar Vera.
The Lina1960 firm also studies their situation. Mila Montero, daughter of the great Lina, says that they were starting the season when everything stopped. In his shop on Calle Lineros various orders are ready, from flamenco, godmothers or parties. Many clients are responding well, but others have stopped and will wait until next year.
"When we reopen we do not know what we are going to do, we are a bit waiting. There are no weddings, there is no Fair, there is no tourism ... Completely unemployed and without invoicing. to be able to buy non-essential items, "he says.
While that moment arrives, they don't waste time. "We have workers and stores to maintain and we are looking for a way to reinvent ourselves. We are studying possible ways to sanitize the store, whether to buy an ozone cleaning machine , whether to put partitions, know how to disinfect fabrics, we already have gels and gloves located. .. But we have to wait to know the conditions that they put us in the shops, because every day they say something new, "he explains.
At the same time, they are looking for a way to sell their flamenco dresses and other lines, thinking of new ideas related to their business that adapt to the new way of selling that they are going to force them to do.
What they do have clear, and they are already working on it, is that "this is going to change the way of thinking and working of everyone. We are thinking of making everything more sustainable, because we are taking over the planet. We must make a sustainable fashion and a good and not very large production, that people reuse and have a good wardrobe that will last a few years. This is not going to be overnight, but we have become very aware of it. the whole world of fashion will be on its way. "
In view of what was happening in China, and a week before the confinement was decreed, in Flamenca Pol Núñez they realized that it was necessary to close, without imagining what was coming upon them. They distributed the work among her dressmakers, the designer took a cutting table to her house and they continued with their work.
Now you find finished orders waiting to be delivered little by little. "At the moment nothing has been canceled, but everything is still hanging there, there are people who will leave it for later," he says.
There are losses "until saying enough, in flamenco fashion, in daily fashion and in everything. I encourage us to consume products from our neighborhood and our cities and made in Spain," he claims. "Also, everything has changed, and this should serve to think about the outrage we are doing with this world."
Meanwhile, because "I don't know how to stand", she has thought about making a different line of clothes, "a bit like being beautiful at home, for the real life that awaits us now."
As for the collection presented for this season, Delia Núñez is considering whether or not to make a new collection next year. "I have all the fabrics, and maybe I would make a different type of outfit but with the same color, because those fabrics are there. Also, it would not be fair for the ladies who have spent the money this year on my flamenco dresses and not They have been able to wear them. A flamenco dress does not go out of style from one year to the next. "
Think about opening day, "removing the curtains from the fitting rooms, I will put a laminated wooden screen, and disinfect; or if people do not want to come to the store, I will have to sell online ."
Masks and gowns
There are many companies in the sector that are helping with masks and gowns, and from the first moment none of them doubted: it was necessary to help. Pilar Vera is making masks, gowns and hats from the beginning. In his town, Umbrete, he has donated products to the Sisters of the Cross and to people who needed it. It started with a batch of 10,000 masks, and then continued thanks to tissue donations, received, among others, from VOX and PP. "We are apolitical, but they have helped and deserve to be said," he says.
The Iturri company has also sent them around 4,000 meters of elastic, among other materials, like other Flemish fashion firms that cannot work in their workshops but have contributed what they had.
With the needs covered in this town, Vera collaborates at the same time with a missionary from Umbrete who is in the jungle of Peru. "He called us asking for help because they had absolutely nothing. We are about thirty women and we are going to send them about 5,000 masks comparable to surgical ones, with non-woven fabric, with an 80 filter, double and washable. And we are also now doing it for children", Explain.
When everything stopped, doctors and nurses from different hospitals called the Lina1960 firm to ask for help. They needed robes, they were lacking in material. They got to work, located a waterproof fabric that could withstand several washes, tested them in a hospital, gave them the ok and began to manufacture more.
Lina has distributed robes in health centers, Osuna and Bormujos hospitals, in the Virgen del Rocío and Virgen Macarena ... "The doctors themselves come to pick them up, because we started sending them ourselves, but we could no longer continue investing. They have helped us a lot people, who have made donations, "says Mila Montero.
At the same time, Flamenca Pol Núñez has already delivered more than 1,000 gowns in hospitals and some 7,000 masks. "What was needed was knowing how to sew and labor, and we had both. Thanks to people who have donated to us, we have been able to move forward," says the designer.
Everything is delivered to the College of Physicians, after a conversation with its vice president, Andrés Rodríguez-Sacristán . "The materials have the approval of the College."
One of the first benefited places was the Dialysis Center of San Juan de Aznalfarache, where material was urgently needed, since, according to Delia Núñez, "the nurses who were treating kidney patients were also treating patients with coronavirus " They are laminated robes of 2.90 per meter; each robe needs almost 2 meters of fabric. "It is a very good material," he says.
Their masks are made with blank fabrics for doctors and health workers, because "what I did not want was to make masks that did not protect. I looked for several people who donated to me to get the cloth; more or less I got about 400 or 500 meters, between TNT and FFP2 ".
And when the need passes in hospitals, "perhaps I will continue making face masks as a business. We have to reinvent ourselves."
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