Although Italy has always been the birthplace of the great names in tailoring, from Caraceni and Cifonelli to Armani, Ferragamo and Brioni, there is no doubt that the quintessential mecca of tailoring is London’s Savile Row. It was precisely on that golden mile of men’s fashion that a very young Madeleine Vionnet used to walk in the afternoons when she left working as director of the dressmaker Kate Relly’s workshop.
Vionnet, along with Coco Chanel and Jeanne Lanvin, revolutionized the female wardrobe of the first half of the 20th century by creating directly on mannequins and avoiding corsets and other social impositions about how a woman should dress. “The dress should be a second skin, ready to smile when the wearer smiles,” he said. Proportion, balance and movement. With these premises, he created his sewing house when he returned to Paris and began to design dresses and even blazers and pants. for women popularizing the bias cut, diagonally, to achieve comfort and fluidity to the garment.
The millimeter mastery of the pattern, the will to innovate without ever ceasing to pay the utmost attention to detail, from the fabric to the buttons or the lining, and the search for a timeless character in each creation characterize several Spanish brands that, by versioning the classics and inspired like her by geometry and proportion, show today that the suit is synonymous with versatility and an ally for female empowerment.
Cus
Bet on circular fashion
Cus bets on the suit with a new structure
Adriana Zalacaín created the Cus firm eight years ago, seeking to offer women a range of proposals with which they can feel themselves at all times, taking into account that we all have several worlds within us and that, to reflect our personality, we need different options when dressing. Between the essentials with which the brand always has, we find the suits, from the most oversize, which is fused in denim and which boasts the best of the aesthetics of the seventies, with corduroy and wide leg pants as emblems. “How we dress in the background is a code with which we transmit information. Just as we enjoy wearing different clothes, we use clothes to say a lot about who we are and what we long for, ”explains Zalacaín.
Cus also stands out for being one of the main Spanish brands that are committed to the circular economy. “There are those who use natural fabrics for the main parts of a suit but then use polyester or viscose in the linings, products that harm the environment. In our case we use organic cotton or tencel for the lining, even on the sleeves, which offers the same drape as viscose but is 100% sustainable ”, adds the designer.
Designers Society
Retro aesthetic
Designer Society breaks the mold with a series of women’s suits with a short jacket and even a bullfighter, with eighties-style shoulder pads
If a few years ago the suit has even crept into the spring wardrobes of twentysomethings, thanks in large part to the rise of pastel colors, the options in cold wool and tweed motifs still seemed to many young women too formal. Designers Society creatives have decided to break the mold with a series of women’s suits with a short jacket and even a bullfighter, with eighties-style shoulder pads. Garments that, in turn, we can wear separately, even with shorts with stockings underneath, a trend that these days is conquering fashion capitals as diverse as Paris and New York.
In these suit proposals, the high waist of the pants also stands out, with a marked retro aesthetic. The high waist also creates a longer leg effect and highlights the feminine silhouette.
Maria of the Order
Set of three pieces
Three pieces in key French pattern in Prince of Wales, a two-color woolen tweed in the form of pictures of Maria de la Orden
Jacket, pants and vest. The three-piece, popularized in England by King Charles II in 1666 to boost the trade in native wool and force nobles to abandon French fashion, has always been synonymous with sublime elegance, especially when French King Louis XIV he counterattacked by ordering his vassals to wear a fitted vest and not that knee-length garment that the British wore. It is precisely for this reason that we currently use the term Trois Pièces frequently to refer to this type of suit. The designer Maria de la Orden, partner of the influencer and businesswoman Blanca Miró in the popular firm for young people La veste, is passionate about France and its flagship designers, Yves Saint Laurent among them, who empowered women by wearing a tuxedo.
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Maria de la Orden proposes us this season three pieces in a French pattern key but in a British fabric, the Prince of Wales, a two-color woolen tweed in the form of squares. “For our firm, the cut of the garments and what fabrics we use are crucial. All these details make the difference between some suits and others ”, remarks Maria de la Orden.
If at the time the three-piece Cary Grant was popularized in Death on the Heels and Sean Connery and Daniel Craig in the James Bond films, this fall it is taken over by women, such as Nicole Kidman and Katie Holmes. Strong women, whose pulse does not tremble and who follow in the wake of Marlene Dietrich, another great fan of this costume that Maria de la Orden offers in refined architecture and vintage aura details.
eats
Avant-garde style
Yerse seeks lightness in shape and fabrics
Knowing how to make a suit looking for an avant-garde lightness effect without the result being too unstructured is not an easy task. The joining seams between shoulder and sleeve must be impeccable and the fabrics must be subtle, but of quality to avoid the annoying appearance of wrinkles.
Yerse, a firm that opened its doors for the first time in 1964 in Barcelona, offers boho chic outfits, comfortable and with genuine versatility. “Today the suit is no longer perceived as a purely formal clothing. The strict rules of the fashion of yesteryear have been broken, which allows us to give a more casual use to the suit by mixing it with t-shirts or sports. At Yerse we believe in this versatility ”, they explain from the brand. Thus, their proposals always look for fabrics of natural origin that avoid rigidity, such as wool and viscose blends.
Llamazares and Delgado
Contemporary kimono
Black suit with kimono sleeves in silk mikado and vintage horn buttons
The tandem formed by Fabricio Pérez and Jaime Martínez is characterized by their ability to absorb all international influence and add it to their perennial search (and success) for a perfect coherence between body and suit, always innovating in fabrics and shapes.
His knowledge of pattern making is manifested in feminine suits that stand out for an impeccable silhouette that is fresh and risky at the same time. “The cut necessary to create volumes and know how to adapt the garments to the body, applying traditional tailoring techniques, is what makes the difference when it comes to wearing a good suit. The use of interlinings, shoulder straps and piping to create the volumes on the shoulders and lapels is essential in the assembly and production process of the different pieces, as well as good quality finishes and trimmings, both in the lining and in the type of stitching or stitching ”, explains Fabricio Pérez.
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Among his proposals for this fall we find this suit that fuses functionality with exquisite elegance. A black suit in which the tailored sleeve has been reinterpreted with that of the traditional kimono in silk mikado and vintage horn buttons. “The lining is wild silk in pistachio green for contrast and modernity. The wide-boot, high-waisted trousers with two pleats are of marked masculine inspiration from the 1930s. It is a proposal where inspiration, traditional techniques and contemporary design are mixed ”, concludes Jaime Martínez.
Ferragamo women’s and men’s suits
On the catwalk
The sleeve cut, the width of the lapels or how to sew the buttons well so that the vest or the jacket work flawlessly whether we are standing or sitting are concepts that the Spanish tailoring, with Cristóbal Balenciaga at the head, knew how to incorporate from the great English, French and Italian couturiers. This season the suit is also one of the favorite outfits of international brands such as Ferragamo, which offers it for women with a double-breasted jacket and ankle-length trousers. Loraine incorporates the athletic trend in suits with sports lines, while Sandro surrenders to classicism in his proposals for women, with ‘oversize’ touches thanks to a preponderant use of shoulder pads. Finally, the ‘it girl’ Alexa Chung has just launched her London collection, with garments such as the three-piece. Of course, with the structure imposed by the sun king. Proposals that, like those of Spanish firms, follow in the footsteps of Madeleine Vionnet, who studied the body of women in the manner of Medicine to thereby force herself to create dresses that fit the silhouette and not the other way around: “I have I always tried to be the doctor on the line, and, as a doctor, I would have liked to impose respect for their body on my clients ”. One more season, the suit surrenders to feminine forms.
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