A Eduardo Navarrete He just needed to get a book out. Although he is barely 30 years old and has many plans for the future, the designer has an extensive resume that includes several fashion collections, his participation in talents television, collaborations in different spaces on the small screen and the management of his own communication agency.
The book has just materialized and the designer is in full promotion while attending to countless commitments. In the middle of one of them, at a distance, he spoke with THE SPANISH.
Kind, funny and very close, Eduardo Navarrete has chatted with this newspaper about some topics that he reveals in his text, Cabaret and scandalous dresses. It is not an autobiography, as he clarifies, but it has allowed him to tell his story, from his origins as a transvestite to the present day, when he has become a successful character. It is his story, but it is written by Marita Alonso, and as a complement and giving his point of originality, the man from Alicante adds the patterns of his most iconic dresses.
[Entramos en el cumpleaños de Eduardo Navarrete y revelamos la variopinta lista de invitados VIP]
Cover of ‘Cabaret and scandal dresses’.
How did the idea of writing a book come about in the midst of your multiple projects?
The girls from Editorial Planeta contacted me. They were the ones who proposed the idea of making a book to me and that’s where the challenge of shaping what we were going to do began. It seemed interesting to me, but I was clear that I didn’t want to talk about fashion, nor do I want to write an autobiography as such. And I didn’t want to talk about patterns either. So, in the end, in that first meeting that they came to my office, we already found the key. Through the most iconic dresses I have made, I am telling my life. I have put many things that people don’t know. I go back to my origins in Ibiza, when I started with drag. And besides, we take the steps step by step so that people can have the dresses at home.
It’s not an autobiography, but it’s the first time he’s opened up so much. He tells many things that he had never said before.
I think that It is necessary to tell what I have said so that people can understand my professional life. If you don’t know the economic moment and how I felt at that time, you won’t understand why the Matadero parade was like that. If I don’t tell you that I had no money and that they cut off the electricity in my house… Well, if I later tell you that I had to put tickets on sale to pay for the parade, you will say, and why did I put tickets on sale for Does the parade have money? No, honey. The thing is, he didn’t have any money. So I have had to open up so that people understand everything what has happened professionally.
At the beginning he focuses on his time as a transvestite and at one point says that it was “hostile.” Don’t you think it was a bittersweet stage? She was doing what you liked, but at the same time it was a complicated time.
Of course, if I had had all those setbacks doing something that really hadn’t been a dream, I wouldn’t have continued. So, I didn’t care sleeping on the floorwhat my classmates were againstthe difficulties that my family could have or think… Because I was focus in my goal and in my destiny, which I also achieved.
Did your interest in fashion arise later?
At 16 years old, which is when you leave high school to study high school, no one is clear – or very few people are clear – what they want to study. I was in that limbo that many young people find themselves in, where I was not one hundred percent clear about what my vocation was. When I started working at night and started making my own dresses, I saw that I loved it., which I liked to sew. I had already done things, but I didn’t see it as my profession one hundred percent because I wanted to dedicate myself to something more related to the artisteo. I could have stayed just wanting my artistic career. And not. I did like now. At the same time, I studied because I had to study, because I considered that it was necessary to study.
Eduardo Navarrete at the presentation of his latest collection. September 2023. Gtres
In the end everything has been for the best. Then it came Sewing Masters, MasterChefcollections, fashion shows…
Clear. Me right now I’m lucky to have what I wantedwhich was that life of showbiz, of artist, of multidisciplinary, of featured, to be able to make television, make radio, write a book, make a collection, make audiovisual projects. I don’t want to stop at doing just one thing. I would die.
From a very young age he has fought for what he wants. Does he believe that he has already become that person that he aspired to and wanted to be so much?
What a good question. I think that At 30 years old I have achieved a fulfillment that, unfortunately, very few people achieve at such a young age.. Am I at my peak? Don’t know. That is never known. What I know is that I don’t stop working and continuing to create projects and continue creating ideas so that this doesn’t end.
In the book he also confesses that he had an Eating Disorder – Eating Disorder – and that he bought large quantities of food and then made himself vomit. How did she realize this and how did she overcome it?
It’s something I couldn’t explain to you. I know that I went in and out without realizing itbecause I started doing things that were not recommended and I stopped. I came and went in a very unconscious and innocent way. Youth does not help in this.
Didn’t you seek help?
It wasn’t necessary, thank God.
He also comments that he was a victim of bullying. Do you hold a grudge against those who ever made you feel bad?
No, because I was also a bore. In the end at school it is the law of the strongest. I have told what they have done to me, but I was also terrible. Those who were older picked on me, because I was very big. Well, I was messing with one of my class. School is like that. I He wasn’t any saint either..
Eduardo Navarrete in the streets of Madrid. Gtres
He comes from a conservative family. How did you manage to convince them that you were different from them?
It wasn’t convincing. It was to give him hell and say that it was the only option there was. But to demonstrate, with my studies and pursuing my career in parallel. Demonstrating all the time. Demonstrate is the word. Must demonstrate that it is good, that it is correct, that maybe it is not usual, casual, but it is what you want and there is nothing wrong.
Do you think that all these situations led you to hang out with people older than you and to be, as you repeat in the book, “ahead” of your times? Or is it part of your personality?
It’s in the personality, because that’s what I’ve experienced. In the end you don’t decide to go with girls or boys, at nine, eight, seven years old. You just follow an instinct. When you are little you don’t know what is right and what is wrong. You just follow your instinct of what you like. And then the people around you are in charge of communicating with you, in your opinion, whether it is good or bad. So since I was very little I have always gone with older people. In fact, in the book I say that my preteen outings were going to my friends’ houses, who were already teenagers, and when they went out to the club, my mother would pick me up and I would go home. My way out was to see how my friends got ready. And it was like that for several years, because I wanted to be with them. It didn’t matter to me. What I didn’t want was to be with people my age.. When I was old enough to go out to that nightclub, well, my friends were already 30 years old and I was 16.
Of the new things she tells in the book, she reveals that the dress that Verónica Forqué wore in the Navarrete Supermarkets parade never went on sale. Why did she keep it?
I have it saved next to a sweater cashmere. I have it saved because she, what she did, was a gift. She was no longer well. She then gave me that and she was very conscious. I think I’m the last photo of your post from Instagram. And that’s what he did to me It was a gift that I will never forget.. I have that dress saved as that, as what it is.
What’s coming now? Explain to me the phrase with which you title the last chapter of the book: “A farewell that, in reality, is a beginning.”
Thirty begins. Many things begin. I think we are already at a stage where we don’t have to prove who I am so much., but keep working. There is no need to take false steps. Many projects are coming, some television. A very good time is coming, luckily. We are in a moment of splendor. And soon I will release a collection. I’m thinking of doing something very guay I don’t want to advance. The level of demand is so high that what I do now has to be the best, it has to be very well done. It’s no longer worth doing anything. So I can’t be on television, in my agency, releasing books, reciting… Now I’m going to tour the country from end to end, presenting the book. If I present a collection it has to be well done and I am going to take the time I need, because now I am at the moment of doing things the way I want.
Eduardo Navarrete and Verónica Forqué at the presentation of ‘Supermercados Navarrete’. Gtres
Would you say you have a little more filters now?
Filters? I have never had filters nor will I have them.
He seems more cautious when talking about his things.
Nothing, let’s leave it like this, for next year I’m going to do something.
Among their next plans is the Torrevieja Weekend, which has already become a tradition.
Yes, it is the third year, and there is Torrevieja Weekend for a while. It is a parade that we do to give visibility to local commerce. That trade that, due to the arrival of the shopping center, is affected.
Personally, any plans? Would you like to have a relationship, perhaps?
Nothing nothing. I don’t have time to think about anything other than my job. I don’t want to have any kind of relationshipbeyond having a great time with wonderful people.
