September 12, 2023 |
Real men wear feather headdresses. Or they do at Palomo Spain at least. The Madrid-based brand’s SS24 show – made up of almost entirely male-presenting models – flourished like a whiff of heady perfume. It was sexy, it was femme, it was camp – Rococo even – and it was brimming with Spanish roses; lots and lots of roses.
Laced into almost every look, the romantic flora danced up dressed and skirts with a sort of sentience. Whether embroidered with sequins on garments inspired by vintage lingerie, strung to a black choker necklace, laser printed onto elegant lacy twinsets and corsetry or generously ruched and clustered together to form a flamenco-esc mini dress. Those roses were red-hot, but the blossoms of pink that popped up were sweet enough to be the frosting on a wedding cake.
Inspired by creative director Alejandro Gómez Palomo’s Andalusian heritage, a lot of the jewellery was equally rosy. One model sported not only an enormous, metallic rose necklace that included the stem, thorns and all, but a pair of dainty rose earrings that looked fresh from the local flower market too.
The show, which took place at The Plaza, in Manhattan, was also abound with feathery plumes – most of which arrived in Marie Antoinette style as decadent headdresses under the hotel’s chandeliers. Similarly, tufts of ostrich feathers wrapped around necks and waists as scarves and modern cummerbunds respectively.
Special to the collection was a surprise team-up with Bimba Y Lola which also holds strong roots in Spain. It seems that every food craze nowadays focuses on turning plants into meat, but what about turning ‘meat’ into plants? Bimba Y Lola answered that curious question with its brown leather rose-shaped bag created in collaboration with Gómez Palomo, that twined from wrist to elbow with green leather vines and leaves, and contributed its expert leatherwork to massive motto-trench dresses and jackets.
It was a seductive flamenco dance between Bimba Y Lola and Palomo Spain, rife with passion and gender-bending drama. As the late 16th century queen consort of France once said, let them eat cake!
Photography courtesy of Palomo Spain.
