The presenter has dressed a piece by the late designer from the spring / summer 1991 collection, as well as a winged cape by Buj Studio and a helmet and shoes by Manuel Albarrán.
Like every year since 2014 , Cristina Pedroche has been begging. The presenter, star of television, networks, whatsapp and comments in the streets of half of Spain in the last days of the year, has waited a minute until the bells of Puerta del Sol to discover what the design that she has decided to wear to say goodbye to 2021 and premiere in 2022. This time, her eighth date in the New Year’s Eve broadcast, the Madrid woman has innovated again. He has done it year after year, managing to surprise, in one way or another, the public. But this novelty is that she has not chosen a new dress, made to measure or designed specifically for her. The chosen piece already existed and is more than 30 years old. It is a dress of the disappeared Manuel Piña. A garment that was in his museum and that the presenter and her stylist, José Fernández Pacheco, Josie , have recovered for the occasion. “It is the first time that we bet on a design that was already made and I am very excited that it is by Manuel Piña because he deserves it more than anyone else. It is a very current dress, a totally 2022 look , although it was made 30 years ago ”, says Josie, in an interview with S Moda .
The design chosen by Josie and Pedroche is one of the last ones made by Piña (Manzanares, Ciudad Real, 1944-1994) and which he presented at the previously called Cibeles catwalk in September 1990, for the spring / summer season of 1991; In other words, it went on sale more than three decades before Pedroche put it on him. The piece, transparent, is “made of iridescent openwork taffeta, with metallic finishes and two hoops that provide geometric volume like a beetle’s shell, which was the logo of its disappeared brand,” according to the Manuel Piña museum in a statement. Tonight at the end of the year the garment has come to life. In addition, it is “inspired by the metamorphosis of insects and reptiles, but above all in their rebirth after abandoning their old skin.”
The dress belongs to the museum dedicated to the designer in his hometown. The center is located in a manor house with 4,000 pieces – 300 of them clothing – and is nurtured by the designer’s legacy and donations, both from friends and clients and family, especially from his mother and brother. Manzanares has been the origin of everything because Josie was also born in this town. “Josie is an exceptional man from Apple, he is a man who loves his land and his people, and is very proud of the city where he was born”, Julián Nieva Delgado, mayor of the town, explains to EL PAÍS, adding: “ This collaboration is the product of Josie’s closeness and generosity with her city, knowing the strength and possibilities that the Manuel Piña museum has. Therefore, Josie is the architect of this project and I, as mayor, am very grateful to her for giving visibility,
Piña was one of the great creators of Spanish fashion of the eighties and nineties. Born in Manzanares, in his youth he decided to move to Madrid and start a career in fashion (first as a clerk in shopping centers or selling samples) that as a designer was very successful, both in the applause of the critics and the public and in sales. His use of color and, above all, point, was considered masterful. He got to have stores in Madrid and New York and to present his collections in France, Italy, Germany and the United Kingdom. With great sensitivity and a fine pen , he knew how to combine the commercial with the artistic: he was able to dedicate a collection to Camarón de la Isla, but also to create uniforms for Post Office employees. In the spring of 1994 he retired and died six months later in his village, in October 1994, at the age of 50, a victim of AIDS. In 2013, the Madrid Costume Museum dedicated a retrospective to him. The mayor is convinced that “Manuel Piña would have loved to participate in something like this, he would have given the best of himself with the pride that one of his garments reached the general public, and not only at the national level. In addition, Cristina represents that strong and powerful woman who makes a garment that she liked so much as her own ”.
Piña’s design has been complemented by those of two other Spanish creators. First, and clearly visible, the presenter’s winged cape, created by Buj Studio, a firm led by Raquel Buj, who has been working in the sector for more than five years after taking the leap from architecture and with three other women – Daniela Camacho, Andrea Rehbein and Paloma Martínez— have spent four months making the piece. “It requires a lot of manual work, there are different techniques: 3D printing, which has taken between 250 and 300 hours; laser cutting, which takes more than 30 hours; techniques for joining and transforming volumes with heat, more than 100 hours … ”, Buj lists, who believes that this occasion can help him and give him a name in the market. “It is my first action with such visibility and I do not know very well what is going to come. I’m excited, I liked it a lot ”, he assures, highlighting the great professionalism of Pedroche and Josie. “They are very intelligent people, I found it very interesting to let myself be led by their hand, to trust,” he says.
Another of the most remarkable pieces of Pedroche’s look has been his helmet, created —as well as his shoes— by Manuel Albarrán, an expert metal craftsman. He, who almost always works outside of Spain, especially in the United States, has felt honored by this assignment at home. ”I collaborated once with Josie for Masters of Sewing with an armor, ”he explains, assuring that one of the questions that made him most excited when he contacted him again was to know that the dress that Pedroche would wear was going to be Manuel Piña’s. “When I was studying fashion, Manuel Piña was our idol, it was just the moment when he was at his peak. I remember that dress, from when I was studying fashion in Barcelona, ”recalls Albarrán. That is why this project has been “a mega pleasure” for him. He began by testing pieces from his personal collection on Pedroche and ended up making a brass helmet, with a flat metal plate, made in India for more than 10 days with the martelet technique , with a hammer.
After the media exposure represented by the bells, the dress will return to the museum and, this time, it will be on display, along with Buj’s cape and the helmet and shoes created by Albarrán. “We believe that, with the chimes, some will rediscover and others will discover the great designer who was Manuel Piña,” says the mayor, who is grateful for the tribute work of the stylist and the presenter, but not only to Piña, but “to the values that he contributed to Spanish fashion: the craftsmanship of textile work, the union of fashion and art, the made in Spainfor which he always advocated, the promotion of young talents in the world of fashion… ”. From the locality they believe that this represents “a great boost for the museum”, but also for what they consider their mission: “To make known one of the great designers of Spanish fashion and preserve his legacy to the city of Manzanares.
