LA MODA EN MOVIMIENTO: I'LL TELL YOU ABOUT MEET FASHION FOCUS

Today I'm telling you about a fashion conference I attended here in Spain, which some of you may have seen featured on my Instagram stories. On February 27th, I had the opportunity to attend the "Meet Fashion Focus" conference in Murcia (a region in southern Spain, for those who don't know), which focused on "La moda en movimiento:valor invisible y nuevos lenguajes." The meeting brought together emerging talents in the industry, students, and professionals, and included plenty of opportunities for art and networking.

But before I tell you all about the event, let me explain what Meet Fashion Region de Murcia is. It's an innovative initiative aimed at growing the fashion industry in the Region of Murcia. Its goal is to raise awareness of industry issues and, above all, to find, support, and develop new regional talent through a calendar of events. It's aimed not only at designers, but also photographers, marketing experts, models, and artisans. Another goal is to create a strong networking network , promoting the idea that talent shouldn't just look to Madrid or Barcelona to succeed.

Meet Fashion Murcia was launched by the Ministry of Tourism, Culture, Youth and Sports in 2023, and recently joined by the support of the Association of Fashion Designers of Spain ( ACME ).

Now, I can tell you a little about what I had the pleasure of witnessing:

Not that I understand or speak Spanish well enough yet, so as you can imagine, I caught a few things but not everything, but fortunately the event was also rich in artistic interventions, vision and entertainment.

The primary goal of this first 2026 event was to create a dialogue that would inspire emerging creatives and renew the vision of professionals.

The event began with a speech by Luis Sala , a very young fashion analyst at just 23, practically much younger than me. After a long study program, he has written three books on the industry, the first of which was "Vestir es sonar," and has collaborated with several Spanish magazines. I found his speech very interesting, and I was particularly struck by the phrase "If fashion doesn't exist, it's no longer fashion."

With this succinct phrase, she urged us not to view fashion as a frivolous phenomenon consisting solely of beautiful objects to buy, but as a vehicle for personal, cultural, and emotional narratives that are part of the narrative and symbolic fabric of today's society. An interesting example of someone who has made it, and an inspiration for us young people who aspire to this industry.

Subsequently, we attended the speech by Paul Garcia, creative director of OTEYZA , a famous Spanish menswear brand founded in 2011 in Madrid and which in the past made itself known by participating in the 2019 "Who's on Next" organized by Vogue Italia, has exhibited several times at Pitti in Florence and after a few years was selected by the Féderation de la Haute Couture in Paris, where he showed for 10 seasons.

OTEYZA now also deals with womenswear and has returned to the fashion show calendar of the Mercedes-Benz Fashion Week in Madrid (which will be held from 17 to 23 March 2026).

The brand, characterized by a style that starts from classic 19th-century Spanish styles revisited in a contemporary but not conceptual key, favors textile experimentation and the richness of Merino wool, a type of animal that in past centuries lived first in Spain, before spreading elsewhere.

The end of Paul Garcia's speech was accompanied by a wonderful dance performance by Carlos Romero, 'Oteyza - LíneaX Materia' , which integrated Oteyza's artistic direction, costume design, musical composition and audiovisual production (I saved some tracks on Spotify).

Finally, we attended a talk by creative director Isabelita Virtual , who explained how all her art was inspired by the buttons her mother used to make and how the smallest details can create great narratives.

Isabelita Virtual started from a simple Instagram profile in 2011, experimenting with images. A few years later, she was contacted by Sozzani to collaborate with Vogue Italia, and then went on to work on advertising campaigns for brands such as Hermés, Versace, Tiffany, but also Apple, and recently she established an important collaboration with NASA.

His art is characterized by a great aesthetic sense and a delicacy that shines through emotional photography full of beauty, details, shapes and dreamlike worlds.

That I was enchanted is an understatement.

The conference ended with a long dialogue between the three personalities and Beatriz Salazar , curator of the event.

Here in Spain, there are small but significant organizations that still plan and invest in emerging talent and celebrate the region. Above all, they also aim to raise awareness of issues related to art, culture, and fashion. We are regular spectators and daily consumers, but we don't think about them concretely as an essential, ever-changing part of the society we live in, as well as of ourselves. Fashion isn't just fashion; it's much more.