The Miami Fashion Week begins today with the aim of adding more and more world-class designers, such as the Italian firm Roberto Cavalli, which is opening this year, and doing so with the commitment to sustainable fashion by the honorary president of the event, the Spanish actor Antonio Banderas.
Miami will be present until Sunday the parades of the beach collections or “resort” of designers like the Spanish Agatha Ruiz de la Prada and Custo Barcelona, the Venezuelans Ángel Sánchez and Oscar Carvallo, the Mexicans Benito Santos and Pamela de Haro or the Cuban- American René Ruiz.
This Miami fashion event, which was relaunched in 2016, expresses every year the potential of the city, according to Antonio Banderas, who confesses that his special relationship with this city, both personally and professionally, led him to become fully involved in this project.
In the press conference for the presentation of the event, Banderas said that the eyes of the world’s great designers “are already seeing that there is a serious team here and a solid project”, and predicted for the coming year the presence of ” great brands “of international prestige.
And as the start of the great platform that he expects to be Miami, Banderas highlighted the presence this year of Roberto Cavalli, who will present a special collection next Friday during the charity gala that will raise funds for a local children’s hospital and the Foundation Lágrimas y Favores, founded by the same actor.
“The presence of Cavalli opens a door that can take us to very large places,” says Banderas, a road they will continue to cultivate.
The creative director of the event, Lourdes Fernández Velasco, assured Efe to have fulfilled one of its objectives for this year, to have brought a great designer “of the Olympus” as Cavalli, a fact that puts them “on another scale”.
Likewise, the artistic director of Miami Fashion Week, Sergio Salerni, confessed to Efe the importance of having been able to involve for the first time one of the “most prestigious” Italian brands, something that shows the “popularity” of this event and its growth to international level.
“Although there is still a lot of work to be done, to truly become the place for internationally recognized ‘resort’ collections,” said Salerni, who brings to Miami the experience he has accumulated over three decades working with brands such as Versace and Valentino.
For the director of the event, Julio Iranzo, the presence of Cavalli marks “a before and after in what is the fashion in the city”, although he assured Efe that Miami Fashion Week is “more than just fashion”.
Speakers from all over the world will gather at the “Miami Fashion Week Summit”, a series of master classes that will discuss issues of sustainability and ethics in the fashion industry.
Banderas confessed that when he started taking fashion design classes in London “I had no idea” of the damage that this industry produces to the environment.
That’s why he wants Miami Fashion Week to have sustainability as its second main pillar, with collections that include recycled materials.
And although he feels proud of the “exclusivity” of fashion week in Miami, being the first event of its kind that focuses on protecting the environment, he considers that New York, Paris or Milan should follow this example and promote a sustainable model.
This year Miami Fashion Week expands the locations of its fashion shows, and one of these new catwalks will be inaugurated today by Venezuelan designer Oscar Carvallo, at the luxurious Brickell City Center, where he will present his collection “Free my soul”, a clothing ” street “with the symbol of the heart” always present “.
“It arises from the situation that Venezuela is experiencing, with its heart always in hand,” Carvallo told Efe, before what will be his first parade in the city of Florida.
“Miami can become a fashion capital of the United States,” says the designer, who opted for this city with a boutique in the Design District of Miami.
The country invited for this edition of Miami Fashion Week is Colombia, which will bring together the collections of five designers, including Carolina Estefan, Daniela Batlle and Lina Cantillo.
The one that will not be will be the Nicaraguan Shantall Lacayo, who canceled her participation in the meeting after the sit-in that groups of Nicaraguans had prepared for the possible assistance in her show by Daniela Ortega, daughter of the president of Nicaragua and partner and personal friend of the designer .
Lacayo announced on Tuesday his decision not to present his collection “resort” 2019 to the “situation” that Nicaragua is living, plunged into a crisis of violence and repression by the anti-government protests that began in mid-April, and due to “confusions” and “the wave of speculation” generated around his person.
