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FASHION

Top Spanish designers Victorio and Lucchino get own museum

Top Spanish fashion designers Victorio and Lucchino, who have dressed singers and aristocrats, on Thursday inaugurated a museum dedicated to their works in their southern home region of Andalusia.

FASHION-SPAIN-MUSEUM
Spanish designers Jose Victor Rodriguez (L) and Jose Luis Medina, also known as "Victorio" and "Lucchino" pose for pictures during the inauguration of their museum at the Covento de Santa Clara in Palma del Rio, near Cordoba ,on June 23, 2022. - Spanish designers Victorio and Lucchino met due to a common interest in fashion. They then fell in love, succeeded, went bankrupt, recovered and they now look back over more than 40 years of career, thanks to a museum that brings together dresses, fabrics, collection prototypes, accessories, footwear and jewelry. (Photo by CRISTINA QUICLER / AFP)

The museum housed in a centuries-old former convent in the southern city of Palma del Río displays a retrospective of their creations, which are characterised by bright colours and the use of lace and ruffles.

It includes fabrics, dress prototypes, shows, accesseries and jewellery from a career spanning nearly five decades.

“It is a nice finishing touch to our professional careers, a satisfaction, to leave a vestige of our work to future generations,” Jose Luis Medina del Corral, 68, who goes by the alias Lucchino, told AFP before the museum’s opening.

Lucchino and Jose Victor Rodriguez Caro, 72, who goes by the alias Victorio, met as teenagers in the 1960s and soon became a couple, united by their passion for fashion.

They joined forces in 1975 to create the Victorio y Lucchino brand, and burst onto the international scene a decade later by taking part in the New York International Fair.

Their creations have since appeared on catwalks in Japan, Germany, Italy and the United States, worn by top models such as Claudia Schiffer and Elle McPherson.

The duo’s customers have included one of Spain’s most famous singers, Rocio Jurado who died in 2016, and Spain’s late Duchess of Alba, one of Europe’s wealthiest aristocrats.

Spanish designers Jose Victor Rodriguez (L) and Jose Luis Medina, also known as “Victorio” and “Lucchino” pose for pictures during the inauguration of their museum at the Covento de Santa Clara in Palma del Rio, near Córdoba. (Photo by CRISTINA QUICLER / AFP)

She wore a salmon-coloured dress with a moss-green sash by Andalusian designers at her 2011 wedding to a civil servant at her palace in Seville.

The designers say they have long drawn inspiration from the culture of Andalusia, Spain’s centre for flamenco and bullfighting.

“Every creator lives from the land where he lives,” said Victorio who was born in Palma del Rio.

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MADRID

Madrid to use flamenco to draw tourists in from the heat

Madrid city hall said Wednesday it will offer free flamenco shows at air conditioned museums during the hottest hours of the day to encourage tourists to seek shelter from the heat.

Madrid to use flamenco to draw tourists in from the heat

Spain endured its second-hottest year on record in 2023 and temperatures in Madrid regularly top 40 degrees Celsius (104 Fahrenheit) during the summer months, when tourists from around the world flock to the city. Over 1.6 million tourists visited the Spanish capital last July and August.

While temperatures in the morning are bearable, even Madrid’s central Retiro Park “is hot at 3:00 pm. The best places to take refuge are air-conditioned, and that means museums, cinemas and libraries,” said Madrid’s city councillor for culture and tourism, Marta Rivera de la Cruz.

READ ALSO: How Madrid plans to combat heatwaves this summer

To draw tourist indoors, Madrid’s three main museums – the Prado, the Reina Sofia and the Thyssen – as well as the Royal Collections Gallery next to the royal palace will offer free flamenco shows every day from 3:00 pm until 5:00 pm during July and August, she added.

The shows will features internationally renowned performers such as Yolanda Osuna and Eduardo Guerrero.

Public libraries will also offer humorous monologue shows and concerts in the early afternoon, while cinemas will offer reduced rates for screenings before 5:00 pm.

READ ALSO: Spain’s flamenco dress, an Andalusian classic evolving with fashion

The measure “will not involve any additional energy expenditure” since these venues were already air-conditioned, said Rivera de la Cruz.

Spain experienced seven heatwaves last year. since 1975, heatwaves have lengthened by three days per decade…and increased in temperature by 2.7C per decade, according to Spain’s AEMET weather agency.

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