If Italy wooed and charmed us – and boy did it do that in the eighties and nineties –America drew us west and Germany made us check our feet Spain has played a far more subtle role in all this. Spain is about holidays, sun, pleasure and music. San Miguel and suntans. Ibiza Town and Iberian beats. In later years Madrid and Barcelona, Seville and Cadiz. A beautiful and complicated country and culture. Gorgeous girls and Gothic architecture, bullfighting and Balearic music. Benidorm and Bilbao. I love Spain and its culture. Its people and its politics. I love its style and scenery. La Vuelta and La Liga. What a place.
But it has had little impact on this thing of ours. People have travelled there for fun and fundraising. Buying Lacoste polo shirts and sleeves of cigarettes; to shift on and make a living. Others have moved there to the Costa Del Crime and the white island. To run and hide or to make a few bob. To discover music and chill out, to run clubs, drugs and guns. Some people have done all of that but what has Spain given us back in regards of this little story. Considering that the cities of Spain are steeped in style their clothes industry hasn’t thrown much our way. Camper shoes, Zara for cheap functional decent casualwear and Armand Basi are the trinity that comes to mind. That is other than Adolfo Dominguez.
Apart from being the second Adolf in our tale after Adolf Dassler Senor Dominguez has added some quite beautiful clothes to the genre of smart, elegant casualwear that looks as good in the pub and on the terraces as it does on the Gran Via in Madrid. The brand hasn’t found a way into the inner wardrobes of many people but that is their loss as Adolfo Dominguez produces some sublime clobber. Often derided as Armani-lite by some the label has long surpassed that moniker and is producing garments that make most of the current Armani output look like the mass-produced guff that Primark produces. Using natural fabrics and ace silhouettes while taking the main European cities and its people as his influence Dominguez does clothes that tick the right boxes.
The fact that many ‘don’t get’ Adolfo Dominguez pleases us that do. It keeps it all a bit elite and special: Clothes you won’t find in Oi Polloi and won’t hear discussed on twitter and within internet forums. They are not overpriced and have maintained a unique and loyal following that has been with them since they formed in 1981. Most discovered the shops on trips to Spain; while walking out and about, doing what the Spaniards do, keeping out of the sun, having a coffee or a beer, watching the girls go by and popping in and out of shops. And it is shops with Adolfo Dominguez for he made a decision early on in his career was to avoid distributing his clothes in multi-brand shops and to sell his clothes in his own stand-alone shops. This has helped both to keep the brand unique and build up his own customer base. A Dominguez shop – and he was the first Spanish designer to open his own shop in Madrid – is a simple shop. There are no gimmicks, no overt marketing strategies and no garish adverts: Just simply-presented women’s, men’s and children’s clothes and accessories.
It is safe to say that Adolfo Dominguez is Spain’s equivalent to Paul Smith yet here in Britain he is hardly on the radar and that suits some of us just fine…
From This Thing of Ours out in time for the summer holidays 2014
Loire Magazine 