Carlota Barrera
For the London-based designer Carlota Barrera, her debut runway show at
London Fashion Week is dedicated to her favorite country, Cuba.
“I've been traveling there over the years because my parents have a close relationship to it and the place of their honeymoon,” she explained.
Barrera looked to the streets of Cuba for inspiration for the fabrics and color combinations used in the collection. “I've used yellow and brown, which can sort of feel like an old man, but it can also be really fresh and modern,” she said, disclosing that it's personal to her because she's seen the country from an insider perspective rather than through the eyes of a tourist.
This season she's dropped her signature muted colors for bright ones in blue, white and emerald green that are used in a lot of buildings in Cuba. Simultaneously, she sourced deadstock fabrics from Italy and Spain for the collection with a heavy emphasis on linen — a summer fabric that's commonly worn in Cuba.
The breakout looks from the collection are Barrera's summer interpretation of denim jackets in a trompe l'oeil linen. Other pieces include scanned prints of seaweed and water bottle caps that she collected from the sea. “It's about making something beautiful, but at the same time, saying, this is the ocean now, do we really want this?” she said.
Barrera's bestsellers are her intricate cutout tank tops that play on male sexuality that she's been producing since her MA collection at London College of Fashion in 2018. She's continued to incorporate them into her tailored blazers and tuxedo shirts. “To me, that feels very special and it's just wonderful that I can keep making these in different colors,” she added.