Lisbon Fashion Week is almost entirely invitation only. One show on Rua Augusta is not
The 67th edition runs 7 to 11 October, with the shows spread across four venues from the 8th. Carlos Gil's show on Saturday 10 starts inside the MUDE design museum and spills onto Rua Augusta, with a limited number of public seats and registration opening on 5 October.
A fashion week normally offers outsiders one option, which is to watch it on a screen. In October there is an exception, and it happens in the middle of Rua Augusta.
Carlos Gil’s show begins inside the MUDE design museum and pushes out through the doors onto a stretch of the busiest pedestrian street in Lisbon. Saturday 10 October, 3pm. Unlike every other show on the calendar, it has seats for the public: the organisers open mandatory registration on 5 October through an online form, and the number of places is limited. It is a joint move by Lisboa Fashion Week and the museum, under the city council’s push to put design at street level.
Four days, four addresses
The 67th edition is called MODALISBOA PRIORITY and runs from 7 to 11 October. It opens on the Wednesday with the first MODAPORTUGAL International Conference, run by CENIT, at MAAT Central. The runway calendar itself covers the 8th to the 11th across four venues, which is a change worth noticing: for years this was essentially one courtyard.
Pátio da Galé is still the main room, holding Sangue Novo, Workstation Design, Roselyn Silva, Gonçalo Peixoto, Kolovrat, Nuno Baltazar, DuarteHajime, Luís Onofre, Valentim Quaresma, 2B and Dino Alves. Two names are showing at Lisboa Fashion Week for the first time: the Spanish label Adolfo Domínguez, and Helena Vaz Pereira.
The official schedule actually starts on the Thursday, at MUDE, with Béhen and AD HOC, a collaborative textile project by Constança Entrudo and Marie Hazard built between Portugal and France. On 9 October Luís Carvalho shows for the first time at the Palácio Nacional da Ajuda, in the Museu do Tesouro Real. The day after, Portuguese Soul by APICCAPS stages a performance presentation at Havas Village.
Ten new names in one afternoon
Sangue Novo, the young designers’ competition that has been the front door to this place for years, runs on Friday the 9th at 4pm at Pátio da Galé, with ten entrants in the first stage. It is worth an afternoon, because this is where you see who will be on the bigger calendars in three or four years. A fortnight ago a label that came up the same stairs closed Milan Fashion Week.
Miss out on a Rua Augusta seat and you can still watch. Every Pátio da Galé show is livestreamed on ModaLisboa’s own platforms and on RTP’s website, and the MODAPORTUGAL by CENIT/ANIVEC art installation in Praça do Comércio, two minutes away, carries them as well.
There is also a programme beyond the runways. Workstation Design is split across three points in the calendar, with ARNDES, Bárbara Atanásio, Çal Pfungst, Francisca Nabinho and Mestre Studio, plus Ariana Orrico’s debut, showing the work she made during the Burel Factory residency she won through Sangue Novo. If you would rather follow this further north, Portugal Fashion runs its own circuit in Porto.
One practical note, because this is the part people get wrong: registration does not open until 5 October and the seats are limited. Set a reminder.
Photo: DiogoBaptista / Wikimedia Commons (CC0 1.0)
