The Catalan guardians of David Delfín's legacy

BarcelonaFashion designer David Delfín (Ronda, 1970 – Madrid, 2017) was also a painter, actor, and dancer. He himself stated that it wasn't that he had chosen to become a fashion designer, but rather that fashion had chosen him. A friend from Málaga remembered him as having boundless creativity: once, Delfín went to pick him up at his house to go out partying, and while he waited for him to shower, he painted an entire wall. "I can't stop creating," he explained. In another photograph, an androgynous David Delfín looks at the camera with painted eyes and a stark black shirt. It was 2000, and he presented one of his first collections at the now-defunct Circuit Barcelona catwalk. This portrait and several other photographs are among the previously unseen materials in the major exhibition on David Delfín that the Antoni de Montpalau Foundation is presenting in the cloister of the Patio Herreriano Museum from Valladolid starting this Thursday.

The exhibition, which is titled David Delfín. In trafficIt is part of the official program of Seminci, the Valladolid film festival, where a documentary about the fashion designer produced by RTVE Play, entitled David Delfín. Show your wound"From the beginning, Delfín was a rare elderly “Within the world of fashion,” says Josep Casamartina, director of the Antoni de Montpalau Foundation and co-curator of the exhibition along with the collection's curator, Ismael Muñoz. “Delfín didn't subscribe to the concept of trends, of what will be made to sell, of what will be popular, but rather developed his own very austere style, mostly black and white, with other colors, but few,” Casamartina explains. Before this exhibition, the Canal de Isabel II Exhibition Hall in Madrid paid tribute to Delfín with a show that was only open for about two months due to the outbreak of the Covid pandemic. After Valladolid, the exhibition is scheduled to travel to other museums throughout Spain.

The exhibition includes nearly two hundred works, among them garments (most notably the signature T-shirts customized with quotes from Joseph Beuys), bags, shoes, and other items resulting from collaborations with various companies. Virtually everything is part of the collection that Ismael Muñoz donated to the foundation. Almost all of the more than thirty collections that Delfín created are represented. "I liked what he was doing from the beginning. I realized that we were born in the same year, that we were from the same generation, and that we had many things in common. I started by buying T-shirts, and later, as a professional and collector, I bought good pieces from the shows and from elsewhere," says Muñoz. "All of his runway shows, every single one, were very, very, very personal. They always conveyed some message related to music and art. It wasn't just a theatrical performance; they had meaning."

Delfín's vision is also distinguished by its very unisex nature. “He made extensive use of menswear and deconstructed it, somewhat in the vein of what Margiela did, rotating and fragmenting the pieces,” says Casamartina. “In the first show at Circuit de Barcelona, all the elements that would appear later were already present, such as the interplay of black and white, white shirts, ties, and textual references,” adds the curator. “In each show, David poured out whatever was happening to him at that moment, whether it was a personal problem, his parents’ separation, his father’s death, or the effects of psychoanalysis,” states Rafael Muñoz, director of the documentary along with César Vallejo and Ángela Gallardo.

David Delfín's first forays into the field date back to the 1999 collection. Untitledwhich included a string of secondhand T-shirts and other military garments in which Delfín collaborated with actor Pepón Nieto as a tribute to his great inspiration, the German artist Joseph Beuys. Then came his two appearances on the Circuit catwalk. In previously unpublished photographs from that time, Delfín's muse and soulmate, Bimba Bosé, can be seen. Together with siblings Gorka, Diego, and Deborah Postigo, they founded the Davidelfin brand, conceived as a platform where fashion, art, and music converged.

In addition to Beuys, Delfín had other artistic influences such as sculptor Louise Bourgeois, painter Santiago Ydánez, and artist Jenny Holzer. And in the performing arts, Delfín collaborated with La Veronal. Nippon Koku; with the National Dance Company, in Carmenand with filmmaker Pedro Almodóvar in I'm So Excited!

A very controversial collection

After Barcelona, ​​Delfín began showing his collection at Cibeles Madrid Fashion Week, where he caused quite a stir. Heart of miraclesThe models wore hoods to evoke Magritte's painting. The lovers and the film by Lars von Trier Dancing in the DarkBut because some models had difficulty walking the runway, the situation spiraled out of control. Moreover, some of the dresses were made with bandages, a material that is the antithesis of beauty, frivolity, and the idea of youth often associated with fashion. "The collection was misinterpreted. Without intending to, that collection gave him a lot of presence," says Casamartina.

Be that as it may, the following year Delfín won the L'Oréal award for best collection. "He is one of the most popular designers because he transcended the fashion world. He reached audiences who don't follow fashion and young people. Furthermore, from the beginning, he was very well supported by people like Alaska and Mario and Bibiana Fernández, and that made him feel very secure. Something that has always struck me is that Delfín is also the person," recalls Muñoz.

A few years later, Delfín presented one of Casamartina's favorite collections, Foreign body (2005), one of the closest to Margiela's style in the way he reinvented garments. And Delfín was even transgressive when he introduced color in the 2011 collection. Katharsis"It's a really fun collection, because the burst of color isn't about putting prints and bright colors everywhere, but rather playing with color swatches in a very original and understated way, like a color chart from a drugstore," says Casamartina. For example, there was an all-white dress with the color swatches arranged in a line down the skirt.

A transgressive documentary, just like its protagonist.

With David Delfín. Show your woundCésar Vallejo, Ángela Gallardo, and Rafael Muñoz wanted to create a documentary that departed from the usual conventions of the format, thanks to access to some 80 hours of previously unseen footage provided by Diego Postigo. "The approach is very different from what we understand as a fashion documentary: there are no models and designers talking, no reminiscing about a designer, and nothing set to the backdrop of countless fashion shows," says Muñoz.

"From the beginning, David was very involved in the art world. When he arrived in Madrid, he started doing cabaret, both at the Moroco club and on TVE, whose archives we found footage of him performing cabaret and drag on La 2 programs," says Muñoz. Later, Delfín came into contact with the fashion world when he started working at a clothing store called Supreme. "What caught our attention and what we enjoyed exploring was the parallel path David followed throughout his life in the world of fashion and the world of art. Two parallel paths that intersected on many occasions and resulted in magnificent exhibitions and collaborations with the gallery owner."

Among other materials in the documentary is the audio of the last interview Delfín gave to the magazine VogueShortly after he underwent surgery for the brain tumor that ultimately took his life. And to prevent the film from being merely an exercise in nostalgia and to connect it to the present, the soundtrack is by Diego Postigo. His eldest daughter with Bimba Bosé, the singer Dora Postigo, performs Beauty in vogue, a song that Bimba Bosé and Postigo wrote as a gift for Delfín.