Spain-born designer Carlota Barrera graduated from London College of Fashion with an MA in menswear design in 2017. She made her debut for Spring Summer ‘19 with her collection titled ‘The Matador and The Fisherman’, presenting her contemporary vision of core menswear. Since establishing, the brand has received awards such as Vogue Fashion Fund Spain in 2019, amongst others.
”As a queer woman, I built the brand to present a modern vision of core garments through a very personal female gaze, inspired by Spanish heritage, queer history and evolving gender identities.”
Drawing deep inspiration from the complex shapes and movement of the male body, Barrera’s queer female gaze allows her to view intellectually and artistically, seeing masculinity and male sexuality - the emotions, the forms, the behaviours, socially what it means to identify as male or female. Tailoring features heavily from season to season, each offering reimagined and subverted from a classic silhouette to create fluid, contemporary designs.
Finding hidden luxury in the un-seen details, Barrera finds herself drawn to the way tailoring understands and complements the body so elegantly. Suit jackets often appear slashed or cut away, mirroring detailing seen on knitwear and under-garments within various collections. The idea of experimenting with what’s covered and what we choose to uncover becomes a core code to the label; starting a dialogue about gender and rigid rules being replaced by evolving identities.
