Custo Barcelona: Out Of The Ordinary
By Michelle Taylor
Photos by Javier Mateo

LOS ANGELES, Mar 31, 2004 – You can always count on Custo Barcelona to brighten up a drab day, their signature colorful designs are known the world over and with their debut in Los Angeles at Mercedes Benz Smashbox fashion week, tinsel town came alive to celebrate these snazzy Spaniards.

‘We are very thankful to Los Angles and to the movie and television people who use our clothes, so coming to LA is a celebration and a chance to show them firsthand our designs,’ Custo told FashionWindows backstage after the show.

After opening three new flagships stores here in sunny LA, Custo Barcelona this year has been nurturing their already tight bond with the United States, since they began to show in New York in 1997 and continue to show their collections there each year.

The US has a positive reputation among designers as being a market open to innovative ideas and as ‘customania’ continues to thrive. Fashion week here in Los Angeles is coming along in leaps and bounds, this year already improving on last year’s efforts.

The fall winter 2004 collection that was shown in NY in February earlier this year stunned a capacity filled room in Culver City, LA. Cheers and applause as Alex Wek and other stunners walked the runway full of electric energy as Custo proved to the palm tree median strip city that already loves them, that fashion is about hard work and that real talent lies in taking a concept and making it into a collection.

Synonymous of eccentric and joyful, Custo did something out of the ordinary for next winter and used an almost black palette. And when asked about the new concept in black, ‘you need to have something that links a collection together and here it is black’ while how they keep coming up with print ideas the answer is simple ‘it is all about hard work!’

Sexy and feminine the Custo woman, as she moves from soft to determined, a sultry silhouette as the torso is elongated and the sensual seventies set in reminding us of the Bond Girls and Studio 54.

Cartoons and cityscapes are favored designs while sexy girls are playfully spread over the male body as Custo finds the right recipe in mixing both sportive and classical elements into male tailoring.

Fun and life loving style for Custo Barcelona as they successfully mark another city off their list, and what a city it is, no less than Los Angeles, the capital of funny money dreams.

Custo Barcelona

Custo Barcelona

Custo Barcelona

Custo Barcelona