Emerging label REPARTO, which designers Margil Peña and Ana Viglione insist is growing “little by little,” already boasts a fan base that includes Troye Sivan, Arca, and bb trickz. Their latest offering, showcased at this season’s 080 Barcelona Fashion, is entitled “Reality Show” and explores the challenges of working in the fashion industry and the harsh realities of launching an emerging brand, from countless hours of studio commitment to experiencing creative fatigue.
Each piece reflects different archetypes of reality TV, allowing the wearer to embody the role of a protagonist, antagonist, supporting character, or even fashion victim. To make the collection as sustainable as possible, the brand infuses the reuse or upcycling of second-hand garments, including a cream-tailored coat featuring thousands of pre-owned buttons. After the show, BRICKS founder Tori West caught up with the creative duo backstage to discuss the inspirations behind their latest collection.
Tori West: Congratulations on the show; it was brilliant! It’s my first show since coming to 080 Barcelona Fashion this season, and I could imagine myself wearing every single piece. It’s great. I’d love to hear more about the inspiration behind the collection.
Our brand name is REPARTO – which in English means “cast” like a cast of characters in a movie – so every look we present on the runway is a character. It has its own concept, its own imagery – its world. For this collection, we talk about the concept of a reality show and not just only because of reality TV, but we talk about the reality of having an emerging brand and the struggle that it is to continue growing. So it’s a more mature collection for us, the colours, the colour scheme, everything [is more sensible]. We are proud to present a 24-look collection; it’s our first extensive collection. All the characters come from us. We’ll be drinking some beers with some friends, and then we’ll think, what if we make this a character? What do we talk about? How can we translate this topic that nobody discusses in fashion and make it fashionable?
Our brand name is REPARTO – which in English means “cast” like a cast of characters in a movie – so every look we present on the runway is a character. It has its own concept, its own imagery – its world. For this collection, we talk about the concept of a reality show and not just only because of reality TV, but we talk about the reality of having an emerging brand and the struggle that it is to continue growing.
Do you have a specific character in mind for each look when you’re designing, rather than a consumer?
Sometimes, because we sometimes don’t think about, we think about something that our public wants to, wants to laugh about because humour and irony are the two most important values in our friendship. So we make you, at least make you giggle a little bit. To talk about all these concepts that are really absurd and make it fashion – that’s our main thing. But we don’t think about it too much because we make whatever we want. We just try to explore and make things that we would see in the wrong way, and we think that it will allow more people to feel connected to fashion.
At the end of the show, you brought out everybody from your team. I love that so much, because I feel it literally takes a whole village to make a collection. I’d love to know more about that.
The reason behind that is because we love our team. Our team are our friends. After working with them, they became our friends. So, it’s very, very important, because on every show, the designer is just the one that waves and says, Oh, thank you. But we want to make everybody that works on our, on our on this collection, to celebrate, to be celebrated and to be, you have also the focus. You also have the light, not on us, because we do a great part of the work, but without them, it wouldn’t be that, it wouldn’t be possible. So for us, our team and our community is one of the best. I already talk about humour and irony, but our community is one of our brand’s most important values.
I also love the “fashion victim” slogan T-shirt. What was the inspiration behind that?
The idea behind that was that we talk about all of our friends who work in fashion; most of them, whether photographers, content creators, stylists or whatever their backgrounds are, yeah, and everybody, at least within our close friends, wear very basic clothing, we all always wear black. So it was a joke; we’re all fashion victims because, in a way, we are. We also try not to over-produce ourselves, to always be on trend, and to not always be on this kind of wave, so we were laughing at ourselves. We don’t give that shit.
We also try not to over-produce ourselves, to always be on trend, and to not always be on this kind of wave, so we were laughing at ourselves. We don’t give that shit.
I know it’s going to be like picking between your children, but what are you most proud of from this collection?
As Ana has said in previous interviews, the one that is the most important piece. It is the one that is made out of all the buttons because all of those buttons are from second-hand garments that we like to customise, and we sell them not only because it took months and months to build but because it’s important for us, because it went through a lot of hands. All of our interns worked with it, so it was a really touching item because when I see this look, I see all of these people who had worked really hard to make this happen and it’s really, really special. It took a lot of time to stitch all those buttons on, I think around six months. It was the first garment that we started working on, and it was the final look of the show. I became tired of seeing it every day, but it’s really cool to just see it finished.
Why is showcasing at 080 Barcelona so great for emerging designers, and how has it supported you this season?
We chose to present during 080 Barcelona Fashion, because we wanted to get out of our comfort zone. Ana is from the Basque Country and I’m from Mexico, but we live in Madrid and study there. We have showcased our previous collections in Madrid, so to come here and to test our brand with a new audience is so special. We’re not ready to make an international collection but I think that we always say that our brand is growing, step by step, little by little. So we are really, really excited to be here.
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