Despite their different backgrounds and upbringings, Salazar and Lopes shared a sartorial language that had as its lexicon a succession of highly structured silhouettes inspired by a post-modern ironic retro-nostalgia of 1940s fascist imagery. If this discourse was familiar to the Portuguese, it nevertheless remained inscrutably foreign outside the country. However, over the last few years, Portugal’s fashion ingenuity has shown signs that it is capable of engaging very proficiently in a stimulating global conversation. And as many of the Spring/Summer 2014 collections presented during the latest edition of Lisbon Fashion Week attested, the sartorial talent currently coming out of the westernmost country in Europe should not be underestimated.

If the old school that framed Salazar and Lopes in the 1980s and 1990s was still visible in the latest collections by designers such as Luis Buchinho (and, to an extent, Dino Alves), the current Portuguese fashion establishment has shown the emergence of three new very interesting factions. On the one hand (and in tandem with the increase of the country’s relatively affluent middle classes) Portugal has learnt to embrace the commercial modernity celebrated by designers such as Nuno Gama, Miguel Vieira and Ricardo Preto whose labels reflect an awareness of the trends explored by luxury brands such as Tom Ford, Saint Laurent or Marc Jacobs.

A second group comprises experimentalist designers (including Lidija Kolovrat and Valentim Quaresma) who conceive their creations by following a cyclical process of reinterpreting their own tried and tested shapes within a hermetic conceptual realm that suffers from refusing to establish a dialogue with universal styles. But it’s a third group made up of designers born in the 1970s and 1980s whose work reveals a cosmopolitan attitude to creativity that has been drawing the attention of fashion journalists and buyers from across the world.

Amongst contemporary Portuguese fashion designers, there is a cohort of talented creatives that have acquired their skills not only in Portuguese fashion schools but also in prestigious international institutions such as Central Saint Martins and London College of Fashion, and have gone on to exhibit and sell their work in numerous countries including Australia, Brazil, China, France, Germany, Italy, Japan, Russia, South Korea, Spain, UK, and USA. Designers and labels such as Alexandra Moura, Marques ‘ Almeida, Os Burgueses, Ricardo Andrez, Ricardo Dourado and White Tent have confidently assimilated the international glossary of deconstruction and playfulness of textures, shapes and patterns that fuses high fashion with the realm of sportswear and streetwear.

Decades after their predecessors started paving the way to make Portuguese fashion known abroad, this segment of the current generation has managed to produce highly accomplished creations that have garnered considerable interest from international buyers. With their Spring/Summer 2014 collections, they have confirmed that Portugal is quietly becoming a cradle of sartorial creativity to watch out for.

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Located in the town of Arraial d’Ajuda in the south of Bahia, Villa Greda is a stunning seven‐bedroom villa surrounded by tropical vegetation in a 4,000 square-meter plot of land with its own helicopter pad and private access to the nearby beach. Designed by architect Carlos Rodriguez and completed in early 2013, the 1,400 square-meter villa combines traditional regional and modern styles throughout its four buildings, which were decorated by local interior designer Sara Afonso and São Paulo lighting designer Edson Moya.
  The main house includes a ground floor with a large open-plan kitchen and a spacious living room with floor-to-ceiling windows, an outside dining/lounge area with a barbeque/wood-burning pizza oven on one of the verandas and a first floor that hosts a master bedroom suite (with its own bathroom and private terrace) that commands views of the swimming pool, the ocean and the forest. The second building, built along the edge of the property and closer to the sea, comprises three bedrooms with en-suite bathrooms underneath a large sundeck area with extensive views.

On a lower level of the plot and built into the hill, the third building consists of two more bedrooms with en-suite bathrooms, a cinema and a games room. Sitting above this building is an L-shaped 16-meter infinity pool. Leading on from the games room is an additional bedroom that overlooks the forest. A short walk away is the meditation garden, exercise and massage suite and a large sauna area. Hidden behind the main house is the laundry area and the accommodation quarters for staff (a full-time security person, two maids who cook and clean, and a caretaker).

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Founded in 2000 with a line of button-down shirts, 7 Diamonds has expanded over the years to include collections consisting of knits, sweaters, leathers, outerwear, and denim and non-denim trousers. The brand’s long-lasting focus on providing men with stylish and comfortable clothes made from fine fabrics was undoubtedly kept in mind for this season. Even though 7 Diamonds does not push the boundaries of design, most men will certainly find something to like in the label’s latest clothing range.

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39-year-old Williams issued the following statement: “The support of the men’s press and retailers internationally since we started has been incredible and I want to thank them. I have also been fortunate to have had the opportunity to work with the talented Ben Dickens and will miss creating and working with and wish him every luck for the future.”

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“This is the first spatialization of Kris Van Assche’s aesthetic,” says architect Hugo Haas of Ciguë, “so he was understandably apprehensive at the start. Together we defined the key aspects of the design: contrasts, black-and-white palette, angled shapes and so on. In a way, the interior reflects his design sensibility of controlled precision and his destabilization of classic forms. ‘Sharp brutality’ was the term we came up with to describe that sensibility.”

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The public survey included the following 10 contenders nominated by leading academics and fashion experts for their sartorial style and impact on the British fashion history:

1. Anne Messel, 6th Countess of Rosse (1902–92) – nominated by Amy de la Haye, professor of dress history and curatorship at London College of Fashion
2. Queen Alexandra, queen consort of Edward VII (1844–1925) – nominated by Kate Strasdin, assistant curator at Totnes Fashion and Textile Museum, Devon
3. David Bowie (1947– ) – nominated by English designer Wayne Hemingway
4. Henry III (1207–72) – nominated by Dr Benjamin Wild, historian of men’s fashion and guest lecturer at the Condé Nast College of Fashion & Design
5. Georgiana Cavendish, Duchess of Devonshire (1757–1806) – nominated by Katy Werlin, a fashion and textile historian specialising in the early modern period
6. Beau’ Brummell (1778–1840) – nominated by Rachel Dickens, deputy art editor of BBC History Magazine
7. Charles James Fox, Whig politician (1749–1806) – nominated by Dr Hannah Greig, author of The Beau Monde: Fashionable Society in Georgian London (OUP, 2013)
8. Queen Elizabeth I (1533–1603) – nominated by Ulinka Rublack, author of Dressing Up: Cultural Identity in Renaissance Europe (OUP, 2010)
9. Ellen Terry, actress (1847–1928) – nominated by Veronica Isaac, assistant curator in the Department of Theatre and Performance at the V&A, London
10. Samuel Pepys (1633-1703) – nominated by Anna Reynolds, curator of paintings for Royal Collection Trust

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The capsule collection resorts to denim as the fabric of choice and includes pieces such as a grey suede bomber jacket, a five-pocket worker jacket made from stripy grey denim with matching trousers, a navy trench coat with an A-line silhouette, long sleeved T-shirts in pastel colours with contrasting bands around the shoulders, and a reversible baseball jacket in red and white fabric on one side and dark blue on the other.

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Amongst the short list of Portuguese menswear designers, Nuno Gama is undoubtedly the most influential. A graduate of the fashion design course from CITEX in Oporto, Gama founded his eponymous label in 1991 and went on to open nine stores throughout Portugal within the following five years to address the growing demand from devoted followers. Against a relatively uneventful menswear scene in the country in the 1990s, Gama’s colourful and sensual designs mirrored the financial and national optimism experienced by the Portuguese at the time. His reputation was so esteemed that some critics went as far as suggesting that Nuno Gama was to Portugal what Jean Paul Gaultier was to France and Dolce & Gabbana were to Italy.

However, the buoyancy bubble burst in 1998 when a fire ravaged through the Nuno Gama studio, destroying all archives and collections. Faced with this loss, Gama decided to close his stores in Portugal and take time to plan how to rebuild his business, something that he went on to achieve with admirable success. Within the following 15 years, he opened new stores in Lisbon and Oporto and made his designs available in multi-brand shops in Angola, Canada, Hong Kong, Japan, Lebanon, Saudi Arabia, Taiwan and the USA. And, to confirm his unwavering creative determination, on 12 October 2013 and as part of Lisbon Fashion Week, Gama unveiled an ambitious and upbeat menswear collection for Spring/Summer 2014 that confirmed his leading position within the rankings of the Portuguese fashion industry.

Comprising 54 looks and a range of beachwear and accessories, the collection opened with Gama’s vision of the twenty-first century business man (an individual who embraces formalwear and his inner high-school geek while adapting conventional manifestations of taste to create his own style) and closed with a line-up of muscular models wearing skimpy swimming trunks clearly conceived for men who are not afraid to show their bodies. Throughout the runway show, the collection created confident and sensual silhouettes by fusing examples of Gama’s characteristic reinterpretation of Portuguese traditional iconography (namely blue and white tile designs and elements from ancient royal coats of arms) with contemporary tailoring and innovative fabrics in a colour palette anchored by diverse shades of blue (ranging from navy to vivid cobalt) with the occasional accent of ivory, grey, taupe or red.

The intention to deconstruct traditional tailoring and embrace innovative approaches to menswear was clearly influenced by Thom Browne and Marc Jacobs’ recent collections as it became evident in the contrasting fabric panels in suits, in the T-shirts with square neck lines, in the tailored shorts with matching cropped blazers, in the angular shoulder lines of jackets, in the casual and oversized knitwear offering, in the dinner jackets with shawl collars worn as daytime apparel, in the delicately thin bombers, in the biker jackets made from soft leather, in the discreetly cropped trousers that widened almost imperceptibly below the knee and in the alluring coated fabrics with glossy finishes. To complement the collection, and to proudly show that his creative potential and diversity is far from limited, Nuno Gama added a number of accomplished trainers made from printed canvas as well as a very covetable range of white bags with tan leather handles.

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