THE HAPPIEST STYLES ON EARTH

What do you get when you combine joy, the brightest colors, heads and clothes full of flowers and Adriana Lima? It can only mean one thing: Desigual is debuting another collection at Mercedes Benz Fashion Week.

For Spring/Summer 2015, the Barcelona-based line got together with no less than Christian Lacroix, and determined that what the women of the world needed was a giant, colorful bouquet. When you see these looks, you’ll find it hard to argue with that assessment.

I stand behind no one in my deep love for Desigual and its joyous mantra. Work, home, relationships, parenthood, the weather? They are allowed to be stressful. Clothes? They should definitely make us happy. And what’s happier than a gorgeous garden.

And Desigual didn’t just pull inspiration from one garden. Their designers (more than 20 of them) set their sights on Mediterranean, South American, classic English and Iberian flora and fauna, combining soft pastel prints with bold graphics. In the well-managed (again, by super-p.r. maven Deb Hughes and her miraculous staff) insanity, Managing Director Manuel Jadraque told me it’s all about “happy, fun”. “Happy,” he said, “because of the colors, and fun because of the inspiration. We use graphics from Asia and South America, very ethnic graphics. But the queen of the catwalk will be the flowers.”

There were no shrinking violets in this collection, not in the clothes, not in the models who danced them down the runway. The colors were bold, the patterns big, the graphics bright, geometric, kaleidoscopic. The models smiled, skipped and danced. Yes, I said they smiled.

There is a deep, royal blue in these styles that may be the most beautiful blue I’ve ever seen, an azure that, not surprisingly, conjures images of the Mediterranean. But then, Desigual is headquartered in Barcelona, right on the beach, a constant source of inspiration, according to Jadraque, who told me, “we like to be inspired by the sun and the sand and the color of the sea.” Well, who doesn’t?

You only have to stop in any Desigual store to be transported to a far happier place, surrounded by color, wild prints, a whole new outlook. Thanks to Desigual, come January when this collection hits the shops, la vida will most definitely be a lot more chula.

Photography: Anton Brookes