Who is Inês Barreto, the New Blood of ModaLisboa? | reporting

“Welcome to ModaLisboa Core at Lisboa Social Mitra. If ModaLisboa has a voice, it is that of its designers”, is heard in the microphone in the fashion show room, moments before the inauguration of the catwalk of the 60th edition of the fashion event in the capital. “There is no construction without a future.” And it is for the future that the kick-off takes place, with the final of the Sangue Novo competition. After the collections of the five finalists were presented, Inês Barreto was crowned the winner.

Among the public in the audience, there are mainly young people, many of them fashion students ─ or this is not the time to reward rising talents in the industry. It’s been like this since 1996, when the contest was born. One of the first winners was Miguel Flor, who currently chairs the Sangue Novo jury, side by side with stylist Elisa Nalin; designer Joana Duarte; the ModaLisboa project manager, Joana Jorge; the representative of IED Milano, Olivia Spinelli; the person responsible for the industrialization of Tintex, Pedro Silva; and talent curator Sara Sozzani Maino.

To PÚBLICO, Olivia Spinelli, coordinator and creative director of the Istituto Europeo di Design (IED), a school based in the Italian city of Milan, explains that one of the differentiating elements of the winning proposal is the capacity for “continuity” of a project ─ already that the business component is “essential” to the fashion system.

That was what the jury saw in Inês Barreto, along with the conceptual side. Soon, the 23-year-old will be on her way to Milan for a Master’s Degree in Fashion Design, worth more than 20,000 euros. In addition, she receives a grant of four thousand euros and the possibility of presenting a collection at ModaLisboa’s Workstation, the platform dedicated to creators at the beginning of their path.

Also runner-up, Niuka Oliveira, will present a capsule collection at the fashion event next season, after a three-week artist residency at Tintex. She is also part of the award, in partnership with the textile company, a scholarship of 1500 euros.

“A plastic world”

At the end of the parade ─ where, in addition to the winners, the finalists Çal Pfungst, Darya Fesenko and Molly 98 presented themselves ─ all the spotlights pointed towards Inês Barreto, visibly surprised by the distinction. When she saw her name, she tells the PUBLIC in the aftermath of the parade, she couldn’t believe it. “It was a shock, followed by happiness.”

Her passion for fashion, she recalls, came about through the influence of her grandmother ─ “She loved fashion and bought the magazine Hola to see what the Spanish royal family wore.” Initially, she didn’t think about fashion as a professional path and even studied science in secondary education. “I took drawing classes with the illustrator António Carlos Soares. He was the one who told me about Modatex”, he says.

After the course, which ended in 2021, he applied for Sangue Novo, when he was going through “a period of dissatisfaction” with fashion. “I was feeling lost. The people around me think the work of fashion designers is cool. But then, instead of buying a special piece that they know will last, they prefer to buy ten from Shein ”, she laments, referring to the Chinese brand that sells clothes online.

It was while working on the collection that he brought to the first phase of Sangue Novo that he fell in love with it all over again. “I let go of the drawings and started creating just for the pleasure of creating. It started to flow,” she reports. In October, she made some pieces in latex, a material that she now develops in Let Us Eat Cakeas the winning collection is titled.

The theme comes from the dissatisfaction he experienced and a cry of revolt against the fast fashion. “Everyone asked me if latex is plastic (it’s a natural material). I wanted to take this idea of ​​a plastic world that I no longer identify with. We are destroying the world, but go ahead, let’s eat cake”, he explains, evoking the famous expression of Marie Antoinette, whom he met in Sofia Coppola’s film.

This concept materializes in the latex pieces that hug the models’ bodies in feminine silhouettes, with transparencies. The material is handled by the young creator, who dyes it while it is still in liquid form. “There is always a margin for error. It is a material that requires affection and care”, he observes, with the twinkle in the eyes of those who are following the dream.

Experimentation with materials is something you want to develop in your master’s degree in Milan. Until then, she will continue to learn in the studio of the creator Alexandra Moura, where she is doing an internship. Despite the award, Inês Barreto says she is in no hurry to create a brand in her own name. “It is important to know how to work for others, even when we are creative. It gives us a more realistic view of what the fashion world is all about,” she argues. When she returns from Italy, she will return to catwalk by ModaLisboa.

The first day of the capital’s fashion week shows also featured presentations by Arndes, Filipe Augusto and Valentim Quaresma and a performance by artist Olga Noronha. For Saturday, the parades of Luís Buchinho, Buzina, Luís Carvalho, Béhen and Gonçalo Peixoto stand out.