The Psophia firm proposes practical garments with an exotic touch.
If the firm Psophia were a journey (we're going to be Rafaella), it would be... “A mixture. We could be in a bustling, urban city in the West and suddenly go to Kyoto to end up in another bustling city in Asia, we could go around the world, I don't know if in 80 days but in 8 collections”. This is how her creative director, Paloma Vázquez de Castro, explains it to us, who before having her two children enjoyed inspiring journeys through Africa, South America and Asia. "Also, for work I spent years traveling to Hong Kong, China, India and Europe... When Diego and Rodrigo were born we began to travel more to Spain, Portugal, Morocco and Italy, closer destinations but also very enriching”.
The trip that marked her, in any case, was one that she made to the African continent when she was very young. “We went to Mali, Ivory Coast and Burkina Faso, we moved by truck and Land Rover, it was a great adventure, more than 25 years ago. Although I had previously traveled to South America to Colombia, Ecuador and Mexico, this experience fascinated me. Watch the Dogon Country, the mosque of Djenné, the clay architecture and the painted houses of Burkina Faso in Tiébélé, those markets crowded with fruits, vegetables, textiles and those African women dressed mixing three and four different prints, with a daring mix of colors that struck me. I believe that today you cannot travel to these places as I did at that time”.
Paloma Vázquez de Castro is the creative director of Psophia.
Her fashion firm was born in 2016, although the spring/summer 2018 collection was the first to be launched, and all these traveling sensations survive in her creations. “The project was born from a break with the brand in which I spent a large part of my professional life (Hoss) and the need to do something more personal. I had the support of part of my team, we had the same concerns, we shared the same way of understanding fashion and the taste for working in detail, that's how we launched ourselves with great enthusiasm and effort”, recalls Paloma.
In her proposals there is no actual craftsmanship but there are many careful details, some made by hand. “The craftsmanship is in our creative process, we paint our own patterns by hand but then we print them for production on the fabric with digital techniques. When we tackle a complicated design, we work on it like in the past, on the modeling mannequin, the creative process is a mixture of craftsmanship and technology”, explains Paloma.
Illustration by Pilar Bouza for the firm Psophia.
With so many fashion brands on the market and so many new ones being born every day, how is this one different from the others? “Yes, there are many fashion firms, very different and for all tastes. This diversity is very positive and enriching, If one day everything were to be the same, we would die of boredom, insensitivity and mental dullness. I don't know what our difference is, that must be decided by the public, besides, it is not that battle that is being pursued. I believe that the important thing is to be able to project with the greatest fidelity an aesthetic vision, the taste for details that excite us, the more subjective and faithful to these values our proposal is, the more different or more special it is. We are not motivated to look for novelty for novelty, extravagance or stridency to make ourselves noticed, if it arises it is in a natural way, it is another engine that drives the firm, We don't follow trends if we don't like them."
In winter their feather coats and knitwear stand out; in summer, their shirts, and their silk and cotton prints. "We always make an oriental-inspired kimono-type garment that turns out to be one of the most requested in the collection." They are directed, explains Paloma, to any woman who matches her spirit and who appreciates her work. “We are not exclusive. Obviously there is a profile defined by the price range and quality of our proposal, the beautiful and fun thing is that it can be very varied. We do not believe in a pattern for women and in each collection there are designs for one or another profile, physiognomy, height, etc.”.
Lookbook of the Spanish firm Psophia.
We ask you to reflect on the current moment in Spanish fashion. “In fast fashion we are leaders and it represents a very important figure in the Spanish economy. On the contrary, small businesses like us are at a tipping point, the fashion industry is upside down and with great contradictions; we want exclusivity but not pay too much for it, we want immediacy but at the same time we demand quality, good design and good finishes. All these demands create a serious conflict between design, production and the final customer. Everyone is attracted to made in Spain, but most of us produce a high percentage abroad (Portugal, Italy, Morocco, China...)”.
Psophia manufactures in Spain, Portugal, Italy, Morocco and China. “I cannot calculate the number of people who can participate in the process, fashion depends on a lot of parallel industries, fabrics, spinning mills, manufacturers of buttons and trimmings, clothing workshops, etc. We are very few people who do the design and product from our headquarters in Madrid but many external workshops with whom we have been working for years are involved in the total process”.
The love for detail characterizes the Psophia firm.
CONSCIOUS CONSUMPTION... AND IRRATIONAL WHIMS
"In Spain there are very good creatives -he continues-, but the industry is 'dismantled', there are still good workshops for almost artisan elaboration, they make a good product for which the public is hardly willing to pay, the competition is atrocious and its survival is hanging by a thread. Many have not been updated, they cannot compete and their survival will depend on the degree of adaptation to these demands by incorporating machinery, industrializing some production processes. I would like nothing more than to produce everything here, but the reality is quite another”.
Paloma says that she hopes that the consumer is beginning to become aware of the real value of what he consumes. “I speak of conscious consumption, I do not like hypocrisy and it would be good to reflect on the real need to accumulate many things, the quality of them and what this implies, yes, leaving a moment for some irrational or banal whim from time to time, we cannot be perfect, we would die of boredom”.
Undoubtedly, globalization has unified tastes, consumption habits and customs, "sometimes this consequence horrifies me because you can be in two completely opposite cities and find the same cafes, the same shops, the same way of dressing, the same cars, same food, much of the romantic appeal of 'foreignness' has been lost, as a symbol of the unknown. The advantage? I suppose that in all parts of the world we will have potential clients and that using the new technologies, logistics and social networks, we will be able to reach them faster”.
As for signatures that serve as inspiration, she is clear: “Many! Most of all I miss the collections of Céline by Phoebe Philo, Lanvin by Alber Elbaz, Marni by Consuelo Castiglioni, all of them have been a great reference. I follow Dries Van Noten, The Row, Lemaire, Valentino by Pierpaolo Piccioli, Erdem, Dior and more… in Spain I followed Delpozo”.
Paloma Vázquez has her design workshop in Madrid.
She also likes to keep in mind the greats of the past. “My references are timeless, as soon as I'm looking at collections from today on Vogue.com as from decades past or raiding my library and checking out books on patterns from different countries or cultures, on textile design or botany. I am attracted to traditional oriental fashion and I also have many artistic references, I like painting, photography, architecture, crafts and traveling”.
What plans do you have for the future? “I live in the present, I work day by day. I am a dreamer, every day is one more step, I want to continue learning, continue working for those I love, not lose my sense of humor and grow old leaving some good memories in the people who have accompanied me in life”.
Now it's time to continue dreaming of traveling too. “I have many places to discover, I have many pending destinations. I want to go to Japan, to Iceland, I want to see the Grand Canyon of Colorado and see a sunset there, I have to go to Petra, there are so many places... the world is huge and there is so much to see that I would need more lives to tour it. I also like sailing, I want to take a trip around the Greek islands by sailboat or sail through the Strait of Bonifacio from Corsica to Sardinia. My list is very ambitious!”
Psophia is inspired by architecture, art, travel...