“Setenil de las Bodegas it is revolutionized, the whole world is hallucinating. This has had a huge impact, there is here media from all over the world ”, assures excited Virginia Villalón, Councilor for Tourism of this town of less than 3,000 inhabitants. “The neighbors who acted as models are delighted, other neighbors greet them, stop them on the street, and we all know each other here! Journalists keep coming to make reports. The tractor driver has told me that he can't cope, we won't stop! ”.
The catastrophe was unleashed a few days ago, when the biannual fashion magazine oda , based in New York, published an editorial of the new collection ready-to-wear Dior , captured in the streets of Setenil. “ The neighbors were surprised: ‘That they are going to take pictures of a model wearing Dior clothes here?' But I think that, until they have seen the published report, many have not believed it, they have not realized that it was true”, reflects the councilor.
It is necessary to grant to the countrymen of Setenil that the premise sounds bizarre: What is a New York magazine doing photographing an editorial with Dior clothes in a remote Andalusian town? The answer lies with the creator of photographic work, Manuel Jaime : “I live in Valencia, but I am from Cádiz, and I remembered going to the cave-town from Setenil as a child. It's very pretty, but since it's so lost people don't know him , or does not usually go often. I think it has been quite a stir, in part, for that reason, ”he explains to Traveler.es.
SETENIL DE LAS BODEGAS, UNEXPECTED SET FASHION
"I studied graphic design, and it's what I've worked on almost all my life, but three years ago, I became a documentary photographer, and one year ago, I started in the world of fashion," says Jaime. "I really like the costumbrismo , therefore, even when signing fashion works, I try to merge the line that separates both types of photography. So when I was called to do a Dior editorial for Odda's tenth anniversary, I decided not to go to Milan or New York, which is where this type of work is usually done, and I proposed to the magazine to choose a destination completely opposite to the luxury of these garments, which also, in this collection, are super colorful. So I told them about Setenil, a place that I had been wanting to photograph for a long time (although it is not easy for a brand or a magazine to agree to do it, because it is quite inaccessible). But I sent them pictures of the site and the idea and they loved it”.
The result is a series of photos of resounding tones and apparently spontaneous , captured in a style that borders on kitsch . In them, the contrast between the model - tall, thin, almost alien - and the simplicity of the faces and landscapes of the town stands out. However, this opposition is not violent, but tender, touching, as if the closeness transmitted by Setenil and its inhabitants, so familiar, had crossed the border usually cold and distant with which the mannequins are portrayed.
IMPROVISED MODELS
Villalón remembers: “The organizers asked us if we could look for some models from here in town, and we looked for some profiles that fit them, but others were emerging we were improvising We were on the street and we needed a couple to kiss each other, because two tourists passed by and we took them as a model”.
“The man who is with the bag left because we needed a clothesline, I went to ask for it at a house and there he was: they saw it and it fit them . He is deaf and dumb, and a neighbor had to help us communicate with him”, continues the councillor. Now, Facuo even speaks on television.
Jaime defends this way of working, inherited from his love for documentary photography. “I do not intend to alter the environment; if in a place like this everyone knows in advance that a production is going to be made and models are hired, it seems to me like some kind of glitch, something super prepared. My style is different: I just have to have a little idea of the locations and play with what I find. If we go to a bar and I see a man drinking a beer, for example, I ask him if I can photograph him”.
This naturalness of his, moreover, is very focused on the rural world, which intends to photograph in Spain in the coming months, combining it with his lightning success in the world of fashion -soon will sign its first international cover -. He already made a foray into the concept with reversible twin , a book (now in reprint) that also reveals other antagonisms: those between the different assistants to the horse races of their municipality, Sanlúcar de Barrameda.
“I am super happy with the reception that the publishing house has had, because Setenil is a very welcoming and endearing town, and its people are too ”, concludes Jaime. What will be the next Spanish town that the people of Cadiz manage to place on the international map?
