malasana style
That's Malasaña, the mythical Madrid neighborhood of the movida that did not get expensive until they arrived the village hipsters with wads of bills to buy or rent everything that smelled modern. You don't have to live there, most Malasañeros are from a neighborhood far, far away. But They never let their dominguerism show. You also can.
1) Notions of language. End the words in “eo”. Terraceo is having a beer with two foam fingers and on the street, whatever you do, tomorrow I end the night in a house beating you on Spotify and posturing..., well, posturing is everything else that is done in Malasaña.
2) Schedules. The time to go out in Malasaña is one in which there is no possibility that your parents will be away from home. During the day the neighborhood also exists a lot. In the morning you can buy in the most cute street -the section of Espiritu Santo that begins in the Plaza de Juan Pujol and ends in Corredera Alta- and surrounding areas. From noon you have to eat or drink somewhere modern with a big window where you can be seen well . The window table of the Infamous Types bookstore with bar scores double. Because it shows that you are a person who can be close to some books without anything happening to them.
3) Beard. It is mandatory. If the only thing that differentiates your beard from that of a beggar is that one day they will remove it for 25 euros in a Malasaña barbershop decorated with ironic barber chairs, congratulations: you have the exact beard that is worn this month.
4) Button down collar. If you don't button the last button on your (checkered) shirt, you should reconsider becoming heavy and leave Malasaña as soon as possible.
5) Music. If everyone knows the names of the last three bands you've dropped in a Malasaña bar, you've just gone out of style. It's a neighborhood rule that everyone says they know everything, so you always have to ask for evidentiary humming . If no one knows what you're talking about, you're already a DJ.
A neighborhood to see and be seen
6) Helmets. You have to wear big helmets. for now, a little smaller than a frisbee . If you put a couple of garbage cans on your ears right now, you're three months ahead of the hype.
7) Scarf stores. Knitting scarves, having a cupcake blog, continuing to play with my beads and dad being tired of having you around the house all day is all you need to open a store in Malasaña. It expires after two months.
8) What to wear. Military boots are the longest lasting fashion in Malasaña: they began to be worn coinciding with the 'No to war' demonstrations. Combine them with skinny pants and you already have half the outfit solved for good. If one day you can't find your boots, you can take the opportunity to roll up the hem of your pants and show off your colored socks.
9) Bikes. The number of people riding bikes in Malasaña is inversely proportional to the number of people riding a bike in any other part of Madrid. A Malasañero at heart never takes the bike out of the neighborhood or gets on it very often because, in total, there are two steps . The quintessence of biciexplotation is the La Bicicleta bar, on the corner of Colón and Plaza de San Ildefonso. They have a bike cross, a racing bike hanging on a wall, cookies, brownies, and no one who has ever ridden there.
10) Old people's bars. You have been warned: any day you are going to go to an old man's bar and you are going to find yourself drinking beers with your grandfather. But that in Malasaña is not going to happen to you; As Ambrosius says, here the only old-fashioned bartender is the bartender. ** Everyone's favorite should be the Palentino **.
11) Cocktail bars. If you have heard any variation of the story that the more or less clonal cocktail bars Adam & Van Eekelen and 1862 (both Pez Street) belonged to some partners who separated and one set up the competition right opposite, you are a modern. Some bars with some great mixologists who look at you badly if you ask for a vodka with Red Bull, but who don't make you a mixed drink either because they don't feel like crushing ice, are a Malasaña in its purest form that is worth paying any nonsense for.
12) Social networks. If you're peeing on a tree in the street and a group of girls surrounds you shouting “well-known tweeter!”, you've missed Malasaña.
13) Luis Brea. Luis Brea is Malasana.
*This article was written in May 2013 and updated in August 2017.