In the virtual world the name of Andrés is surely common, but Spanish King there is only one . After all, few people in their 90s become successful influencers, star in fashion campaigns or sneak into a Tangana music video.
At this point, his media profile needs no further introduction, but what was Andrés García-Carro doing before his granddaughter created an Instagram account for him that she boasts today? more than 40,000 followers?
Smiling, in love with life, with simplicity, with smoking a pipe and a good coffee, Andrés has a lot to tell and he showed it during a chat with Condé Nast Traveler on the terrace of the ME Madrid hotel, which lasted thirty minutes to last more than an hour and a half.
One of the posts on Instagram by The Spanish King.
WHEN A PHOTO SESSION CHANGED EVERYTHING
It's impossible not to start the conversation by asking him how his cyber adventure started. Sincerely, he admits that his granddaughter, photographer Celine Van Heel , was the architect of everything. "She was even the one who gave me the name of Spanish King," he says.
Based on some photographs taken in the doorway of his house at Christmas For the French magazine L'Officiel, "Celine received the proposal from North America to do a fashion editorial in which a grandfather and his grandson would wear matching looks," says Andrés.
A chateau in Fontainebleau It was the place where he was involved in what would be his first maelstrom of outfits, flashes and luxury brands “among which the cheapest was a $250 scarf ”, He remembers laughing.
Portrait of Andrés in 1972.
Never in his life had he thought of doing something like that, but he turned out fine. and dressed in Yves Saint Laurent, Dior and "even with a tuxedo from the firm with which Rafa Nadal married, a certain Cucinelli", which was presented as a quiet retirement ceased to be.
From that shoot the Instagram account would be born, a call from a television channel, then another “and a snowball that is Pimpu (as he affectionately calls his granddaughter) who is in charge. They tell me that I fall in love with the camera, you know? ”, jokes the man from Coruña, who until recently had never stopped to think if he had “something”.
Although, thinking about it, "I remember that on a cruise through Argentina my family and I they confused us with the protagonists of the film death in venice . Something must have had, yes, ”he confirms.
He is more, his own mother once told him how much he looked like Yves Saint-Laurent . In fact, whoever follows him on networks will have recently seen a portrait emulating the famous nude of the couturier.
“That photo came about because of that, because my mother told me that I looked like him. When she was 24 years old, she sent me a letter to Buenos Aires with clippings announcing that Saint Laurent was in Paris and telling me: 'You didn't say you were in Buenos Aires!' He gave me the air of a young man, apparently . When I told this story to Celine, she didn't hesitate to recreate the portrait."
HALF-LIFE IN ARGENTINA
That letter joking about his resemblance to the designer would be just one of the many that Andrés received in a city where he has spent half his life.
With 23 years, an inheritance took him to the other side of the world , to a Buenos Aires in which he would end up working as cultural attache and crossing paths with intellectuals such as Borges, García Márquez or Camilo José Cela. But we'll talk about that later.
Andrés in La Coruña in 1973.
Adventures of all kinds crowd in his memory, times that seem distant to him. However, he remembers some of them with special affection, such as the nights in the Mau Mau Nightclub, an icon of Buenos Aires social life that also came to Madrid to become one of the most exclusive places in the capital.
Others, unfortunately, stain his blue eyes with sadness when remembering how “ numerous friends disappeared during the dictatorship”.
Without going into much detail, the terror of Videla Andrés lived it closely on several occasions, some of them with less bitter endings, “like when a good friend who had a publishing house and was a merchant marine had met his son on the ship... But I never arrive "he recalls.
"The neighbors saw how someone put a hood on him and took him away. When they told me about it, I ran to one of the Clarín owners and told him about it. The post certainly helped. . It came out in the afternoon edition and my friend appeared. Others were not so lucky. I will tell you that there were many people who ate at my house that I never saw again.
Andrés with his wife María Luisa and their children. Point of the East, 1970.
Even so, " the time in Argentina was the happiest of my life ”. Meetings, talks and meals with literary figures of the time, anecdotes with writers who will remain off the record and the magic of walking through Recoleta are some of his best moments.
It makes him especially angry to remember that first edition of One Hundred Years of Solitude signed by García Márquez that he lost on his return to Madrid.
BACK IN SPAIN, THE WOW EFFECT
The 1980s marked the return of Andrés to Madrid where he had studied Law during a youth that he now considers boring. “I prefer the one now. The freedom that young people have is what I like the most of the present”, he is sincere.
A man of changes and clear ideas, he reinvented himself riding a luxury real estate –Among whose clients was Isabel Preysler– who occupied her days until just a decade ago.
Retired at eighty, the capital continues to be a place he frequents regularly, especially since most of his grandchildren live there, but also because a large part of the collaborations take place in Madrid.
The most recent? Being the ambassador of WOW, the new concept of phygital shopping in what was the first building on Gran Vía. More than 5,500 m2 spread over seven floors that give meaning to an experience in whose gastronomic penthouse... anything can happen.
THE ODYSSEY OF THE PANDEMIC
Before talking about its today, located halfway between Madrid and his native A Coruña , where he lives quietly with his wife, "after more than 50 years happily married", Andrés points out that he never stopped returning to Buenos Aires. He used to do it in a cruise whose journey was his last pre-pandemic adventure.
“I left Buenos Aires on March 2 on a ship to return to Spain. I arrived on the 15th, the first day of the state of alarm. In Tenerife they did not let us disembark. We went to Lanzarote, either. Malaga, Valencia, Barcelona... I don't even know how they could feed us, really... it was supposedly twenty days of travel and we spent more than a month on board”.
Andrés on his boat in 1977.
Finally, Genoa was the landing place “and a plane brought us to Spain from Rome. I was traveling alone, so while we waited for the plane I put the phone to charge. In the rush I forgot it and when I came back to pick it up... it was gone! How was it possible in an empty airport? Today few people know phones by heart , but I knew my daughter's and I was able to find out how she was going to get to A Coruña".
"He told me that he had found me a flight that left the next day. And I had to spend the night there, because you couldn't leave the terminal. In T4, without a mobile phone, I lay down on a bench and went to sleep. to Coruna and my wife made me spend fifteen days in quarantine !”. Laughing, even this adventure he remembers with a certain joy.
FROM TANGANA TO RESINS: THE JUMP TO TELEVISION
The pandemic has not paralyzed Andrés' life either. As soon as the trips returned, the suitcase was waiting for him.
Also new experiences , how he remembered his time in the program master chef (where he conquered the jury with a recipe for oxtail with chips in the form of hashstags) or his appearance in the video clip of C. Tangana You stopped loving me.
The Spanish King in a campaign for Carolina Herrera.
“It has its pros and cons, being an influencer. But I'm happy at this point . I have been extremely lucky to have enjoyed all the jobs I have had. In fact, I would even have to pay for how much fun I had! That is the real secret of life . I always tell my grandchildren: if you like something, the rest doesn't matter. No early mornings or anything."
Andrés gives as an example his recent participation in Paco Leon's new movie , Rainbow: “It was three days of filming, from seven in the evening to seven in the morning. Celine and I came out of extras”. Pending release of this review of León's The Wizard of Oz for Netflix, The Spanish King also appears in Sorry for the inconvenience (Movistar+) with Antonio Resines and Miguel Rellán.
“Here I am an actor, actor. I am part of a super marriage healthy , who not only eats healthy and does yoga, he also practices polyamory . I didn't even know what that was, but the scene is very nice."
Without previous experience, "at most having acted for nine years in school functions", there is nothing that can resist Andrés, either in the physical or virtual facet of him. Of course, his fame has not affected him even remotely.
If something is clear, it is that what will always remain by his side are not luxury brands or celebrities, it is his family , especially her granddaughter Celine. "I always tell her that it's all thanks to her, that she saw something that no one else had seen," says someone sincerely from whom to learn something difficult to overcome: how to enjoy all the stages of life with joy and without fear of the passage of time.
This report was published in the number 151 of the Condé Nast Traveler Magazine Spain. Subscribe to the printed edition (€18.00, annual subscription, by calling 902 53 55 57 or from our website). The April issue of Condé Nast Traveler is available in its digital version to enjoy on your preferred device