For Mercedes-Benz Madrid Fashion Week, fashion is a matter of community The Spanish capital put its best foot forward this week

Spanish fashion and culture are definitely having a moment. From cinema and TV series to music, from sport to streetwear, Spain is bringing its own vision to all of Europe and the world at large. The Mercedes-Benz Madrid Fashion Week, currently underway, has been a testament to this. Back on the scene this year with a multiple set of venues and bolstered by a series of strategic synergies, the key to its success has been the deep sense of community on which it was built and which seems to animate the life of its brands.

The selection of participating brands alone offered a sweeping overview of the country's fashion landscape. It includes names that have long been part of the establishment, such as Agatha Ruiz de la Prada, Pedro del Hierro and Adolfo Dominguez, as well as rising talents with an increasingly strong international profile, like Palomo Spain, Ernesto Naranjo (already a four-time finalist for the CFDA/Vogue Fashion Fund and rumoured to be a potential contender for next year's LVMH Prize), and Agua by Agua Bendita, alongside local success stories that arrived on the runway backed by well-rooted communities within the country, such as Celia B., Moisés Nieto and Baro Lucas.

Another strength of the event was the variety it managed to showcase. Undoubtedly, in terms of venues and production values, the most elaborate were those of Palomo Spain and Calafat, staged respectively in the rose garden of the Parque del Oeste and in the spaces of The Palace hotel in Madrid. Both collections were accompanied by live musical performances, as were the shows by Agua by Agua Bendita and Moisés Nieto. Another highlight was the Redondo Brand collection — a haute couture label that still handcrafts its highly elaborate custom-made looks for its clients — presented in the gardens of the Palacios de Vista Alegre.

Arriving at a moment of intense activity for Madrid, on the heels of the Spanish Formula 1 Grand Prix and the only European stop on Shakira's monumental tour, Madrid Fashion Week positioned itself as an activation spanning multiple areas of the city, allowing both the local community and the international press in attendance to discover a range of iconic locations: from the Palacio de Cibeles to the courtyards of Nebrija University, from the Invernadero del Palacio de Cristal de Arganzuela to the Galería de las Colecciones Reales.

The overall impression, then, is that Spanish fashion finds itself increasingly at the centre of a rich cultural ecosystem — one that is rooted in its own local specificity, yet for that very reason appears all the richer and more layered. Most importantly, however, as in other areas of its culture, Spain in fashion proves itself so willing and eager to open up to a broader horizon, bringing as its central value precisely the power of its community.