Carmen March: Nuovo New Wave

A New Wave revival with a flamenco flourish at Carmen March, a Spanish designer who manages to combine posh punk with Spanish poise.

The '80s echoed through her spring 2020 collection presented in the latest Paris boutique hotel – the 16-room Hotel Alfred Sommier behind La Madeleine. It was an apt setting for the chic, posh yet popular blend that is March’s oeuvre.

March’s New Wave is certainly a broad church – as seen in a sexy body-con cocktails with suggestive ruffles done in a Miami Vice soft blue; or pop art cabans that riffed on Keith Haring’s Radiant Baby strokes. But once again in a soft art deco pink.

“Miami Vice is the first New Wave TV series in terms of the colors, how the cameras moved and its whole attitude,” insisted the Madrid-based creator.

While a series of sequined tops were inspired by the twisted squiggles of Jean-Michel Basquiat paintings – but once again in a lighter southern palette.

“I wanted classic cottons, picqués and even seersucker, but in a broken Prince of Wales check,” said March, showing a fabric she developed in Turkey, though all March’s production is made in her native Spain.

Though her coolest ideas were her hand-printed style shell prints that echoed Ungaro and YSL, used in dashing raingear; or some great leather jumpsuits in dusty lemon.

By sticking close to her own DNA of modern voluptuous mode with a sporty echo, March has quietly built a business – retailing in over 30 doors worldwide.

“I’m Latin and I like to keep that glamour. It’s in my blood,” opined the designer, who speaks fluent English with a slight Celtic accent, the result of studying in Edinburgh.

In a word, March is a very Latin Nuevo New Wave, but with a very polished twist.

Carmen March: Nuovo New Wave

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