November 2012 - Barcelona

Shopping
Edited by Eugenia Sendra
esendra@timeout.cat
Inspiring jewellery
Lucía Vergara started out making necklaces, and ended
up creating her own label, Après Ski. She’s left for
London, but her Born studio remains. By Laia Beltran
Our Garden Needs its Flowers takes
its name from a 1985 album by
Jess Sah Bi and Peter One, songs
that mix country and western with
traditional African tunes, folk from
the Ivory Coast refracted through
the prism of cowboy nostalgia.
They’re intoxicating melodies that
have a serious social message.
Lucía Vergara has borrowed the
title for the latest collection from
Après Ski – it’s her homage to the
obscure artists that have provided
the soundtrack to long hours in her
small studio in the Born. As she
works, the only moments of
silence are the pauses between
songs, as Dirty Beaches follows
Adriano Celentano, Jens Lekman
or Dominant Legs.
Our Garden Needs its Flowers
isn’t Lucia Vergara’s debut, but it’s
her first collection in the strict
sense of the term – taking a source
of inspiration and making it the
basis of a creative statement. She
makes it look easy, but it’s not:
creativity’s like style, you have it or
you don’t. Lucía has both in spades.
She doesn’t identify with any
particular place: she was born, and
studied, in Valencia, and from there
she made the leap to Barcelona,
attracted by the possibility of
working in fashion. Our Garden
Needs its Flowers is the culmination
of a career that began out of
curiosity; while working for designer
Lydia Delgado she started making
her own necklaces. First her friends
asked for them, then her friends’
friends – the result was Après Ski.
APRÈS SKI
Cotoners, 12.
www.apresskishop.com
20 Time Out BCN Guide November 2012