MADRID MODA NEW YORK
QUEEN SOFÍA · ANNA WINTOUR · CONDÉ NAST
FROM MADRID TO THE GLOBAL FASHION SYSTEM
TACTICA helped build the relationships, alliances and platforms that connected Spanish fashion with the institutions shaping international recognition in New York.
The challenge was access.
Spanish fashion had talent, a strong domestic platform and institutional support. The challenge was to turn that strength into sustained international relevance.
Working with ACME, the Community of Madrid and Madrid City Council, TACTICA developed a long-term positioning strategy in the United States, using New York as the first major platform.
Our role went beyond communications. We identified and activated the institutions, editors, designers and industry relationships capable of providing credibility, access and continuity.
The objective was not simply to show Spanish fashion abroad. It was to connect it with the system that could move it forward.
The first move was to build the right platform.
In October 2007, TACTICA brought Madrid Fashion Week to New York through a collective exhibition at the Queen Sofía Spanish Institute, presenting iconic pieces from 25 Spanish designers.
The ambition went beyond showcasing individual designers.
The exhibition was conceived as a platform for the internationalisation of Spanish fashion, Madrid Fashion Week and Madrid itself as a contemporary creative capital.
ACME, the Community of Madrid, Madrid City Council and other Madrid institutions came together around that objective, positioning Madrid Fashion Week / Pasarela Cibeles within the international fashion circuit.
Credibility had to come before access.
As part of the strategy, TACTICA worked to involve Oscar de la Renta and Carolina Herrera with ACME as honorary figures capable of bringing experience, authority and relationships from inside the American fashion system.
Their role went far beyond visibility.
They helped create the credibility and connections needed for the project to enter a different level of conversation in New York.
Around the Queen Sofía project, TACTICA worked directly with Oscar de la Renta and his team, first to secure his participation and then to explore whether he could help bring Anna Wintour into the project.
He did.
Anna Wintour came to see the exhibition.
Spanish fashion was no longer simply asking New York for attention.
It had created a context important enough for New York to come and look.
ATTENTION BECAME DIRECTION.
Following the exhibition and its media impact, TACTICA directly arranged a meeting with Anna Wintour at Vogue, attended by Modesto Lomba, Lucía Cordeiro, Natasha De Santis and Claudio Navarro.
The conversation moved beyond visibility.
It became a discussion about what Spanish fashion needed to do next if its designers were to participate credibly in the American market.
Positioning.
Selection.
Presentation.
Creative teams.
The standards expected in New York.
Anna Wintour provided ACME with a roadmap for the presentation of Spanish designers in the American market.
The relationship subsequently developed into an alliance between ACME and Condé Nast, while Candy Pratts Price became an expert advisor within the programme.
The meeting ended with a message that became a reference point for the programme:
“I HIGHLY RECOMMEND THAT YOU FOLLOW MY ADVICE.”
That conversation became a strategic turning point.
THE FIRST DOOR HAD OPENED.
The Queen Sofía project created the context.
The media response created visibility.
The relationship with Anna Wintour turned that attention into direction and direct access.
What followed was a broader international strategy for Spanish fashion.