On the basis of Miguel Hernández’s poems, which are full of floral, Mediterranean, earthly and bright references, Francis Montesinos pays tribute to the poet through a fashion line which looks as quivering, sumptuous and hedonist like a rose garden.

It is the starting point to look over women’s fashion during the Republican period when their image will be freed and will work like a mimetic mirror in new grounds gained for work, education, health safety and leisure.

All this with a common thread until the outbreak of the war: the joy.

A collection of original photographs from that time depicts these moments in different backgrounds: the streets, the countryside, the school, the fair, the city and even commercial adverts present a three-colour base to sell pesticides with a smile.

These are moments of happiness and modernity, since on few occasions the attire has conveyed so many values: freedom, independence, progress, education and the emergence in Spain of such a movement like feminism. 

Most of the photographical backgrounds belong to Rafel Solaz and Porfirio Plaza’s collections. But we must add to them a set of “montesinian” images taken by the photographer Eduardo Peris.

Texts by José Vicente Plaza