Made in Barcelona: “I get inspired by the elegant French woman from the 40s and the 50s”. Elisabet Urpí, designer of [eliurpí]

Photography given by Eli Urpí

Eliurpí is a romantic and feminine fashion brand specialized in millinery. Elisabet Urpí, the designer, and Nacho, her boyfriend, are in charge of the brand. Their clothes dress an elegant and cosmopolitan woman, inspired in the Parisian woman from the 40s and 50s.

How did “Eliurpí” start?

The brand started four years ago, although the shop became one year old this march 2014. At the beginning we only worked on millinery, and now we are working on the fourth clothing collection. The hats are 100% handcrafted, from the beginning to the end. We design the clothes and we make the drawings, although then we send them to a studio that collaborates with us.

What did you study? And why did you preferred fashion?

I studied general design: graphic, industrial, interior design… and then I specialized myself in publicity. I had always been very interested in art and while I was studying I also did painting expositions. I worked in publicity for some years, but I realized what I really liked was fashion and I decided to work in it.

My grandmother was a sewer, and I think it is also something familiar. Fashion was something I wanted to dedicate my life to, but in the first moment I wasn’t brave enough to do it and I picked up publicity, which offers more job opportunities.

But sooner or later you end up doing what you wanted in the first place. What I love the most are hats, although I have worked day by day. I have never studied millinery; I am a self-taught person on it. But I do have known a lot of people who guided me in this art.

Define your brand…

Sometimes I’ve been classified as vintage, but I don’t think so. The brand hasn’t a vintage style. I think this definition is given to us because people from here thinks about hats as something antique, but actually it is not. In some other places the hat is just one more complement. I think the brand’s style is very romantic and feminine. Barcelona is a very fast city, where people choses practical things and doesn’t care so much about their clothes. It also happens because it is not a very cold city, and the hat is usually associated to cold cities. This could be a reason. People from here wear bonnets, not hats, for the reason I was explaining about functionality. You can keep a bonnet in your bag if you need to, but not a hat.

Photography: Marina Corral Roselló

How do you see the Catalan fashion panorama?

It is complicated. I think there are not many helps for young people. Me, for example, I started the project with my partner, Nacho, and we’ve done it by ourselves, without any kind of help. I also think that events related to fashion celebrated here are not very international and don’t open doors. There are other cities where fashion is more valued. This is why going there is worth it, because although the cost is higher you can get more opportunities. Everything is more local here and you cannot grow up much. This also happens because we don’t value enough what we have. Sometimes we give more value to things that come from outside that to our things. This has always happened to me. Before opening the shop it was very difficult for me to sell my product, but since I started to sell it abroad, many doors opened to me here. And it is sad having to sell abroad to have people in your city take you seriously. But in general something similar happens to all of us, and designers from here are poorly valued. It is not necessary to go abroad to find talented people.

This is your only shop for now... Do you plan expanding your brand?

We are trying to sell the brand in other multi-brands shops. We don’t want to have ten selling points in the same city, but we do want to find places that interest us for the type of shop. We want to focus more into expanding abroad, mainly because our client has a foreign profile: Italian, French, English…

Besides, we are not going through a good moment here and selling is very difficult for us. That’s why we think in other cities local people would buy our stuff. We do have local people who buy our pieces here, but people that I’ve been “gaining” and that are loyal customers now. There are not locals who sporadically buy our thins, the ones who do are normally from other countries.

Which is your most important inspiration? And your favorite designers?

I get inspired by the elegant French woman from the 40s and the 50s.

I have a list of designers that I like. Chanel is one of them, because of the hats thing and for the change she brought to fashion. Then Balenciaga. I have many of his books. I get inspired by his style, the shapes, the elegant woman he dressed… But of course, everything is so from another époque. Nowadays you have to dress an elegant woman who has to be simple at the same time.

One from Catalonia?

I don’t really fit with Catalan style, this is the problem I have. This is because I think that Catalan designers have a very “street” style, because although what I do is also for the street, even if some people don’t think so, maybe is more “refined”. Clothes made nowadays are more “fighter”. Elegant at the same time, but in a different way.

What do you think about Low Cost phenomenon?

I don’t want to criticize it, because each person buys what they can. But I think everyone should know what they are buying. When I was a student I just shopped in H&M, because it was what I could buy. Everyone has had their phases, but you have to know about the things you’re buying, where they’ve been do and who has done them, to know in what are you investing your money. I know our collections aren’t accessible for everyone. But everything we do we do it handcrafted, with 100% natural materials, and all those things have a cost that must be valued. I don’t think it is valued here, it is just very difficult to see all the work it has behind it. It is very different being inside and seeing it, because I also used to see a huge difference between Low Cost and the other brands, but when you’re inside you see Zara wins more with one piece than I do with one. I understand not everybody knows this and neither they have to, this is why I try to explain this to my customers, so they know our philosophy work.

Do you make loads of runs for each piece of clothing? Or do you want to bet for exclusivity?

No. We don’t make a huge run, because we don’t like repeating our prints. We use to make prepare nine models at the beginning of each collection and during all summer and winter we have the same models with different prints. We also do this in order to give the client a special exclusivity, so they see they are buying something limited.

Is it difficult to sell abroad?

We’ve sold in Paris, and our experience there has been good. It was not difficult for us because the product fitted very well. If we could export our clothes to cities where hats dressed in a daily basis or that had a style similar to ours, it might be easier than here, because in Barcelona everything works in a different way. You give your product to a particular store and they pay you when they have sold the product. In other cities this isn’t even an option and either they tell you they are not interested and that’s it, or you know everything will work well. Here everyone tells you “yes” but because they know they won’t pay you until they sell it. We don’t like to work this way, but when you’re starting you have no choice.

What is difficult about selling abroad is finding the selling points, but more than anything because you don’t know the place; if this wasn’t the case everything would be easier than in this city.