Travel Junkee: How To Dress Like A Local In Buenos Aires
Some tips for that 2016 trip you accidentally drunk-booked over Christmas.
Brought to you by Contiki
This article is bought to you by Contiki.
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One of the first things you’ll notice about Buenos Aires — next to the decaying grandeur of the buildings, the extra-wide streets and the heavenly scent of slow-cooked meat hanging in the air — is that everyone dresses like a consummate boss.
Octogenarians sling cable knits around lithe, tan shoulders like they’ve each got ten yachts at home, sleek Palermo girls prowl the streets in linen that never creases holding cigarettes that never ash, and there are more teenaged boys in deck shoes than in a John Hughes film. I can tell you now you will never see a Porteño wearing trackpants in public.
Pictured: the opposite of you in high school.
Much of this is because there’s an extreme focus on quality over quantity; a respect for rich fabrics, a lack of extra funds for rack-to-bin trash fash and a long history of immaculate tailoring. This is a quiet display of pride, not an exhibition of wealth. A Porteña may have only one going out dress, but you can bet that dress will be hand-tailored silk. This ingrained style is what inspired writer James R. Scobie to christen Buenos Aires “The Paris of South America”.
Here are some names that’ll help you fit in and look good in the Argentine capital:
The Designers
Nous
Nous are one of those rare labels that identify as animal-friendly (by avoiding all animal products in their production process) while also managing to avoid making clothes that look like hessian sacks. With Romina Cardill — who previously worked under successful Argy designer Maria Vazquez — at the helm, the collections champion simple sports luxe cuts in a mostly black and white palette against feature blocks of citrus, pastel and electric blue.
Image via Nous
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Cecilia Gadea
Up-and-comer Cecilia Gadea takes a completely different route to Nous with substantial collections of soft, romantic pieces. This year, she made a name for herself at Buenos Aires Fashion Week for wrangling an ocean of blue and turquoise silks and satins into a capsule range of flapper-come-mermaid articles. She’s all about waves, scales and fishtail edging on sweet, tailored frocks, skirts and diaphanous culottes.
BA Fashion Week Spring/Summer 2016 (Via BAFW)
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Fractal
An Argentine equivalent of Melbourne super-fave Limedrop, Fractal draws from the clean pastel, origami work of Maria Eugenia Diaco. With a big focus on geometry, Fractal pieces see silhouettes composed of triangle sheets of melanin puzzled into intricate detailing and processed with heat. “I try to establish a game of opposites — between the human and the industrial,” Diaco says of her designs. “I try to observe and study the body’s dimensions, and reveal my interest in craftsmanship and technology.”
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Lena Martorello
Design duo Joan Martorello and Martinica Lena have pioneered what they call the anti-fashion movement in BA, by “striving for beauty in imperfection”. The label’s latest spring/summer collection merges an avant-garde, oversized theatricality with natural fabrics in earthy tones, with a obvious nod towards Japanese elements with slouchy leggings, kimono sleeves and wide-legged pants.
Via Lena Martorello
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The Bloggers
Mariana Riveiro
Mariana is the quintessential Porteña fashion blogger: she’s an ex-editor of the Argentinian version of Hello magazine and a swag of other Argie fashion rags. Atypical of Australian and American fashion bloggers, most (if not all) of Argentina’s top fashion bloggers are trained journalists who also have jobs outside of blogging. Riveiro has a double degree in literature and journalism, and she takes a very considered approach to her posts. A lot of fashion blogging is pretty pictures with grammar and spelling that make you want to beat your head against the nearest hard surface — but Mariana treats her posts with the same respect she would a published print article.
Slight problem: these posts are all in Spanish. Solution: she also has an excellent Instagram with plenty of pictures of the BA native’s colourful sartorial life.
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Muy-Mona
After writing the fashion section for a local daily newspaper for years, these two journalists were clever enough to jump on the fashion blogger bandwagon back when it started. Now they specialise in recreating expensive looks on a budget and boosting smaller designers. “Fashion is fun to play with and you don’t need to pay exorbitantly to look good,” their site reads. “It just requires creativity.” This pragmatism is important in a country where the average wage is around $800AUD per month, and most people can’t afford to move out of the family home until they get married.
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Lucia Ugarte
Lucia may be one of the most likeable bloggers around. She looks like a normal girl instead of a stock model with a MacBook and because of this, spending time in her world feels a lot like hanging out with a friend. Ugarte is a reporter for this weird, questionably-titled online fashion channel called Chicas Guapa (Hot Chicks) and always looks like she’s having real fun. Sartorially she tends more towards a flashy South American style (this quite often involves diamantes on jeans and blue eyeshadow) but tones it down with Argentinian simplicity and European styling.
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Where To Shop
Top-line luxe: Avenida Alvear, in Recoleta
Hipster chic: Mon Lorie, in Palermo
Argentine glam: Pablo Ramírez, San Telmo
High Street trash fash: Calle Florida, Downtown Buenos Aires
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Feature image supplied by Buenos Aires Fashion Week.
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