ALINEO STUDIO BY LIS DOMINGUEZ: AN IN-DEPTH INTERVIEW
Lis Dominguez has been always in the radar of the fashion industry in Spain since the release of Disclosure, her graduate collection. A personal story divided by chapters/looks that told her life as a trans woman, completely made out of moulage techniques with some details, like 3D butterflies or the use of dyes, that have accompanied Alineo Studio, her brand. Her rise has been impressive and the acceptance of her creations in the Spanish fashion industry should be studied. That is why, after 3 collections that established the label as one of the most recognizable and interesting young brands, it is no surprise to anyone that with her second entry, a collection titled Aura, at the Allianz EGO Confidence in Fashion Prize in MBFWMadrid she has won the seventh edition of the contest.
The ethereal, daring and disobedient have been rewarded in this edition. The jury appreciated the aesthetic work and aesthetic coherence of Alineo Studio, as well as the excellent work in the use of colors, gradients and fabrics. On the other hand, they saw the projection and possibilities of expansion of the brand with the advice that the winner receives from UDIT. Also, The financial aid that Lis Dominguez will receive for having won will be used to create the new collection that will be presented at the next edition of MBFWMadrid, but also to invest in pattern making or in resources such as her website to take her project to another level.
During the interview we were able to talk about some of these topics, but above all, it allowed us to get to know who is behind a brand like Alineo Studio, demystifying the figure of the creator and allowing the public to identify with her and with what the brand tells.
Álvaro Ramos: First of all, congrats on winning the prize and positioning yourself as a brand to watch in the Spanish fashion market. How do you feel? Are you nervous about the future?
Lis Dominguez: Right now I’m trying to take it all in, because it’s very hard. It’s hard to have won it and then the feeling you get when you take it, and thinking what comes next. I was hoping that maybe I would have a bit of relaxation, that I would have that feeling of being able to rest and think things over, but now I have the need to keep going. I can’t stop. It has to be like this to make the most of these six months, both of advice from the UDIT and my own brand. It’s surreal. Now I was on the plane, coming here (Valencia) I looked at the sky and inspiration came to me, I started painting, drawing, going crazy to do the next thing I’m going to do. I feel at my best. It seems like everything is going the way it should. Aura SS25 has been a series of events that now make sense and that was born from something that was totally blank, despite the colors that are seen, that was born from a mental block, from not knowing what the next collection was going to be like, or how it was going to surpass the previous one, since this one is so personal. And facing everything as best as possible, moving forward and with great enthusiasm. Now it is about working on the concept of the new collection due to the deadlines that the EGO program sets for you, I don’t have time to think about it too much or procrastinate. I work very well under pressure. I do feel pressure from others because I am a person who sets very high goals and standards to meet and exceed the expectations that others may have about my work. I am used to that.
AR: Could you tell me more about Aura SS25?
LD: The concept of Aura on the catwalk is much better understood because we have collaborated with an artist making a meditation track with an explanation of the collection as an intro to that journey that we wanted to make through all the layers that comprise our energetic aura and until reaching the sacral, the most sacred self. It is about that journey, seeing how our auras fluctuate throughout our life, from birth to our maturity, passing through adolescence. Where the colors become darker, due to those external responsibilities, anxiety, everything we live today. Then passing through fire, ashes and the soul. It talks about that journey and how our determining vital moments affect us and how they make our aura and energy, which is light.
AR: How was Alineo Studio born?
LD: Alineo Studio was born from that imposing need that I always have to express what I carry inside. When I finished my degree, I felt the need to create something that was mine and it was born from there. Alineo was something that was not premeditated, but at one point that name came to me, where the concept of straight lines is played with, something totally aligned with some garments, some collections, some designs that are totally the opposite, on an organic level and so on. Even the process of the collection is a very fluid thing, it is not something very closed, in the end it has become what we express today. A brand, a consolidated aesthetic, and despite being an emerging brand I think we can have a very nice future in the fashion industry and cover a very specific niche with which some people can feel identified both with our aesthetic and with our inclusive message. Everyone wants to be a mermaid and in the end it is very cool to see that something that was born from a memory of mine of wanting to be a mermaid, of painting mermaids, of being obsessed with mythology, to bring it to reality. Not so much the aesthetics of mermaids but everything that surrounds that marine environment that heals and why not let Alineo heal something in us.
AR: What is your relationship with the sea?
LD: I was born in Ibiza, when I was six we moved to Mallorca for my parents’ work, and in the end I only went to kindergarten in Ibiza, but I have memories of my summers there like the Ibizan fashion, all those whites, those dresses, that free life, those positive thoughts, and in the end I have always been surrounded by the sea. In fact, when I moved to the Peninsula to study fashion, I chose Valencia because I was close to the sea. It is hard for me to be away from there, because I have the need to go back from time to time, it is a place that inspires me a lot where very beautiful things have happened and why not stay close to it.
For a long time I suffered bullying, so I went to study fashion abroad to escape from Mallorca and the Balearic Islands. In the end, I have returned, surprisingly, to heal that relationship I had with Mallorca, which obviously has nothing to do with one thing and the other. For me, returning to Mallorca were ugly memories, dark memories were made, resulted in making Discloser, my first project, which was my graduate collection, were I expressed this feelings. In the end, in some way I am trying to heal and today I find it hard to believe that I am in Mallorca, that I have the workshop there, that I can even continue living there, without giving up my island, little by little.
AR: I can see that all the collections are based on your life, on a spiritual level in one way or another. What is your relationship with spirituality and how do you insert it in everything you do?
LD: In the end there is nothing more beautiful than escaping from reality. Reality is dark. For me, Alineo is like an alter ego. For a long time I gave up on what I was, both at the transition level and at the personal level I had rejection and dysphoria. Alineo was like creating a prototype of something with which I could do what I wanted. It is my safe space where I can show what I feel and see what people feel represented by it. That world is so fantastical or so dreamlike, that somehow attracts us, we like it. Who doesn’t like fantasy? And when it has that aesthetic, that purity, that essence so clear, I think that in the end it attracts a lot of attention.
AR: In the end we live more in a society where the queer is positioning itself more in the market, but at the same time in politics it is the opposite, the whole culture is reactionary. How do you deal with this fact? Are you aware of it?
LD: That is why fashion must be revolutionary. What happens is that my fashion is not related to logomania or being loud, but rather it tries to search. Without denying that it is valid, because in the end each one tries to express his story as best he can, but my way of expressing it is that. It is to insinuate in some way (to give space).
The most beautiful thing every time I present collections is then to see how those people acquire the garments and so on. How they use them. We see the garments as they are used on the catwalk, the red carpet and such, to see that versatility that the garments give you to be able to apply them to your daily use and that in some way they are like an extension of ourselves, that fashion adapts to us and we do not adapt to it.
AR: In the press release I saw that your brand could be defined as ethereal, daring and disobedient? How did you end up choosing this words as the values of your work?
LD: In the end, I was raised in a liberal space, both by my parents and my closest family. I was born in a very privileged place, both in terms of expression. I have been able to express myself as a person and on an artistic level. They have supported me throughout my journey, in all the decisions I have decided to make. In the end, Alineo would not be the same without what I have experienced, which speaks of that. I have lived in an ethereal way in something that is indefinite, there is no need to define that. It is disobedient because in the end we are an anti-fast fashion brand. We create on demand. We try not to follow trends, but to create in some way our own trend and daring, because we understand that our design is not something common, something so conventional, and I believe that all these factors make it special.
AR: Everything that you have presented until now was asymmetrical and influenced by movement. Seeing that the next season in MBFWMadrid is FW25, what can we expect from the new collection? What are our plans for the future? What are your expectations for the new collection?
LD: The truth is, thinking about it coldly, I realized that I had won to participate in the fall-winter edition. How are we going to apply something so aquatic and so marine to a winter collection? That is what has made my head explode. Really every time I have released a collection there were no seasons, but it coincided that at the end it was September. We come from summer and in some way why don’t we extend summer a little longer, why don’t we stay with that sensation and carry it for a few more months? I don’t know, I’m going to go crazy, I honestly feel like I’m not tied down, for now, I can only say that it will be very interesting to see Alineo in the winter season. We can go crazy regarding the subject of fabrics, I want to experiment with new techniques, painting of course, painting on paper and on clothes as I have been able to do until now, it is also something very therapeutic with which I escape from the world. I’m going to go crazy with jersey and use new techniques, new experimentation, without ever abandoning the essence of Alineo, which characterizes me, but there are new things to come.
AR: I would like to know who your references are, both as designers and as artists. What was the driving force behind your design career?
LD: The first designer I met was Palomo, because I ended up doing an internship with him. For me, Palomo, the six months I was doing an internship meant a before and after, going from an environment where I felt safe to a village in Córdoba where he had the workshop, wearing a skirt in a town, was something very surreal. Living that passion that Alejandro and his entire team behind the workshop feel, seeing how to apply crazy ideas to garments that have to be a reality, and also the whole journey that Palomo has taken. I think Palomo is a key inspiration regarding the issue of inclusion, genderqueer clothing, it marked a lot in my career, when I was studying and now too.
Also, Pepa Salazar, I think she is a woman who understands femininity in a very beautiful way, all the work she does in pattern making. Because in the end I drink from that moulage technique, of creating garments on the mannequin. But we are talking about multi-position garments, which are made with a pattern, which have a very interesting experimentation and work behind their garments. And in the end, she drapes very similar to me as well as, kind of similar, selection of fabrics. It is also a key part of my inspirations during my career
Designers who play with the shape, who create that fantasy, that each show is an experience, it’s cool not to always see monotony on the catwalk. But that each one is an experience and that in the end brings people together, that many people come and converge in a place to see that. That in some way it becomes a safe space for that community.
AR: I am always interested in knowing the behind the scenes of a collection and how do you guys end with such products. So I was wondering, how do you start the collections? What sparks your creative vision?
LD: Until a year and a half ago or so, I followed the process used at university a lot, because in the end that is what they taught me. Because I am a control freak, who needs to have everything super clear and schematic. But in the end I understood that to create my collections I need one word only, and from that word everything is born. Not everything has to be linear, from sketching to the finished product. There are garments that have even started before that part: I found a fabric that I liked and I already knew that I wanted to apply it to a blouse or I’m going to dye it since the beginning.
Aura was born from not knowing anything: drawing, I don’t like this, I delete it, I do it again. The first look came out, then several others came out, why not wear these fringed sarongs, use the fringes that I used in the last look of the previous show and use it in more looks, put it on tops. Creating a silhouette and those beautiful movements when walking. It has been something that has not been structured, but rather it has been a very fluid experience. One thing has led to another. Until I did the shooting I did not see the complete meaning of the collection. That transition from birth, the womb, everything very baby-like, until then little by little as we mature and the structures of our clothes change, because in the end our body changes both personally and physically, until reaching that discolored fire, which is born from the fabric itself through bleaching, passing through those ruffles, that second skin, which represents the ashes and then the soul that is entirely made of fringes, which is a super sexy dress. In the end, the structure of the collection is changing, even this one I don’t know what it will be like, but I will surely continue with the process that I have found comfortable and that has worked well for me.
Even the inspiration for Aura was not defined at the beginning, but I have lived a personal experience with my grandmother, which has made me ask myself in the end: how am I making a collection about this and it happened? I am a very skeptical person, but these things make you wonder if something is happening, and also that it ended before I could show her the complete collection, it is trying to tell me something, I feel that need to have to make this collection, because it is a process that I have lived, which in the end is good because nobody can deny what you have lived or what you have felt, it is what I perceive as a person and the collection speaks of all that.
AR: To end this interview on a good note, as a fashion designer myself, I am always curious to see what you guys think of fashion students and people that want to be part of this creative industry. So, what advice would you give?
LD: The first thing is to take advantage of the opportunity to do a graduate collection, which if we have the resources, I know that it is a very expensive world, that materials and ideas can play against us when the ideas are very crazy. But take advantage of that opportunity, because Discloser opened doors and a path for me, even if we suffered a copy of this debut collection, even if it talked about me, about my dysphoria. In the end it is your final project, you have to portrait that you have taken advantage of these years of university and in my case it defined the essence of Alineo, seeing it in perspective it served to mark the aesthetics of the brand and that I always turn to that collection, as in the case of the dyes, the ruches that conceal parts of the body that we want to hide. Take advantage of that opportunity, because later when we go out on the street, and we realize the truth, that we don’t see our friends, that our path ends and another begins, enjoy it to the fullest, don’t get overwhelmed, it’s a job that takes a lot of time, but in the end if you do it well, you have to be left with the feeling that it ended in good conditions, that it was worth finishing the race. It helped me to talk about myself, to undress in front of the jury. It makes you feel like you did the right thing and that it had to be that way.
Words: @alraco43
