An Interview with María Bernad

by Rennie Svirnovskiy

The colors are unusual. They’re sort of steeped in the sun, like the aged buildings in the part of the south of Spain María Bernad comes from. The aesthetic is a faded, as if the white balance is caught on something off-white on purpose. That sticky shade of green plucks up (the one that’s somewhere between spinach and avocado), and it works elegantly, off kilter as it is.

Maybe she picked up the style bustling at the feet of her seamstress grandmother as a child, wrapped up in fabrics of all different kinds and outgrowing them to be inspired by the colors of the art she began to seek out as she grew older – those of impressionist paintings, surrealist works and the abstract pieces she dabbled in.

“There aren’t hard lines, but you can see things within the painting,” Bernad said we met at the Hotel Santo Mauro in Madrid, in a woven dress meant for a filming after our interview. “You can interpret many things from a single painting.”

Or not quite outgrowing them. Bernad says her favorite clothes are her grandmother’s– fitting for someone who, at just 23 years old, heads a budding fashion brand called Les Fleurs out of Madrid that trades in vintage clothing.

“You can call me nostalgic because I’m always reading old books, watching old films, wearing old clothes and searching for old furniture,” Bernad said. “Les Fleurs started with nostalgia.”

Bernad started the brand with her mother, operating under the longing that regularly hit when the two visited Brocantes [a French vintage market] when in France to see her dad’s family.

“It’s about nostalgia, always,” Bernad said. Vintage, that is. And good taste.

When she’s seeking out pieces to showcase in her art, Bernad says she looks for:

“First, the quality, because it’s very different to buy a polyester shirt or a cotton shirt or a linen shirt.

“Then, I’m also always looking for color, too.

“After that, I look for the design with the right aesthetic. I’m always looking for nineteenth century things because they’re very soft and feminine, but also a bit masculine at the same time because oftentimes they’re big clothes.”

She loves that especially, the big shirts and big jackets.

“I think it’s the power of being a girl and a man at the same time,” Bernad said. “To be comfortable with your clothes.”

She loves to find the new in the old, too: “When I see a bag that you can’t find anywhere else, my heart burns. It’s so exciting. I’m like a vintage hunter.”

Recently, Bernad did a campaign for the leather brand Malababa and eagerly highlighted their colorful and geometric products.

“I was in love with the colors and how they work with leather, even leather earrings,” Bernad said. “They made me think of cubism and abstract art.”

She put together a mood board, and using what she calls her “color photographic memory,” planned in her head the perfect contrasts that emerged in the campaign, down to the models’ dynamic poses that matched the curvature of the furniture.

“I saw the furniture, and I said, ‘Okay, I want the girls to do the same,’” Bernad said. “And the girl was like, ‘What?’ And I was like, ‘Yeah, yeah, do this.’”

She’s also just done a video project to promote a Dior perfume.

“They said, ‘You have to think about what love is to you,’” Bernad said. “I’m very passionate and intense when it comes to love. I was always interested in the art piece by Rene Magritte. ‘The Lovers.’ They are kissing with fabric over their heads. I used this as a reference, then built around that.”

As creative director of the shoot, Bernad got to experiment with audio – would she use music? Vacuous silence?

“For this video, there were times where I didn’t want audio or didn’t want music,” she said. “So my friends suggested putting a poem in the background instead, and we did that.”

Right now, Bernad is in the process of developing a totally-her-own, totally original fashion collection.

Her daily wear looks like this: “I love to wear black suit pants and a big suit jacket with shoulder pads and gold earrings and maybe platform sandals. I like to be comfortable at the same time, so always big stuff.”