The house sits right at the curve of a two-lane regional road that leads to Posadas, a city in Cordoba with just over 7,000 residents. Posadas was known to few before 2016 – the pre-Palomo Spain era – and suddenly, in 2017, Beyoncé is presenting her twins to the world with a look she designed and sewed on the ground floor of this house in the middle of nowhere. Miley Cyrus and Harry Styles have also worn creations from this house. None of them made it this far – they probably wouldn’t understand anything about this curve or this industrial area.
To kill time, we had a coffee at the only open bar. It’s still early for visits, although we’re warned that the seamstresses start at seven in the morning. At the bar everyone is guessing where we are going. When Alejandro Gómez Palomo (31 years old) returned to Posadas after six years, they said to him: “With the money your parents spent to send you to London.” [estudió Diseño Masculino y Tecnología en el London College of Fashion]“You will stay here?” Village life has advantages and disadvantages. Alejandro says there were always great expectations placed on him. He studied in a public school where he was the one who spoke differently and dressed differently. “At the age of 10, I could recite the designer, the model, the season, the show just by looking at the runway photo. I was obsessed with the history of Gianni Versace, Christian Lacroix and especially John Galliano, I just went to London to follow in his footsteps,” he recalls.
Alejandro was, above all, a free child. As the only son of Norberto Gómez, an engineer, and Manoli Palomo, a teacher, they always let him be exactly who he was. This is evidenced by the photos of her childhood costumes, which are by no means normative and herald what years later would be called genderless fashion.
View of the living room on the first floor of the Cordoba designer’s house. Asier Rua
He was still very young when someone read him the life line and predicted an untimely death. He always dreamed of joining the illustrious Club of 27 alongside Kurt Cobain or Janis Joplin, but it didn’t happen. Today, at 31, he is no longer young, at least according to demographic studies. For this shot we expected an excessive Palomo with ruffles, heels and ostrich feathers, but before us stood a sober, stylized Alejandro in a black shirt and trousers that made the photographer want to be dramatic. Could it be the calm of old age? Or maybe jet lag? On the day of this meeting, the designer had just returned from New York. The Cruising in the Rose Garden collection he was presenting at the Plaza Hotel was still in boxes, and he awoke in a very different state of confusion typical of the day after a journey to a distant and magnificent galaxy Posadas.
—Why did you decide to stay here?
—Fate: Part of me thought I would return to London, but since I had managed to sell some of my graduate collection, I set up a small workshop with my father the summer I came to produce and started working with María Luisa, a tailor from the city who accompanied me for three or four years until he retired. Then I wanted to release a first serious collection of 19 looks, which required more work, and asked my father to let me stay longer. It was the Orlando collection that we presented in Madrid in 2016 and the fuse was lit. We received orders from international stores like Opening Ceremony, we went to New York, we met with Vogue America… all of this gave us confidence to continue.
—Does being in the city cause you problems?
“It is true that some processes are becoming slower and it is becoming more difficult for us to form a stable team.” I work with very young, very modern people. If you see a man in a skirt in the city supermarket, he’s on my team. But they are restless people who won’t stay here long.
“We live a parallel life in the Sierra de Posadas, which is wonderful. “I live in the country more than in the city,” says the designer. In this photo the place for reading and in the background a painting by José Luis Barquero. Asier Rua
Despite everything, the designer considers it “a gift” to have space, a garden and a field. “It gives me a feeling of freedom and happiness. Of course there are days when I want to leave, and luckily I travel a lot, but it’s nice to arrive with your suitcases and have the workshop and the house in the same place and not have to move anymore.”
With the second collection, Alejandro had to start looking for a house. “My father’s office was too small for us and this building, which was once a furniture store with a blacksmith’s workshop, lay in ruins for many years.” First he set up the workshop. A few donkeys, a table, a few sewing machines and two or three people to sew. Shortly afterwards he moved. “I bought a sofa bed at Ikea and settled into it. I lived in the workshop, the seamstresses came and literally got me out of bed. We were a commune where we created, made plans and where friends stayed.”
Then he had to move to the first floor, where today a quieter Alejandro continues to mix private life and work, albeit with a staircase in between. “I close the door and my house is all mine, a bubble in which I am very happy.” Lucio, a six-year-old Weimaraner, is the only one who goes up and down stairs, leaving out spaces and gaps. They work during the day and live village life at night. “We will have dinner at El Mesón or Rogelio, a ham and a wine. And we live a parallel life in the Posadas Mountains, which is wonderful. “I live in the country more than in the city.”
The living room that the designer adapted as a home, where family furniture and antique furniture are mixed. On the table a Sybilla candle and a portrait of her signed by Alvie Lume.Asier Rua
As a designer of a “modern city,” Alejandro has made strange alliances. 80% of its business takes place outside Spain and most orders come from the United States and England, countries with difficult customs regulations. The boxes are transported continuously. Parcels are regularly sent all over the world; At the trade fairs, between 30 and 40 boxes are sent for each collection, as well as shelves for delicate clothing. Alejandro trusts Correos blindly. In 2022, he designed the Palomo × Correos capsule collection to thank the institution for each delivery that arrived at its destination on time.
Since 2016 he has been hearing that he will be “killed”, that a big house will sign him, that it is a matter of time. Then in a drunken state they also tell him: “What happened? Great things must have happened to you. You’re stuck.” This creator, known throughout Spain for the television show Masters of Sewing, lives in this schizophrenia. “We have become ambitious people who say very clearly where they want to go and if we do everything we have so far have done, must hate, then we do it.” “Nothing happens, it’s almost natural to finish a collection, love it and then be addicted to it.” He likes to be independent in a world full of conglomerates and trading centers , but he knows it’s not for free. “Our economy is barren, almost war-like, we buy just enough: feather boas for two coats and not one more.”
Entrance to the living room, in the background a photo of Eulàlia Valldosera, a Manila scarf from her aunt and an Empire style mirror, including a small 16th century painting. Asier Rua
—Do you have an open account with actor Timothée Chalamet?
—[Risas] He doesn’t know it, but I invented his aesthetic. He didn’t realize that I was the one who dreamed about it and then suddenly he was in this world. I’m waiting for you here.
Palomo checks some fabrics in the workshop on the ground floor of the house. During the day he works and at night he lives in the village with “Lucio”, a six-year-old Weimaraner. “We will have dinner at El Mesón or Rogelio, a ham and a wine,” says the designer. Asier Rua
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