Marta Chávarri is remembered from two different places, beginning and ending with the encounter. She was an It girl years before the term existed, an influencer when Zuckerberg was a baby, a socialite when there weren’t any in Spain. To define it, you actually have to resort to foreign words. Furthermore, despite the many women who have imitated her in mink jeans, she has no clear heirs; He also had no history. At that time it was not easy to find cosmopolitan, privileged women in social life who were not afraid of becoming unpopular. She began and ended with herself. At the same time, she was exploited by the highest echelons of male power and the victim of blackmail that benefited others, always men, always older, always with impunity. The young woman from high society saw her privacy attacked and exposed to a country that demonized the women who owned her life.
It all started in 1982. Spain woke up, the PSOE had just won its first elections with an absolute majority and a certain Pedro Almodóvar opened Labyrinth of Passions. That summer, in Plasencia Cathedral, Marta Chávarri, great-granddaughter of the Count of Romanones and daughter of a diplomat, married one of the golden bachelors of the period, Fernando Falcó y Fernández de Córdoba, Marquis of Cubas. The bride wore a gown with voluminous ruffled sleeves that befitted the daughter of her decade. June 2nd was undecided, but the Spanish 80s would fit into those huge sleeves. In them there was room for financial scandals, a new social class that combined business and aristocracy, and a ruthless Spain that wanted to start from scratch. For a Spanish upper class in their twenties, they were unpredictable sleeves. From that date almost everything was in the life of Marta Chávarri.
The marriage lasted seven years and they had a son, Álvaro, who just made her a grandmother a few weeks ago. During this time, the couple ran from party to party around Madrid, so there were no events. In it they took turns with Isabel Preysler and Carlos Falcó, brothers-in-law at the time, and they could be seen sitting at low tables in Madrid at night, for example with those from Río. Her popularity peaked in 1988: that year Lady Spain was elected to succeed the Duchess of Alba; He already played in the first social league. Chávarri had spent his childhood and youth in the United States and Europe, and from there he brought with him an equestrian style with a touch of Ralph Lauren: he combined skinny jeans with a jacket and high boots and this would years later become the uniform of the Madrid lady-who-lunch, the Coello Rangers. This was merged with some Spanish upper-class codes: well-made clothes, jacket suits, bags from big brands like Bottega Veneta or Vuitton, own jewelry and straight medium-length hair with high-maintenance highlights. All of this was incorporated into ’80s fashion: draped mini dresses, shoulder pads and silk stockings. Marta Chávarri knew what she was wearing and dared to do what few in Spain dared. It was all held together by a young and confident attitude that would never leave her; Marta Chávarri smoked and said nothing. In those years he defined one of the silhouettes he most cultivated: the summery one. On her vacations in Marbella and Ibiza, she always combined a simple bathing suit, a very short pareo and white sneakers. Where were those shoes in Spain back then? No woman, let alone her class, used this shoe in any situation. This image of her tanned and wearing a pair of sunglasses as a headband was repeated year after year in the tabloids, who saw her as the perfect beauty. Each of his pictures radiated an eroticism that did not ask for forgiveness. Marta Chávarri was worth her weight in gold.
Marta Chavarri and Fernando Falco
At the end of the 80s, this image of a very fascinating girl changed. In February 1988 Diez Minutos published some photos showing her leaving the Hotel Palais Schwarzenberg in Vienna with Alberto Cortina. At the time, he was the CEO of Construction and Contracts and the husband of Alicia Koplowitz, the company’s then heiress and multimillionaire. The exclusive was confirmation of an infidelity and romance that had been rumored for a year. Photos of the two leaving the Galaxia apartments in Madrid together had been taken some time before, but have never been published. These in Vienna were the trigger of a financial operation that would change the economic landscape of a country getting used to the interface between the pink world and the business world: Isabel Preylser and Miguel Boyer had married in 1988, as had Carmen Posadas and Mariano Rubio. After the photos were published, he was removed from office. At the same time, Esther Koplowitz also discovered the infidelity of her husband Alberto Alcocer, Cortina’s cousin, with Margarita Hernández, Javier de la Rosa’s secretary. Along the way, Cortina failed in his master plan, which was to merge the central bank of which he was director with Banesto and become Spain’s most important financial institution. The sisters took power in the company, expelling their husbands, becoming two of the most powerful people in Spain before 1992. This movement was important because the country was not used to seeing women in such high and senior managerial positions. This game of mirrors between cousins and sisters and financial intrigues was revealed with the famous photos of Vienna. In it, a new stage began for 29-year-old Marta Chávarri, dressed in jeans, a jacket and a waistcoat with a houndstooth pattern. She was criticized for being the house destroyer. The pseudo-canonized Koplowitz and he… were saved.
Marta Chávarri during her vacation in Punta del Este in 1996.
Two weeks after its release, Marta Chávarri amicably parted ways with the Marqués de Cubas; he renounced custody of his son and lost the marquisate. This resignation was not usual for a woman of her class, so public opinion found another side to attack her. When the Vienna scandal became known, the floodgates opened: a short time later, more photos were published that had been in the drawer for a long time and had been taken a year earlier. Bought by Antonio Asensio, then owner of Grupo Z and publisher of Interviú, they showed Marta Chávarri at the Mau Mau nightclub dressed in orange, with a large pearl necklace and no underwear under her light-colored panties, so from the early ’90s. The magazine came out on Valentine’s Day 1989 and the cover featured a picture of her in aerobics gear, with a purple leotard and yellow tights, and the photos were tucked inside under the caption “That’s never seen by Marta Chávarri”. They had been in storage for a time, waiting for the romance to be uncovered, and Alberto Cortina did not yield to the blackmail they used to ask him to avoid publication. It is said that Mario Condé was behind them and that they tried to damage his image. The damaged copy was hers. Whoever was responsible, the image of a woman was used as a pawn in a game doomed to fail. He was the perfect victim. There was a short span of time between these two covers, enough to make the protagonist the most persecuted and victimized woman in Spain and someone everyone had an opinion about. Even Threshold called her: “La nymph desbragada del social felipismo detenido”. For the following week, El Jueves magazine gave away a pair of panties with each issue. Those were wild times. Interviú’s images were explosive for a media, economic and macho storm that put Marta Chávarri at the center. They forgot that she was a grown and free woman.
Chávarri in a 2016 picture.
An invasive way of contacting celebrities was introduced with Marta Chávarri. Cortina and Chávarri got married and their marriage lasted until 1995. The couple’s life was featured in gossip magazines weekly. This frequency, which is unthinkable today, made it possible to process the information slowly. Tómbola didn’t air until 1997, which changed the game in the tabloids and slipped its protagonists into the living rooms of the average Spaniard. At this point, the image of Marta Chávarri began to fade. He founded a few companies, such as a decoration shop in Madrid, and distanced himself from his performances. Spain had changed, and so had his life. She’s been living away from the limelight for the past few years, staying true to her mid-lengths and sweatshirts. He gave no interviews. His life was finally his own.