In Mallorca, Miguel Adrover Wins a Gold Medal and Shows His “Last Runway”…But Is It?

In Mallorca, Miguel Adrover Wins a Gold Medal and Shows His “Last Runway”…But Is It?

This weekend Miguel Adrover, the rebel designer who upended the fashion system in New York in the 2000s, was awarded the Medalla de Oro from the Mallorcan town of Santanyí. “This is a little village so far away from New York, but the energy is the same,” said the designer, who made time for a quick pre-event phone call between fittings. With the award came the opportunity to present looks to the public, which Adrover dramatically announced on Instagram as his “Last Runway.” Best not to place bets on that, though: “I call it the ‘Last Runway’ because always it feels like it’s the last one, but it keeps happening,” Adrover said. “Fashion is kind of like, behind my ass all the time.”

On the catwalk were iconic pieces from the designer’s archive (see some of the selects in the slideshow above) that were fit, with the help of village seamstresses, on locally cast models. Adrover’s aim was not to replicate the past but to revisit and reinterpret the pieces by altering the silhouette, say, or by putting a woman’s look on a man. Some changes were dictated by necessity: The opening look’s mask, for example, was falling apart in its box, “and at two o’ clock in the morning I was gluing it together. It really feels like when I was in the basement,” said Adrover, alluding to his Lower East Side residence/atelier, the humble quarters from which much magic came.

With no sales to make or critics to face, Adrover was hyped for the event: “I have to say it’s great, great energy. I don’t do drugs or alcohol or anything, it’s a totally natural high.” And it presented a first for the designer: the opportunity to sit and watch a show of his designs. “[I was] clinging to the chair surrounded by authorities and politicians, but shouting like crazy and crying like Magdalena, just like everyone present,” reported Adrover of the experience.

Another novelty of the event was the unveiling of the designer’s own “Amadeus countryside” look. He received the award in sweatpants, boots, and a blazer worn over a relative’s nightgown. The whole exercise, Adrover says, felt like going back to the very beginning when he dug through his grandmother’s closets looking for treasures. “What is so emotional,” notes Adrover, “is that the clothes look fantastic now, you know, and it’s more than 20 years. Somehow it all looks, like, out of time, I don’t know how to say it.”

We do: ars longa.

Originally Appeared on Vogue