Often referred to as the heart and soul of fashion, one of Spain's most admired fashion designers, Manuel Pertegaz, passed away on Saturday 30th August in his hometown of Barcelona. In a statement made by the Spanish education and cultural minster, Jose Wert, the loss of Pertegaz was regrettable, as he was able to 'think of elegance' and had “dressed queens, princesses, actresses and countless celebrities” in a long career that took off after he opened his first shop in Barcelona at 25. He is considered to be one of the great masters in luxury dress making.
Born in Olba, Teruel, at the age of ten he moved with his family to live in Barcelona and soon left school to start work in tailoring. His career was meteoric and a short time later he joined the Angulo team of tailors, and it was there, following the opening of a small womenswear section, that he discovered that his true vocation lay in the world of women's fashion. It would not be long before he turned his hand to women's fashion design, trying out his creations on female friends and members of his family. At the mere age of just 25, situated on a mezzanine on the famous Diagonal Avenue, it was here that he presented his first haute couture collection.
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Six years later he opened the first Pertegaz boutique in Madrid, situated on the corner of Hermosilla and Velázquez. The immediate success he enjoyed throughout Spain encouraged the designer to present his collections abroad, in Paris. The rapturous reception he received convinced Pertegaz that the time had come to expand into the North American market. In 1954 he made his first trip to the United States, where he presented his collections in New York, Boston, Atlanta and Philadelphia. The University of Harvard awarded him their Fashion Oscar, and his outfits began to be sold in America's finest stores. He also went on to receive gold medals from Boston and Berlin, as well as numerous awards and tributes from his home province and region.
He felt that his style defined a type of elegant and sophisticated woman, as a "perfectionist" person, and always defended that it was the dress that had to be adapted to the body of the woman and not reverse. While his clothes defined women in general, there was one in particular, Bibis Samaranch, his friend and confidant, whom he considered his muse and inspiration since he dressed her wedding in 1955 to marry Juan Antonio Samaranch until he died in 2000. And it was these convictions that led him to pioneering and disembark with his own boutique in the more selective shopping street in the Big Apple: New York's Fifth Avenue.
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After the death of Christian Dior in 1957, Pertegaz was short listed as a possible successor of the French designer, one of his references along with Balenciaga and Chanel, but the designer decided to stay in Spain. By now his creations were being exported to England, Switzerland and Canada, and his collections presented in Cairo, Venice, London, Santiago de Chile and Copenhagen. His venture into the fragrance sector came in 1965 when he launched his perfume Diagonal, the first perfume to be created by a Spanish designer and sold all over the world. It was followed by 'Muy Pertegaz' in 1975 and 'Sport', in 1982.
At his time of maximum performance Pertegaz had managed to open five stores and had more than 700 employees, but political changes that followed Franco's death harmed much consumption and, by extension, in Haute Couture, which forced the Teruel to close their classrooms Madrid, slump which was recovered years later. At the end of the 1990s, and after almost 70 years designing clothes exclusively for women, he launched the first line of fashion and accessories for men, something that before was considered as "boring".
In 2004 made the wedding dress of the Reina Letizia, representing the culmination of his career and that same year organised an exhibition at the Museo Nacional de Arte Reina Sofia which was also presented in Barcelona. He was later granted the golden needle, and with 90 years, in Barcelona presented his first collection of jewelry, in which circles, and the stroke of the M of its name as a symbol of the button, were the most characteristic.
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More recently, he continued to design for his clients both in Spain and abroad and oversees the creation of all the product lines that are sold under his name. He the first Spaniard landing a place in the famous Fifth Avenue of New York, and dressed for more than 70 years to celebrities like Audrey Hepburn, Jaqueline Kennedy and, more recently, the Queen Letizia. The burning chapel with his mortal remains has been left open this afternoon at the funeral home in the neighborhood of les Cort and will be buried on Sunday in the small cemetery of Sant Pere de Riu, in Tordera, Barcelona.
The designer of haute couture Manuel Pertegaz, defined as 'magician of the needle' on more than one occasion by his dizzying career will always be remembered all over the world.
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