Biography

London based designer Carlota Barrera explores core contemporary garments through a female gaze, inspired by Spanish heritage, queer history and the evolving gender identities.

Drawing deep inspiration from the complex shapes and movement of the male body, Barrera’s queer female gaze allows her to view intellectually and artistically, seeing masculinity and male sexuality - the emotions, the forms, the behaviours, socially what it means to identify as male.

Tailoring features heavily from season to season, each offering reimagined and subverted from a classic silhouette to create fluid, contemporary designs. Finding hidden luxury in the un-seen details, Barrera finds herself drawn to the way tailoring understands and complements the body so elegantly. Suit jackets often appear slashed or cut away, mirroring detailing seen on knitwear and under-garments within various collections. The idea of experimenting with what’s covered and what we choose to uncover becomes a core code to the way Carlota Barrera designs; starting a dialogue about gender and rigid masculine rules being replaced by new masculinities.

Spain-born, Carlota Barrera graduated from the MA course at London College of Fashion in 2018, has gained experience from various fashion houses and and has received awards such as Vogue Fashion Fund Spain in 2019, amongst others.