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Laura Morata. Materials for the Innovation. Material Intelligence

Laura Morata was invited to the conference “Materials for the Innovation/ Material Intelligence”. She is the fashion designer and the creator of the bran “Madre Mía”.

She explained that her collection is based on the emotion of the everyday act of getting dressed and how the technology helps to do so.

“Madre Mía” works with natural materials and uses technology to portray the emotional state of the people.

-First, welcome to this conference of Materials for Innovation. I would like to begin with this topic: “How to transmit what you feel through your clothes”. It seems a fundamental idea to understand your work.

Yes, it is exactly our point: to be conscious that, when you are getting dressed, you are doing something else than covering yourself. We think that for many years the way of dressing has been distorted, because it was way too close, or lately, because it is too open.

What you wear in contact with your skin gives you a lot of sensations; it can make you feel all right, or on the contrary, it can make you feel awfully. When you choose the wrong garment in the morning, according to how you feel that day, you don’t know why, but you feel uncomfortable and that makes you feel awful. That consciousness is what we defend.

We have structured our company using new technologies to give functionality to these clothes. Until now, it was only aesthetics.

We could say that “Madre Mía” is an addition of these concepts. You express it, that is why we chose this name, because it is an expression. All these emotions that you can feel through what you are wearing at a certain moment can be an exclamation that you express; so that is the reason for such a close name, because it is an expression very familiar to most of the people.

At any time? If I go to work, or if I am going to stay at home, or if I go out, etc.

We cover almost any moment that a woman can go through in a day, even for the little girls; there are also clothes for the little girls. We defend the fact that we make clothes for special moments, including that moments that can be special for each person. I mean, when you say special moments it is not necessarily a wedding or something. We have clothes to attend weddings, to go shopping, to go to work, or for whatever you want. You may wake up in a certain mood, and you say to yourself: “I need a flounce skirt because I want to spend the day jumping”. That can be a special moment as long as it is special for you.

Which is your way of working, your methodologies and technologies?

It is a fusion between both things, design and above all, new technologies…I took a moment to think because when I say, “design above all” I mean that all the parts of the design process are fundamental, everything that influences a design: the shape, the textile, the quality of the garment. All those things can make you feel, one way or another. If you are wearing a garment with a certain shape, it is not the same that if you wear a dress, a skirt or trousers. Each shape makes you feel in a different way. Depending upon how you want to feel that day, you will choose one thing or another.

It is not the same to wear red or to wear black. It is different to wear brown or to wear green. We try to change the habit of shopping. We try to change the relationship that we have nowadays with the habit of getting dressed. That is why we don’t have seasons, that is why we don’t fit in the circle of the strict fashion. We don’t have sales. We have a socially sustainable price, with a good relation quality- price. We don’t exceed any limit. Therefore, we don’t have to offer sales, moreover, when the climatologic properties that we had before don’t exist anymore, we don’t have spring, summer, autumn, winter… Nowadays, this doesn’t exist anymore, because of the weather and because of the architectonic conditions. We have great air conditioning machines, great heating machines and there is no room for wool anymore. If  there is any room for wool it is because you suit it, or you want to buy it, or because you are going somewhere.

For example, we do our catalogues from time to time; they don’t belong to a specific season. The last one we did was “between 20 and 30 grades”.  You can be everywhere in the world, it the temperature is between 20 and 30 grades you have some garments you can use, but you don’t even know if it is winter, or summer…

What is the application of the technology?

After all, one of the parts that affects more to the entire concept is the fact that it has functionality. After seeing a shape, a colour, a texture, a textile, you always detect small problems, and the solution is the technology. We use micro-capsules, plasma, luminescent inks and different technologies that were used for other sectors but not for the textile sector.

And we have worked so those natural textiles we use don’t change their characteristics with the application of this technology. If you apply micro-capsules to a textile, it continues to be the same textile, but for example, we make it mosquito proof, that is very functional. You can look great and beautiful. M you can go out in a summer night because the mosquitos aren’t going to bite you. Then, you have everything.

We are the only ones that produce a product like ours, I would say at least at an European level. Maybe, there are some prototypes, or even something on the conceptual level, but there is nothing like what we do. We make high-quality clothes with an apply technology that is almost invisible, because we have worked on it.

You are talking about introducing new threads in a textile, not in order to change the shape of the dress, but with the aim of making it more comfortable for the person..

We can maintain our personality. In fact, if you watch the pictures on Madre Mía´s catalogues, you can realize that we rarely use models for the photos. And, if we do, they are totally normal people. It is not that kind of “fashion victim” photography. We are against the compulsive way of buying. We are timeless. We believe that it is what is needed. At least, it is our target, and I think this is at a global level. We have costumers all around the world, in Barcelona and in Madrid, because in these cities, there is a high activity at the level of people movement: French, Dutch, English, Americans, Italians… from everywhere.

Do you use the marketing to reach customers?

Yes, we do, but a very specific one. We have participated in some fashion show, but, for the same reason we don’t create seasons. We prefer to do an exhibition. For example, not long ago, we did a “sitting room” in Madrid. We have gone to fairs outside Spain. We participated in fairs in Hong-Kong, and we are in contact with India. We also try that our marketing has a more social function.

Talking about that social function, what kind of investigations do you conduct to know where to go?

Our idea is to identify little daily problems that may seem banal, but they can make your day worst or better. For example, the use of the stain-resistant chemical with plasma in our textiles. This is a technology that hasn’t been used a lot; I would say almost nothing, because the machine we are using right now is the only one in Spain that is used as we do.

Every textile becomes waterproof: you can spill wine, water or anything on it, and it doesn’t get dirty. That is the solution for a specific moment in which you can feel very uncomfortable, and moreover, you don’t have to wash continuously a garment because it got stained. It is different  if you sweat doing exercise so you have to wash it than if you got stained and the garment is wasted.

Are you linked to a concrete company that has that tool?

No, these are ours. We do the whole process. We think that our fusion of technology and design is Madre Mïa.  There were five micro-capsules that were used in cosmetics, but not in textiles, and certainly not in the kind of clothes that we make. It is ours; it didn’t exist before us, same as this plasma application. We have been searching; we have been working with a technological centre that runs the tests for us. We are also trying to make certifications, but some of them can’t be done because there are no regulations about them. So we have registers the product but the application is a model of utility.

We are even helping to create specific regulations for a product like this, which does not exist in the market; maybe only Nike is creating products like this. In sports clothing there are many things, but not in everyday clothing. In sports and security clothes or in mountain clothes, or army clothing, there is that kind of products. However, that technology is not refined to use it on silk. Our work has been to compact different things, and with that fusion creating a different product.

What kind of people works with you? Not only fashion designers? Scientifics maybe?

Well, we started from the premise that I am very enterprising and the initial strategy was created by me. It seems logical that you need equipment to grow, and in this case, we do it through our own equipment. We look for suppliers to help us. The thing is that this kind of suppliers doesn’t exist. When we run a test, we have to know, for example, what is the amount of micro-capsules you need… we do that in the lab. We subcontract the lab. And in our technological centre, we work with the researchers.

You say it is not really expensive to apply this technology. For example, you have applied the mosquito proof technology to several kinds of garments, dresses, skirts, t-shirts, tops…

Yes, what we usually do are dresses because we think it is a very feminine garment, and it also gives us a concrete sensation. Women know, wearing a dress makes you feel gracefully. You wear it and you feel different. We tend to make dresses.  It is our strength, to make dresses for different moments. It is true that we could make some trousers, but they would go with a blouse so it makes an entire outfit, but we usually make dresses.

Within our dresses, we have some that there are mosquito-proof, or aromatherapy. The aromatherapy works pretty well. It is studied with different essences depending on what we want: vanilla is different from strawberry; another one is acid apple, jasmine… with each one of them, you get different perceptions.

Don’t you work with perfumes?

No, we use them for aromatherapy, as a therapy to calm you down or to cheer you up, things like that. I think that the brand Madre Mía is thought for actual women because you can identify yourself with the people. You enter a shop, and you´d probably get a friend instead of a customer.  This is the aim, one of the aims at least. That is why our intention is to sell our products in Madre Mía´s spaces, so that way you set the mood. You can’t sell them in a multi-brand shop, as if they were something else. We own the shops.

We are three sisters in the team. But at the beginning, it was just me. After that we grew and it was two of us: my other sister, Carolina, who has an experience of fifteen years in high fashion. She is a textile designer.

I come from the industrial design, but the high-fashion  runs in our veins because it has been in the family for a long while.

The question “how do you feel about the future?” It does not make much sense here. Your way of working is to have a vision of today´s world.

Yes, sometimes I say that it is a sort of philosophy. It is, for example, like the price or the politics of the company, which is to apply sustainability also with the people, not to exploit anyone. All this is part of a way of doing.

That reminds me that most of the times the textiles are manufactured in China, India or Pakistan…

We do the opposite. If we go to Hong-Kong or to China is to sell our way of doing. We are never going to manufacture anything in China or producing anything there. What we do I s to export a context, the Madre Mía´s philosophy. We started in China because there is a lot to develop, and because they have a high density of population. Furthermore, there is a lot of movement and many other things, but we could be anywhere in the world. We are pretty sure about that.

Is your product manufactured here in Spain?

 Yes, everything. The textiles are from here. The production is from here and the technology is from here. Everything is part of Madre Mía´s strategy.

Are you optimist about the economical conditions that we have nowadays?

Yes, we know the situation is bad. I think that this may help to change the textile field. Madre Mía thinks about the future to come, and the world is changing. We can´t manufacture that much cotton  to throw it away five minutes later; and moreover, we don’t know what to do to recycle  the cotton. That is a problem.

We try that you get garments, that you take care of them, that you know where they come from, where they go so you can be more conscious about what getting dressed means. At the same time, we want you to feel good because you are looking good, that is a necessity. We also defend aesthetics because it is important for living. And we try to facilitate living, even after the crisis. What we can´t do is to stop, because if we stop, the world stops.  We try to do things right. What I mean is that together, we will try t do things right so the world gets better.