�Art is only art when it is applied to daily life�, states Alexander Girard, a North American designer. Following this premise to the letter, every pedestrian can and is capable of creating their own style, taking inspiration from and observing daily life, specifically street life.

 

Pop Art is an artistic trend dating back to the 1950s, which grew up principally in the United States and England. This popular art took its inspiration from mass culture.

 

At that time consumerism was beginning, product brands were becoming relevant and indicated a specific status. Some artists reproduced beer cans and soup tins, comic strips, artists� faces, etc, in their paintings, collages and sculptures.

 

They incorporated modern materials, such as polyester and acrylic paint among others. Pop Art had a huge impact both on graphic design and fashion.

 

In the 1960s, textile and fashion designers soon picked up on these artistic movements and applied them to clothing. In this way they turned good design into a reality within the reach of many, accessible to the majority of middle class people.

 

They created �fresh� designs reflecting happiness and vitality, updating textures, styles and colour combinations, unafraid to put colours such as fuchsia with pink or yellow, which had previously been considered �not to go together�.

 

Kinetic art, with its visual effects created by superimposing areas, carefully organising shapes and contrasts between white, black and colour, also left their mark on fashion.

 

Today it is making a big comeback among young people, driven by the constant barrage of thousands of images on posters, bus shelters and shop windows...on every street corner.

 

You just need to buy sticky-backed plastic to cover fabrics, paper, posters, pictures of people, comic strips, cut-out pictures, adverts etc. with which to make a wallet, bag or folder, depending on your personal taste.

 

For example, you can cut out a colourful comic strip from a culture magazine, or a real comic. Then you cover it in plastic. Copy the shape of another wallet, or of whichever accessory you choose, in order to have a pattern, and draw on the reverse of the laminated paper or cloth using a dressmaker�s pencil. Then you cut out the shapes and finally sew the seams together.

 

This was how the first Pop Art fashion designers began, allowing their imaginations to run wild and applying their thoughts to their creations, not being afraid to experiment and without worrying about the risk of failure. Every single item made was different and had its own characteristics making all of them special, none of them either good or bad, but different and genuine, hand-made, and above all, cheap and modern.

 

In Spain, pop art trends are being included more and more by the various companies. Examples of designers of this type of fashion in Spain, from which you can pinch designs for your own creations and creative ideas, are the various collections of accessories offered by the brilliant �gata Ruiz de la Prada, with her bold combinations and the original Miriam Oc�riz, with her prints.

 

Without any doubt, the designer who uses pop art tendencies par excellence from who we can absorb a never-ending amount of ideas is Custo Barcelona, who started out in the 1980s. The company has a very defined idea about fashion: mix everything together in a single garment, include multi-cultural references and ethnic motifs, photographs, pop art and floral motifs, using different materials such as jacquard cotton, velvet, Lurex... Where colours are concerned, "We don�t follow colour trends because we use all of them", David Dalmau often states.

 

This is a premise that we can follow as we choose the materials for our future bold creations which are cheap to make yet effective. Genuinely individual fashion with a personal touch.