Ten years after his catwalk debut, Leandro Cano returned to his roots. For his fall 2024 proposal, titled Menú, the designer went back to the same mood board he created for his first collection. “Buffet, my first collection, had a little bit of everything,” he said in the parking lot in central Madrid where the show was held. “For fall, I streamlined and distilled the designs. It still has some of the same colors, shapes and concepts as that first collection, but now everything is more mature and with a more international perspective.”
The Jaén-born designer likes to look at historical figures to reinterpret them through his own divergent lens; a toile de jouy print depicts Spain’s King Philip II and his wife Mary Tudor, riding a motorcycle and hanging out at a gas station, respectively. “I wanted to break with the rural origins of the print and give it a much harder touch,” he explained. The print also shows a nod to his grandfather, who was a taxi driver, and his Seat 1500. “In that car I dreamed a thousand times about what I would do for a living in the future.”
Cano also returned to the extreme volumes of his beginnings and updated them in a new form. “We have always made them round and organic, and this time we went for a geometric quality. They are more architectural,” he said. He also took the opportunity to explore black, a shade he hadn’t used until now. “I have quite a love-hate relationship with black, but now I feel very comfortable wearing it,” he reflected. Important fabrics included nappa leather, wool and jacquards. True to his way of inventing fashion, Cano proposed techniques such as macramé or crochet, with a knitting pattern he found on a pillow belonging to his grandmother, forgotten for years in a drawer.
