The making of Iberia's Meninas

These days the streets of Madrid are festooned with 80 pieces of urban art in the citywide “Meninas Madrid Gallery” show. All are based on the iconic painting of “Las Meninas” [“Ladies in waiting”] the renowned 1656 masterpiece by Diego de Velázquez.

Iberia commissioned two of these works, one has being designed by Teresa Helbig, the Spanish fashion designer chosen by Iberia to desing its new uniforms, and the other by the composer and musician Javier Limón and his painter Ricardo López, his brother. Here they tell us about their inspiration and creative process.

“Talent Never Goes Unnoticed”,  by Teresa Helbig

Teresa:
"How could we reflect the soul of the Teresa Helbig woman, and our ties to Iberia, in this Menina? 

We’re basically a women’s club known as the “Helbig gang”, which includes women of every cultural and educational background, but who are all joined together by our love for seduction, passion, and provocation. The problem was in working out how we could imbue a Menina with that Helbig essence. 

We thought of our collection “Rien ne va plus” and decided we would try to make a “jewel dress”. We set off the hoop skirt with a huge number of playing cards, showing hearts, clubs, and airplanes –a nod to Iberia. We gave the skirt more volume by attaching the overlapping rectangles, in ivory, golden, and copper tones. 

Naturally, the project turned out to be complicated. I wouldn’t feel comfortable calling it art. We make clothes, amazing clothes, but not art. To put it on a sculpture was a challenge. But since we’re all adventurous souls and enjoy a challenge, we said “yes, we can”. Passion and dedication are what counts.
We are accustomed to seeing our work --our clothes-- on real women, so it was mind-blowing to think this would be in the centre of Madrid, on a public thoroughfare where, where innumerable people will see it. It is still mind-blowing!

A Helbig woman never goes unnoticed, and we hope this Menina won’t, either. That why we called her “Talent Never Goes Unnoticed”. 

We spent a lot of time on this to make the result worthwhile. I hope you like it."

“Flying Around Madrid”, by Javier Limón and Ricardo López

Javier:

“To design this Menina we took inspiration from the song Volando [“Flying”] that I had composed to mark the arrival of Iberia’s first A350. I handed the song’s lyrics to my brother, Ricardo, who is a visual artist, so he could think of something to do with these words.” 

Ricardo:

“I played with theirs sizes and shapes in different typefaces. The drawing for the Menina was like a work of graphic art.”

Javier:

“I wrote the song, but it has been played by many of my international students from all over the world at the Berklee College of Music in Boston. We made a video of the song for Iberia, which you can see here. We wanted our Menina to embody that sort of multiculturalism. I hope we’ve managed to do it.