Runway
Alfonso Pérez’s collection for Ángel Schlesser transformed the runway into a ritual, using liturgical references, bold volumes, and symbolic colors to question beauty, power, and presence. Courageous and uncompromising, it balanced conceptual provocation with impeccable craftsmanship, reminding us that fashion can be both art and cultural reflection.
Updated 10:41 am EDT, September 29, 2025
Published 01:01 am EDT, September 30, 2025
Photo Courtesy: © IFEMA MADRID
t’s not always that you come across a runway show that reminds you what fashion is for. Not just clothes, not even just beauty, but a reflection, a ritual, a prompt to question who we are and what we are normalising. Ángel Schlesser’s latest offering, designed by Alfonso Pérez and just presented during Mercedes Benz Madrid Fashion Week was one of those. Courageous, unflinching, and conceptually uncompromising. This collection made the catwalk into an altar, and dressing into a sacred ritual.
The source? Liturgy, directly: its symbolism, its rhythm, its ability to ingrain gesture with meaning, sometimes for good, and sometimes not. And just like a ritual, this show used every single element to deliver its message. The garments, the hair, the lights, the music, the models’ expressions… everything worked together as one. It was a spectacle in the truest sense of the word, but not a shallow one. This was fashion at its most difficult, its most necessary: questioning, pushing, provoking.
From beginning to end, the references were clear. White dominated the first chapter, bringing associations of purity, ritual, and transcendence. Long, voluminous shirts, priestly tunics, sculptural robes, each piece drew on religious symbolism but reimagined it as fashion. The silhouettes were elongated, structured, often oversized, demanding space, demanding presence. These weren’t clothes to blend in; they were clothes that carried weight.
Color followed like a second liturgy. Yellows, blues, purples, and reds in bold, almost ceremonial tones. They weren’t decorative, but symbolic, each one freighted with associations of spirituality, power or transformation. And then came the conceptual pieces: garments in sculptural shapes, textured surfaces that looked like relics, exaggerated volumes that blurred the line between body and altar pieces. These were not easy clothes, but they weren’t meant to be that. They were statements, provocations, challenges.
Ángel Schlesser "Liturgy" collection during Mercedes-Benz Fashion Week Madrid - September 2025
And yet, within this conceptual narrative, there was also a pulse of wearability. Pérez balanced the bold with the elegant, the dramatic with the refined. One of my favorites, a white asymmetric dress, felt both experimental and undeniably chic, translating the collection’s message into something instantly desirable. The final black coat, voluminous, strong, and perfectly cut, was another example of how this vision could live not only in ritual but in real life. These pieces proved that the collection was not a fantasy exercise but a dialogue between concept and craft, a beautiful dance between art and wardrobe.
As it is the brand’s trademark, the craftsmanship itself was impeccable. Pérez’s deep understanding of volume was evident in every stitch. The way fabric folded, the way proportions shifted, the way garments interacted with the body in movement… it was all deliberate, precise, and thoughtful. This wasn’t about decoration; it was about construction as meaning.
Ángel Schlesser "Liturgy" collection during Mercedes-Benz Fashion Week Madrid - September 2025
But if there was one word that came to mind at the end was this: bravery. It takes courage to put forward a collection like this, one that exposes thorny topics, that courts misinterpretation, that refuses to water down its message for easy consumption. It takes courage to take fashion and put it to work in its hardest, most confrontational, and most uncomfortable role, which is as a cultural provocation, as a mirror to reflect beauty, tension, contradiction and the pressing need for things to change. And Alfonso Pérez did it not only with passion but also with an unapologetically clarity that was thrilling.
Ángel Schlesser "Liturgy" collection during Mercedes-Benz Fashion Week Madrid - September 2025
In the end, we couldn’t leave without a sense that what we had just seen was more than a collection. It was a performance, a liturgy, a reminder that to dress is to speak, to announce one’s presence in the world, to write oneself in the language that is fashion. Alfonso Pérez didn’t just make clothes; he put on a ritual, a performance of fabric, shape and form that implored us not to be comforted, but to wake up.
I hope that this show is remembered not only for its artistry and its beauty, but also for its bravery. It was a spectacular show. But it was spectacular in the service of something more. It was spectacular in the service of meaning. And in a world where spectacle is often confused with noise, that distinction matters.
Fashion Designer and Professor, Mena believes that fashion completely transcends the surface and the most important is how one feels rather than anything else. Fashion is really about how empowered one becomes by it. She channels vibrant flares of vintage fashion and dreams of contemporary twists, inspired by her own life and travels.
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