On 1 September, Juan Carlos Mesa will take centre stage at a ‘Meet The Artist’ event at the Only YOU Hotel Málaga, ahead of the opening on 3 September of ‘Maison Mesa: Emotional Fashion’ at the Museum of Cars and Fashion.
The Málaga Museum of the Automobile and Fashion is hosting ‘Maison Mesa: Emotional Fashion’, a retrospective exhibition that explores the creative universe of the Spanish fashion house Maison Mesa, founded by designer Juan Carlos Mesa and Sandy García, through a lens that places emotion at the heart of the creative process. The exhibition will open at the MAM on 3 September and will run until 15 November 2026.
More than just a chronological overview of the brand’s history, the exhibition offers a journey through the ideas, characters, stories and emotions that have shaped Maison Mesa’s language. It is a way of understanding fashion as a tool for expression and as a realm where identity, memory, desire, fantasy and freedom converge.
In the words of its founders, “holding our first retrospective exhibition is a dream come true, ten years on from the creation of our brand and more than thirty years of Mesa’s career as a designer in this industry”, they state; and they add: “This exhibition allows us to bring our work closer to the viewer from a slower, more reflective perspective, with no time limit on observing each piece, on imagining its story, the times someone might have worn it against their skin – an almost poetic exercise, from our perspective as designers and even more so from that of the visitor”.
Emotion as a building block
At Maison Mesa, a collection never begins with just a garment. It begins with a story; a character, a film, a work of art, an era, an obsession or an emotion can all become the starting point for a creative universe. From there, research, experimentation and craftsmanship transform these references into silhouettes and pieces that seek to provoke a reaction.
‘Maison Mesa: Emotional Fashion’ stems precisely from this idea: emotion as the raw material of fashion. Thus, the exhibition brings together pieces from different periods of the brand’s history and draws connections between collections which, although belonging to different eras, share the same approach to creativity.
Love, desire, rebellion, nostalgia, fantasy and hope emerge as the guiding threads of an imaginative world that champions a personal, theatrical, free and deeply emotional form of fashion.
A creative universe in constant transformation
Since its inception, Maison Mesa has forged its own identity based on a blend of styles, research and creative freedom. The brand navigates between tradition and experimentation, between tailoring and volume, between the masculine and the feminine, and between popular culture and artistic references.
Figures such as Mae West, worlds such as that of *Blade Runner*, artists such as Andy Warhol, Roy Lichtenstein and Jeff Koons, and various cinematic, cultural and social references have fuelled a visual language that evolves collection after collection without losing its identity.
Collections such as ‘No Soy Ningún Ángel’, ‘Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep?’, ‘The Passion of Lovers’ and ‘Das Cabinet’ form part of this journey and showcase different ways of approaching fashion through narrative and emotion.
When fashion engages with art
One section of the exhibition brings together Maison Mesa garments that have been reworked by artists, taking the relationship between fashion and art into a particularly personal realm.
These pieces incorporate the perspectives of Jesús Arrúe, Lara Padilla and Juan Antonio Tinte, artists who engage with the Mesa universe through interventions on garments originally conceived within the language of fashion.
The intervention transforms the garment into a hybrid piece: an object that retains its status as clothing, yet simultaneously acquires a new artistic and narrative dimension.
This section reflects one of the constants in the work of Maison Mesa and its creative director, Juan Carlos Mesa: the desire to forge connections with other disciplines and to understand fashion as a space open to experimentation, exchange and different forms of expression.
The reworked garments thus become a meeting point between two creative perspectives, where design and art cease to function as independent languages and instead come together to form a shared piece.
Craftsmanship, local sourcing and collaboration
Maison Mesa’s philosophy also extends to the way it produces its products and engages with its surroundings. The firm views design as a space for collaboration in which craftsmanship, expertise and locally sourced production play an essential role.
This spirit is reflected in a network of collaborators with whom Maison Mesa shares a common passion for the craft and for creating objects with their own distinct identity.
The brand’s universe thus expands into knitwear and gourmet products alongside El Tío Claus, Casteller’s handcrafted espadrilles, Perssam’s knitwear, Pons Quintana’s braided leather sandals, Anabella Boffa’s handbags, Lisi Fracchia’s jewellery and Susana Martín’s glasswork.
More than just a collection of products, these collaborations form part of a particular approach to creation: highlighting the value of craftsmanship, specialisation and local connection, whilst bringing together fashion, craftsmanship and objects within a single creative universe. The project also enjoys the support of Málaga City Council.
Fashion as an experience
For Maison Mesa, creation does not end with the garment. Fashion shows, music, set design, lighting, performance and imagery all form part of a single language. The brand views each fashion show as an experience in which fashion engages in dialogue with other disciplines and constructs a universe around each collection.
This multidisciplinary dimension also extends to the audiovisual medium, as seen in the documentary accompanying the exhibition.
The exhibition thus invites visitors to view the pieces not merely as fashion items, but as fragments of the stories, processes and experiences that made them possible. “For Maison Mesa, the MAM is also an emotional museum, from its conception by João Magalhães to the management of its current two directors, Elvira Carrera and Mar González,” the brand states; and they conclude: “But what we would like most is for the public to leave feeling moved, joyful, happy, enamoured, startled, fascinated… Any emotion except indifference; we hope to convey to them all the love with which we do our work and that they take home with them a little piece of Spain’s fashion history.”
The documentary: “A View from Within”
As part of the exhibition, visitors will be able to attend a screening of the Maison Mesa documentary, an audiovisual piece that offers a more intimate insight into the brand’s creative world.
Directed by Miguel Thevirum, the documentary offers an insight into the process behind the collections: the ideas that give rise to them, the research, the work in the workshop, the creation of the garments and the preparation of the fashion shows.
Through images and testimonies, the film reveals the more human side of Maison Mesa and shows how an idea is transformed into a collection and how a collection ultimately becomes an experience.
The screening thus establishes a dialogue between the physical piece and the moving image, between the result and the process, rounding off the exhibition experience and drawing visitors into the world of Maison Mesa.
Events
Meet The Artist by Maison Mesa
Tuesday, 1 September 2026
Only YOU Hotel Málaga
Opening of ‘Maison Mesa: Emotional Fashion’
Thursday, 3 September 2026
Málaga Museum of the Automobile and Fashion
‘Maison Mesa: Emotional Fashion’
From 3 September to 15 November 2026
About the MÁLAGA MUSEUM OF THE AUTOMOBILE AND FASHION
The Málaga Museum of the Automobile and Fashion incorporates automotive heritage, haute couture, design and various artistic expressions linked to contemporary culture into its programme. The inclusion of ‘Maison Mesa: Emotional Fashion’ reinforces its programme dedicated to exploring the relationship between fashion, art, design and creativity.
Source: MAM Communications Department