Portugal Colonial - Top Spanish designers Victorio and Lucchino get own museum

The museum housed in a centuries-old former convent in the southern city of Palma del Rio displays a retrospective of their creations, which are characterised by bright colours and the use of lace and ruffles.

It includes fabrics, dress prototypes, shows, accesseries and jewellery from a career spanning nearly five decades.

"It is a nice finishing touch to our professional careers, a satisfaction, to leave a vestige of our work to future generations," Jose Luis Medina del Corral, 68, who goes by the alias Lucchino, told AFP before the museum's opening.

Lucchino and Jose Victor Rodriguez Caro, 72, who goes by the alias Victorio, met as teenagers in the 1960s and soon became a couple, united by their passion for fashion.

They joined forces in 1975 to create the Victorio y Lucchino brand, and burst onto the international scene a decade later by taking part in the New York International Fair.

Their creations have since appeared on catwalks in Japan, Germany, Italy and the United States, worn by top models such as Claudia Schiffer and Elle McPherson.

The duo's customers have included one of Spain's most famous singers, Rocio Jurado who died in 2016, and Spain's late Duchess of Alba, one of Europe's wealthiest aristocrats.

She wore a salmon-coloured dress with a moss-green sash by Andalusian designers at her 2011 wedding to a civil servant at her palace in Seville.

The designers say they have long drawn inspiration from the culture of Andalusia, Spain's centre for flamenco and bullfighting.

"Every creator lives from the land where he lives," said Victorio who was born in Palma del Rio.

R.Veloso--PC