by For a man living in a remote village of 700 residents on one of the Balearic Islands, Miguel Adrover seems to have the world of fashion.
Twenty-five years after the Spanish designer first rocked New York Fashion Week with his collection of reworked heritage logos, fine fit and streetwear, Adrover is ready to shake the ground with a one-off which duly surpasses itself. and the city of 8 million he once called home. This time, however, Adrover’s idea came not from a crowded Lower East Side apartment—as he had in 1995—but from the more relaxed 750-year-old farmhouse where six generations of his family have grown up.
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After almost 98,000 Instagram followers, including many young people who were looking for products, the 58-year-old was inspired back into design. Another push came from brands like Balenciaga and Gucci “appropriating” his (design) “language,” he said. His new baseball cap with the “MA” logo looks very slightly reminiscent of the New York Yankees trademark logo. After he used a similar logo for a sweatshirt in his fall 2000 collection, he was sued by the Bronx-based Major League Baseball team. Before any production took place, the two parties reached an agreement, the designer said.
As common as baseball caps and sweatshirts are on the runway today, Adrover said that wasn’t the case when he showed them years ago. It’s a little ironic to bring back that signature style, “in a little ironic way,” said Adrover, who previewed them in an Instagram post Thursday ahead of the May 12 rollout. And doubly so, considering that Gucci created a baseball hat for the New York Yankees, albeit an authorized hat, he said.
As the winner of the 2000 CFDA New Designer of the Year award, Adrover sold his collection to Bergdorf Goodman and other top-shelf retailers at one point. “The message I wanted to get across was that the New York Yankees represented the city of New York, and that I was a New York designer. I wanted to embrace all these logos like ‘I❤️NY’ and McDonald’s. It was not made to be trendy, as it is being done now. I thought it showed the power of style in a city like New York,” Adrover said, adding that even people in his small village wear Yankees caps.
Although Adrover still subleases a bar in Mallorca, he lives with his aging parents in the village to help look after them. The fact that Adrover no longer has a license to rent out part of his house to tourists due to recent government restrictions on short-term rentals by private residents was another incentive to sell the hats. Available in two sizes and without a buckle closure, the hats have Adrover’s signature and hand labels and required an 18-month search to decide on a factory. They will retail for about $174, which he said is significantly less than the $434 Balenciaga baseball caps he saw for sale in Paris.
As well as working on his own photography and art, which is shown through a gallery in Paris, Adrover was photographed for a Vivienne Westwood advertising campaign earlier this year. Adrover regularly returns to the 11-and-a-half-foot well to work on his art. Because of his own campaign, he wore the Yankees-inspired litigation hat and sweater for a self-portrait. His decision to get back into fashion, or at least make a small splash, comes from wanting to express his surroundings and his social consciousness. The Instagram ad refers to the tongue-in-cheekly address for “I❤️MyCustomers.”
He added, “You can see in my archives that many of my products are meant to last a lifetime. I loved Lee McQueen. We were very friends. But I can’t go back to the McQueen collections and be able to wear anything in everyday life.”
Despite “never being an ambitious person,” Adrover said he still has a place in the industry as someone who speaks out on topical issues. He criticized the Met Gala for “being a big circus that is completely disconnected from reality,” and that it is no longer for “respectable people and intellectual bohemians of New York.” He said, “Outside the Met, all these protesters were pro-Palestine. My label is attached to reality. There are a lot of people out there, who are looking for a brand that reflects that kind of emotion and energy.”
Claiming to have been approached for roles by Donna Karan, Moschino, Lanvin and Tommy Hilfiger over the years, Adrover said he didn’t need to be a “creative servant to a big corporate brand.
“Young people need to have their own platforms, spaces and society,” he said.
Noting that the fashion industry is a major contributor to pollution – which accounts for 10 percent of global carbon emissions – and its impact on climate change, Adrover said there is a need for more designers, who they care about these real things. “That doesn’t mean you have to be boring. I think I have a strong sense of humor. I need someone with money to knock on my door to say, ‘Miguel, we believe in you and your message. We want to make it a business.”
After being “considered toxic in this industry for many years,” Adrover said, “I’m not toxic. It’s the other way around.”
He is eager to see how his friend and former team-mate Adrian Appiolaza fares as the new creative director at Moschino. Adrover is also a fan of Andreas Kronthaler, creative director of Vivienne Westwood, for his commitment to climate change and his support for Julian Assange, [whom Adrover also has fought for in the name of protecting freedom of the press]. Adrover’s social media post about “stopping the suffering of Palestinians” in Gaza won him “thousands” of followers and gained “a few thousand new people,” he said.
Of Jewish and Arab heritage, Adrover said he “supports peace everywhere.” After receiving death threats, the designer said he was scared. “But I’m not racist. I’m just a loving person. I just want people to love each other and find solutions by talking it out,” Adrover said. “I don’t even have a religion. I don’t care about people.”
Looking ahead, Adrover said he expects a major fashion-related announcement in September. Meanwhile, he was surprised by the answer to the hat, which he did not expect to be so important. As of Friday afternoon, the ad had nearly 6,000 likes on Instagram. “I’m a bit overwhelmed because I’m here alone. But I am very happy. I am like a country child. It’s like starting over,” Adrover said. “What I want out of this baseball cap is to be able to pay my water, electricity and living expenses without taking another job. But I also want to keep up my creativity, build on my Instagram page and be able to water my garden. We’ll see what happens.”
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