- “I am very excited and I feel that with my victory I am closing a stage”, says the young man, who came second in the previous edition.
- In the final duel with Borja, he wore a black wool crepe dress, adorned with 80 metres of ostrich feathers.
- The final achieved the highest audience share of the season, with 1.2 million viewers (10.9%).
“I’ve come back for the mannequin and the briefcase”, promised Lluís Mengual when he returned to the ‘Maestros de la Costura’ workshop, and on Monday he succeeded. An average of 1,200,000 viewers (10.9% share) followed the thrilling final duel between Lluís and Borja in the fifth edition of the sewing and fashion design talent show, produced by RTVE in collaboration with Shine Iberia. The final, a record audience of the season, was watched at one point by 4,131,000 people. “I am very excited and I feel that with my victory I am closing a stage,” he said when he discovered he was the winner.
For the final challenge, the jury asked the duelists to pay tribute to Giorgio Armani, a global benchmark of style and luxury. Each designed and made an exclusive gala dress, worthy of the king of the red carpets, under the watchful eyes of Lorenzo Caprile, María Escoté, Alejandro G. Palomo, Raquel Sánchez Silva and models Eugenia Silva and Marina Pérez. Borja and Lluís gave their best in a healthy competition between friends. “Whatever the judges decide, a friendship has been born here and no prize will break that”, they acknowledged before the verdict was announced.
Lluís arrived at the final duel very nervous and with more enthusiasm than in the previous edition, in which he came second. For two hours, he made a black wool crepe dress, which he adorned with 80 metres of ostrich feathers on the neckline, the front slit and the hem. On this occasion, she wanted her work to have a story and took the opportunity to tell the jury a tale about a black swan.
“The dress is as spectacular as the story. It’s amazing, super elegant and it’s perfect for a red carpet. It would certainly get all those flashes we were talking about. I think you’re going to get a lot of commissions,” Alejandro G. Palomo told her. “The proportions are marvellous, your seams are perfectly centred and this eyelash is perfectly worked. With very few elements you manage to make any woman feel wonderful”, said Lorenzo Caprile. María Escoté congratulated him for leaving aside his “tieta” side and doing “something more sophisticated”, a “sexy and elegant design” that even Eugenia Silva wore in New York, although it was Marina Pérez who finally wore it.
In addition to the briefcase with the 50,000 euros and the golden mannequin, Lluís will complete his training with a specialised course in Fashion Design at the Centro Superior de Diseño de Moda of the Universidad Politécnica de Madrid. Borja will receive a Vogue diploma in Fashion Styling and Production, taught by Condé Nast College Spain in collaboration with the Universidad Carlos III de Madrid. The third and fourth place winners, Pablo and Lili, will receive EOMETRIC, the avant-garde method of tailor-made pattern making for upper garments, created by master pattern maker and designer Estanislao, which is taught in a five-day workshop format and a masterclass in haute couture and tailoring techniques.