Antonio Augustus

With his creations we enter a world of dreams, art, talent and technique. His colour influences come, quite naturally, from Angola, the country where he spent his childhood and adolescence, and from his time as a student in the most cosmopolitan cities in Europe – Paris and London – but also from his restlessness. He enjoys constantly exploring everything and using everything as a basis for inventing a new language of fashion, with its various forms, patterns and colours. The exhibition that Augustus has devised makes use of installations, beginning by showing us sketches, photographs, jewellery design and a video that sums up his creative world, together with his designs of chita, a typically Portuguese cotton material with patterns of light and dark stripes decorated with a profusion of flowers, amphorae and birds, which was widely used for making dresses and furniture upholstery during the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. In this exhibition, Homenaje a la Mujer (Homage to Woman), Augustus combines tradition, history, art and fashion. This world is followed by the installation of the series Homenaje a los Descubrimientos (Homage to Discoveries), in which Augustus clothes the future. This brings us to the installation that he has created to invite us to La Boda (The Wedding), a celebration that acts as an antechamber to the collaborations provided by Portuguese artists of renowned prestige, including Gracinda Candeias, Helena Liz, João Chichorro, João Vieira and Jacinto Luis, who have painted by hand on the dresses that are exhibited. This leads us to the last room, where, to bring the celebration to a close, we are presented with a selection of his designs.