CONNECTION TO THE PAST IS AN ASPECT THAT HAS BEEN CAREFULLY CULTIVATED BY INTERIOR DESIGN IN RECENT YEARS. THIS MAY EVEN BECOME A CENTRAL IDEA OF THE CREATIVITY IF THE NEW BUSINESS REPLACES ANOTHER ONE THAT HAD SOME QUALITY OF UNIQUENESS. THIS IS THE CASE OF THE DESIGUAL STORE (ONE OF FOUR, INCLUDING THOSE IN CATALONIA AND THE BALEARIC ISLANDS), LOCATED IN CARRER ARGENTERIA IN BARCELONA. THE SHOP OCCUPIES THE PREMISES THAT WERE PREVIOUSLY HOME TO THE MYTHICAL ZELESTE MUSIC HALL.

Homage to the Past
This club, cradle of what is known as Música Laietana –the Laietans being the Iberian people who lived in the Barcelona area before the Roman age- shook Barcelona nights during the seventies in its freest and most creative zenith. Some discos remain, encompassing the environment created by concert nights. Martí Guixé, author of Desigual’s interior design, decided to pay homage to Zeleste by allowing it to live on, in a new life as a store selling casual clothing for young people. With the exception of the entrance, which in a very Martí Guixé-style features a rural scene composition of photos, artificial grass and dummies, the rest of the store seems not to want to overcome the past. The night-club emergency doors are still there, and even the blue light behind the glass walls is still there. In one of the rooms Martí Guixé himself stages an artistic work on a two-minute video: a manifesto for the preservation of the remaining traces of Zeleste, which could disappear as a result of a final remodelling phase of Desigual. Guixé took equal parts irony and militancy to cook his interior design elements. Newspaper clippings with reviews of Zeleste concerts decorate the walls of this same room. By the middle of the eighties the old night club had been moved to an old industrial area in El Poblenou district, to become a medium-sized concert hall and bar, eventually re-christened Razzmatazz. One of the distinctive elements of the Desigual brand is the powerful image of its logo, created by the designer Peret, in which “equality allowing for difference” is the outlined philosophy behind the shop’s products.