Asunción Bastida: Barcelona and Haute Couture

The Disseny Hub Barcelona presents an exhibition dedicated to Asunción Bastida Pibernat (Barcelona, 1902 – L’Espluga de Francolí, 1995), a key figure in 20th-century fashion and the only woman in the core of Spanish haute couture. The show recovers her career and highlights her role in design and fashion history. Starting her path in 1925 in Barcelona, she consolidated her fashion house in the 1930s and, after the Civil War, turned her firm into a benchmark of haute couture with a presence in Barcelona, Madrid, and Seville. She presented collections internationally in Brussels, Venice, Cairo, and New York, and her prestige was reinforced when Christian Dior authorized her to reproduce and sign some of his models.

The exhibition brings together textile pieces, period photographs, drawings and original sketches, documentary material, magazines, advertising, and audiovisual archives to rediscover an essential creator and revisit the narratives of fashion history. Visitors can appreciate her work's elegance of line, innovative use of materials like cotton and linen, modernist-inspired embroidery, and references to traditional clothing. The exhibition is produced by the Disseny Hub Barcelona and La Fábrica, with curator Laura Ballarín Bescós.