The tiny island of Illa del Rei, located in the port of Mahon, Menorca’s capital, has gone through various incarnations across the centuries. It was the landing place of King Alfonso III in 1287 during the reconquest of the Balearic Isles (hence the name, which translates to ‘King’s Island’); the home of a military hospital for troops during the British occupation in the 18th century; and, over a millenia before – as was discovered by chance in 1888 – the site of a 6th-century Palaeo-Christian basilica. The shards of the mosaics found – depicting deer, birds and twisting vines – are now safely ensconced in the Museu de Menorca.
An altogether more contemporary temple to art now stands on the island: an outpost of the Switzerland-founded gallery Hauser & Wirth, occupying the former hospital and surrounded by serene Mediterranean gardens by Dutch landscape designer Piet Oudolf (the entire project, and outdoor sculpture trail, was overseen by Paris-based architecture studio Laplace). It was within this bucolic scene that Illa del Rei entered yet another incarnation this past week: the setting for a fashion show, with the Australia-based label Alémais choosing the island to present its Resort 2027 collection on Wednesday evening.
‘We followed the signs here,’ Lesleigh Jarmanus, who founded the resort-wear brand in 2021, tells Wallpaper*. ‘We started the collection in January with a design trip through Spain – it rained the entire time, with the sun coming out only twice. Once when we first met our artist collaborator Sophie Wahlquist at her Mallorca studio, and again when we found our show location on Menorca’s Illa del Rei.’
The serendipitous sunshine – which reappeared once again on Wednesday evening – led to what Jarmanus, who worked in fashion for 20 years before starting Alémais, calls ‘a process of generous creative connection’. ‘The local community introduced us to friends, friends of friends, family members and business owners who made it possible for a brand from Australia to stage a show on a small island on the other side of the world,’ she says. ‘As a result, the collection is deeply inspired and grounded by a sense of place.’
Indeed, Wahlquist’s work was central to the collection, which saw Jarmanus continue to forge the eclectic, art-inflected summer wardrobe – enlivened by artisanal flourishes – for which the label has become known (the designer was a Fine Arts graduate before transitioning into a career in fashion). In particular, Jarmanus was drawn to the Germany-born, Mallorca-based artist’s colourful ceramics, which were here used to inform the structure of garments: ‘the ceramic medium inspired us to approach fabric in a new way, twisting, folding and manipulating by hand,’ says Jarmanus, who noted that the collection’s ‘curved and exaggerated’ silhouettes were drawn from Wahlquist’s vessels.
Another inspiration was the city of Barcelona and its Catalan architecture, another stop on her original research trip. ‘There is a unique energy in Barcelona,’ she says. ‘It was even more beautiful in the rain, the grey sky illuminated the organic forms and colours of the city. I was inspired by the bravery in unrestrained creativity and devotion to craft, and how expression can be its own form of alchemy.’ The various buildings conceived by Antoni Gaudí, in particular, drew Jarmanus’ eye: ‘Walking into the Sagrada Família was a deeply emotional experience. The scale, the fluidity of the forms, the way light moves through the stained glass, it felt less like architecture and more like a living expression of faith and imagination.’
All this led to a collection which captured the essence of holiday dressing: the impulse towards colour and adornment, something that Jarmanus says draws on the idea of picking up trinkets and keepsakes on your travels. ‘Our design process is always guided by how we want people to feel wearing Alémais and in this collection we wanted to bring forth a sense of discovery,’ she says. ‘Small details captured in the pieces that act as treasures for the collection – colourful stones captured in macrame, artisan-embroidered lures with unique beaded forms and trinkets. There are details you may not notice at first, but they are intended to bring joy.’