Marcelo Senra, the “women’s architect” who always bets on the native

He likes to present himself as an architect of women who builds their identity, reversals them or gives them an aesthetic sense, creating the images with which each one presents the world.

It is also and like nobody, an alchemist of textures, every time it makes up an unthinkable mix, between gauze, chaguar, natural silk, organic linen, asta, mica, hemp, silk straw, modified copper and craft paper and metal paper threads .

He came to use Barracán – handmade of his native Salta – in unique vests, but the material requires dry climate and rejects the humidity of Buenos Aires.

In his atelier in front of the Colón Theater, Marcelo Senra (60) speaks of his more than 30 years with fashion.

“My balance is very good. In so many years of career I lived everything; I am independent since I started and made myself to the Ponchazos. Before fashion I made image advice and it was very good. I was receiving myself as an architect when I introduced myself at the first young art biennial and I was selected, by a unisex smoking that my sister Monica passed -Modelo, it was Miss Salta- and I. That gave me great impulse ”, Remember in front of Viva.

He received from architect at the University of Morón, But he was interested in fashion through his sister. In the UBA he won a contest for the design chair – Pablo Ramírez was his student – and, at the same time, Tini convened by Bucourt, who was looking for an image advisor.

“I began to form academically, but at the same time I learned the trade with a tailor and a dressmaker from the Flores neighborhood, until I launched with my first parades. I looked for places like the Borges Cultural Center, I decorated the Foyer and I had a great call. It was like ‘the new’. I always did everything lung, I alone, but with a lot of pleasure. ”

At that time, he lived on teaching, advised women and began making their own clothing line. “The magazine for you gave me a great support. Matilde Quintana made me the first production: a barracán vest with long fringes that my mother helped to achieve. The next day my phone began to sound. Readers to those who told them that I had no place, who lived in Flores … I think they didn’t know where it was! (laughs).

And I offered to take what I had done to the house, from clothes to accessories; All in a cute bag. One day I touched the bell in a fantastic house, a butler attended me and said: ‘The girl is coming.’ An 18 -year -old girl appeared and bought everything. From Suede Camperas, Chaguar Vests, Accessories … I soon went to Punta del Este and I also sold everything on the beach. ”

To “overcome the hippie-chic” he moved to Arenales and Rodríguez Peña, in Barrio Norte, with his friend Anita, daughter of a clocharde modeler. “It was a beautiful apartment, but it was not suitable for Showroom. A judge who lived there complained and we had to go. “

At that time a client chain had already been made and moved to Córdoba and Carlos Pellegrini until he settled in Talcahuano and Santa Fe for 18 years. He was also in Pacific galleries, in Palermo, But Showroom always had because that is where he works to measure. “What I learned in these years is not to have so many people with me. Yes I have my lifelong workshops. But if I go on vacation a month, I close and voila. And my life continues, nobody died. In an era I suffered terrible stress; But I learned no. Because I can’t keep doing everything ”, Senra, Locouaz and Verborrágico says at light speed.

“My style arises from the first moment. When they asked me for a definition for a book they wrote to introduce us in Paris, I put their own style, native and natural. We did not say sustainable fashion. But always maintained the same concept. I wanted to revalue quality crafts and bring them to fashion. That was my great transformation and my contribution. I started to make a more Argentine fashion, with national identity. My gaze was always that and I always enriched and hierarchized the product. And as an architect I realized the functionality. Everything can be very nice, but if it is uncomfortable it does not work. And so I grew up. “

It also became known at the Sun Fair. “Many people were looking for the different, because at one point everything was very uniform. There were very nice situations in my life. For example, make dresses to the owner of the clocharde, to Susy Chebar, Jasmine’s mother. One day I entered my business and was buying Carmen Maura. Again, Antonio Banderas with his wife of that moment (Melanie Griffith). There was also maximum zorreguieta. But we agree that they do not come to look for brightness and necklines for Martín Fierro; I am not very farandulero. I am opaque and I like to insinuate more to show. I don’t have a media profile. I want my work to transcend and someone say ‘that is a sin’. For me it is the maximum, ”he says satisfied, narrowing his eyes.

The idea of ​​taking the native of the country has to do with its birth in Tartagal, although he lived in Salta City until he came to Buenos Aires. “I had uncles that were of boat, near Tartagal. It is an area of ​​Yungas and there is a Wichis community in La Loma. At the time of the nap, with 15 years, I went with them to see the wonders they wove, the work they did and continue to do. They go to the mountain to look for a plant called chaguar, defibrillate, stain and weave with a special needle. They represent the animals of their mountain, they are geometric tissues. In Guatemala, South Africa and Thailand there is also the fiber of the chaguar. When it was the celebration of the V Centenary of the discovery of America, I presented some bombs in chaguar with a shirt woven in bee nest … It was shocking. But you like the chaguar or not. There is no middle ground. When I knew how to cut it and how to drive it, it was glorious, ”he confesses.

They called him as matriarch – the NGO founded by Paula Marra- to design. Today that brand markets the crafts of 2,600 women from the Wichi, Qom and Pilagá communities of the Gran Chaco, and became owned by the Cooperative of Artesanas. Fabiana Mena continues the legacy of Matriarch, is president of the Gran Chaco and Anthropologist Foundation, a gender specialist and policies. “The Great Chaco Abarca Chaco, Salta, Formosa, Paraguay and some of Brazil, where the Chaguar or Caraguatá plant -clarifies. Very interesting is also the Green Museum (there are 6 in several countries); It is an association created by the Italian Gherardo La Francesca that values ​​the achievements of this area. A couple of years ago he organized a parade in Asunción del Paraguay, which I participated enthusiastic. That high fashion parade would be replicated at the headquarters of the Latin American Institute in Rome. It was shown that indigenous crafts are high quality products, which enter the design catwalks. My past were successful and I had the satisfaction that Ana Fendi bought my pieces. “

When he started using native materials, he had to educate his collaborators. “It was crucial to soften the fibers because they felt hard; Try, investigate until dominating the different textures. First I prepare the molding on a mannequin. Then with nails that frame the mold, I will weaving with the paper thread – for example – according to the design and I get this piece. ” Marcelo shows a single shoulder vest, armed with thread, with rigid structure, to wear on a dress. He has built other bibs with metal details, made with the bases of the gas cans.

Senra gives use to what is always discarded, before ecology and circular fashion existed. His Bijoux objects are the result of an inexhaustible imagination. Necklaces made with cold porcelain, hemp, metal threads and asta. “The convicts of the northern prisons boil the horns to be able to iron them, polish and laminate. I always looked for places to get legitimate elements. I traveled to Morocco, Myanmar, Cambodia and India, and brought typical textures that I mix with those here. In India I discovered another aesthetic very different from the one that came to Argentina, so ugly! They have noble, opaque materials, without such vivid colors. I spent a month and Tini showed me his love for this country. He took me to a four -story building where there was one whole with wonders. I brought a bag with shells that I applied in several sandals. “

Marcelo participated in Mad Mood Milano Fashion Week, SALEENTO SEPTEMBER 2024, through Andy Garmendia, which conducts fashion image by Channel 9. The Mood Milano Fashion Week opened a call for Argentine designers to be part of that week, at the initiative of Garmendia, representative of designers and models globally. The week was developed with the support of Mariana Miceli, president of this fashion week. “Andy called a contest and the one who won, put together his parade without putting a weight and had the stay pay. I introduced myself and was selected with other designers. “

Although there is a new Marcelo Senra, more relaxed, transmits the concern of the creative, which abbreviates in books, cinema or trips to nurture their sensations and give free rein to its great inventiveness. In a nutshell: it is unstoppable.