FIESTA TIME! YOUR FABULOUS FLAMENCO OUTFIT FOR AS LOW AS €20!
Fashion model and TV presenter Eva González in her traje flamenca, a
veritable work of art, at the opening of SIMOF 2022 in Seville
by Jack Wright
It’s fiesta time. You want to wear your best flamenco outfit and get ohed and ahed, right? It’s only natural. And the good news is that it’s affordable!
SIMOF poster
The prices of trajes de flamenca (flamenco dresses) vary widely, depending on whether they are for little girls or grown women, short trajes or long, decorated or unadorned, the number and styles of the flounces, the time of the year. . . But the most important factor of all is, who made the attire.
Though the trajes flamenca are sold all year round and the trajes’ busy season begins after the Feast of the Three Kings (6 January), it’s the Salón Internacional de la Moda Flamenca (SIMOF) in Seville that fires the starting gun, signaling the true beginning of the flamenco season. This year SIMOF was held from 3 to 6 February.
Where to buy the trajes
Trajes flamenca are sold even at flea markets in the neighborhoods. There, one can buy trajes for less than €100. Lately, souvenir shops have decided to have a cut in the business and started to sell tawdry trajes flamenca, giving a bad name unfairly to the trajes that, through the years, have earned a well-deserved reputation as true works of art.
Shop in Seville specializing in trajes flamenca
At regular specialty stores, prices usually range from €200 up. At the more reputed shops such as Aires de Feria with several branches in Seville, the outfits in its 2022 collection sell for €350 at the cheapest and €500 at the higher end. However, this price range is what’s on its website . And it is to be expected that the range is wider when in-store prices are also taken into account.
Designer trajes are expensive. They could go for €500 to €1,000 but it isn’t unusual to find tags marking €2,500 and higher.
Some skilled and talented seamstresses have turned their homes into virtual ateliers that enjoy brisk trade with fussy clients who want their trajes made to order.
Fiesta of San Isidro painted on tiles
Though trajes flamenca are sold any time of the year, the high season for the sector ends when the Feria de Abril does. Indeed, some shops close after the Feria packs up. But this is mostly true only of Seville. In Madrid, the Feria de Abril doesn’t ring down the curtain on the season since the traditional and hugely popular fiestas of Madrid patron saint, San Isidro, on 15 May, and those of San Cayetano, San Lorenzo and the Virgen de La Paloma, from the 6th to the 16th of August, are an invitation to wear the flamenco fineries at the religious ceremonies and the verbenas.
If you are one of those who feel they must deck themselves out in the flouncy trajes at least once in their lives, you’ll be glad to know that trajes flamenca could be had for as low as €20. For second-hand, that is. But what if after your first traje you develop a fondness for the costume? No worries. There are any number of great shops where you could invest a hefty amount of euros in a truly spectacular flamenco outfit with a view to wearing them at the (appropriate) fiestas year after year. And it isn’t just in the ferias either. Some aristocrats tend to show off their best trajes at elegant weddings.
Here’s a list of sites you could check out. But note that there are so many more outside of this list to cater to your fancy and match the size of your pocketbook.
Second hand
https://es.wallapop.com/moda-y-complementos/traje-flamenca/madrid
https://lunaresblancos.com/categoria-producto/trajes-de-flamenco/venta-segunda-mano/
Brand new
https://www.vivalaferia.es/es/trajes-flamenca/baratos.html
Trajes flamenca at a Feria de Abril: note different skirt lengths and styles of flounces
https://www.vivalaferia.es/
https://www.vivalaferia.es/es/trajes-flamenca/coleccion-tendencias-2022.html
https://www.disfracesgilmar.com/73-disfraces-sevilla-feria-abril
https://es.dailyguides.com/web?o=1465210&l=dir&qo=homepageSearchBox&rch=intl743&q=FLAMENCO+COSTUME
https://saradebenitez.com/moda-exclusiva/moda-flamenca/trajes-flamenca/?orderby=price (Collection 2022 from €600 to €1500. Sara de Benitez was one of the designers who presented their collection at SIMOF.)
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Images
Featured image courtesy SIMOF 2022 Prensa Seville City Office. Photo: Chema Soler
SIMOF poster courtesy SIMOF 2022 Prensa Seville City Office
Shop selling trajes flamenca in Seville. Photo by https://www.flickr.com/photos/peribanyez/ , CC BY-SA2.0 via Wikipedia
San Isidro fiesta/Riozujar, CC BY-SA4.0
Trajes flamenca at Feria de Abril/Sevilla Congress and Convention bureau, CC BY-SA4.0 via Wikipedia
