Pedro Rovira, from couture to ready-to-wear

The Costume Museum presents the first retrospective exhibition of one of the great names in classical haute couture, Pedro Rovira i Planas (Badalona, 1921 – 1978), mounted on the basis of the funds of the Fundació Antoni de Montpalau, which has brought together the The most important fashion collection in the Spanish State, with more than ten thousand haute couture pieces, ready-to-wear and dressmaking, as well as nearly fifteen thousand objects, accessories and drawings, related to fashion from the 20th century until the present. 

Rovira was the couturier of the golden age of haute couture who was most involved in the consolidation of “ready-to-wear”, from the end of the 1960s and throughout the 1970s. Parallel to his dedication to sewing, created very complete collections to be mass-produced by the industry and marketed both in Spain and abroad (among other markets, they reached those in Germany, the United States and Mexico). 

The exhibition, curated by Josep Casamartina i Parassols, art and fashion historian, with the collaboration of Ismael Núñez Muñoz, curator of the Col·lecció Antoni de Montpalau, and the scientific advice of Rosa M. Martín i Ros, historian of fashion and fabrics, brings together about two hundred and fifty pieces, including suits, coats, brides, accessories, drawings, objects and photographs that span from 1948 to 1978, in addition to a documentary with current interviews with its various collaborators and testimonies of the time.