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Laga started out as an accessories brand and is now best known for its womenswear featuring bohemian prints that so many have fallen in love with. We speak with José Iraolagoitia, co-founder of a brand which gets its name from a Basque beach. He tells us about plans for more shops in Madrid in 2010 and about making Laga a beacon of casual fashion with a romantic, vintage twist.

Laga started out in fashion jewellery and is now best known for its prints and vintage looks. How did the transition come about?
Our father had a fashion jewellery warehouse and when he retired we started out making our own creations and founded the Laga brand in 1996. Right from the outset, we wanted to make a brand, and we approached our collections as if they were fashion garments. Designing clothes was as much by chance as out of necessity. Ever since we started, we wanted to have two clearly defined seasons, which is rare for fashion jewellery. It’s not a product you usually get to preview a year beforehand.

How did the first Laga womenswear collection come about?
Five or six years ago we had some very interesting prints intended for scarves and we had the idea of designing some very basic blouses. They sold like hotcakes at fairs and we made our rather timid entrance into womenswear. To begin with they were small collections. Then two years ago, we started creating global collections. Today, clothes make up 75% of turnover and fashion jewellery just 25%.

José and Gonzalo Iraolagoitia are the life and soul of Laga. Are you entrepreneurs or designers?
We have no specific training in design. In fact, I studied cookery and am a professional chef. You might say that Gonzalo takes charge of sales (retail, outlets, stock), while I do the buying (design, marketing, product control). We are very clear in our minds that fashion is a business and that’s the direction we’re working in. We always have. In that sense, Laga is half creation, half business.

“You could say our cooking needs a bit of sauce. The prints are the sauce

How do your accessory connections link in with the bohemian, romantic style of Laga clothing?
We’ve come from the world of fashion jewellery, so detail and colour have always been important. However small it is, an ear-ring still has a lot of parts which might range from metal to glass, resin, plastic and ribbon. Prints and the combination of different colours and materials are what the world of fashion jewellery is all about. We’re working with global concepts. We start out with very loose sketches and then look for information, blend colours and create atmospheres. Then we move on to the specifics: loose or close-fitting clothes, prints and so on. French costume jewellery has been a big influence for us. We just love that aged romantic look and literary atmosphere.

Tell us about the spring/summer 2010 collection?
It’s a laid-back collection based on tranquillity, on making time for ourselves, sitting down to read a book... So the prints are very gentle and romantic, and polka dots are a big feature. For winter 2010/11, we’ve changed the setting and drawn our inspiration from China. Our dresses, trenches and autumn clothing use fabrics that are bright but not garish. The collection proved quite a hit at fairs and is accompanied by fashion jewellery to match.

Prints are now a brand hallmark. Who’s the illustrator behind them?
I like to make collages and my brother also loves design, although he’s not in the creative department. We’ve always got cuttings with ideas in our pockets. So far, we’ve developed the prints ourselves and for the next collection, we’ll be working with print designers. We’re art amateurs and maybe that’s where it comes from. We’ve even developed prints for international companies, like Italian firm Epic. As a brand, we don’t go in for basics, so you might say our cooking requires “a bit of sauce”, and the sauce, as I see it, is the print.