Retal Reciclaje Creativo
www.retalreciclajecreativo.com

Retal reciclaje creativo is an experimental workshop that combines design and recycling.
The project was created in 2005, as a consequence of the wilful search for a new notion of garment and the way to wear it.
Retal means remnant, scrap, a leftover from another process.
When someone’s work is over, Retal kicks in and a whole new creation begins.
The search starts from used materials, often fabric stolen from furniture, wall covering and so on, re-invented in the shape of clothes as Retal plays with texture, touch, patterns and their unexpected interaction with the bodies of those who will wear them.

Retal is made up by two young Italian designers, Paola Pucci and Paolo Coppolella, an architect and an educational assistant, whose background —quite unusual for the fashion business— provides the root for an unconventional creative process.
The origin is Italian, then, but the project materialized in Valencia, Spain —an ever-changing city, where the old and the new merge together to become an “ambience”, such as the Arab quarter Carmen, where Retal’s seat is located.
The old Arab section of Valencia’s downtown is currently the center of the city’s artistic, cultural and handicraft life, rich in collaborations and synergies between the many designers and creatives who live there.

With its search, Retal carries on the legacy of this place. A positive evidence to that is the choice of the working space, formerly home to “il Purgatori”, an historical art gallery still widely known in town for its past activities; a truly experimental environment that supported critical and innovative expression in the arts.
Retal’s research shares the very same vision; every collection generates from a process halfway between art and craft, from the merger between the inspiration and the ‘re-used’ material.
The visualization of the models does not involve drawings. A few sketches are enough to define the theme of the clothing line, its general spirit and the guidelines for the choice of materials.
The creative act takes place in the workshop, through the handicraft that combines the germ of inspiration and the materiality, the colours and the patterns of the fabric, until the shape of every piece is found.
This process starts anew every time, and each time this combination gives a different result —that is a unique item. One-offs, then, that should be adjustable to as many sizes as possible; bearing this in mind, each piece’s fastening device becomes an element so original and essential that it emerges as one of the main design parameter.

The price is kept deliberately low, in order to allow anyone to wear an original piece created through handicraft and far apart from undifferentiated fashion; an adamant stance against standardization and in support of people’s own search for clothes who reflect their own personality.