La Movida Madrileña: the history of our time

The youngest ones will look strange when they hear this name. To those who are not so young, it will sound familiar from the mouths of their parents or grandparents. But those who experienced it firsthand may be rocking a moment of happy nostalgia. And the Movida Madrileña was a period in Spanish history that deserves its own name , in capital letters.

After forty years of intellectual wasteland and repression imposed by the regime, people were hungry for freedom, for profound changes in society.

Thus, towards the end of the 70s , in the midst of transition, the Spanish capital became the breeding ground for a countercultural movement known as Movida Madrileña , from where it spread to the rest of the cities in a maelstrom fueled by music, cinema, literature, painting, photography and, of course, aesthetics.

This movement lasted, at its peak, about six years (1980-1986) , but, as we will see at the end, some of its components refused to disappear among the memories of the generation that changed society forever.

Malasaña, epicenter of the Movida Madrileña

Due to its location, the Madrid neighborhood of Malasaña has always been a cultural hotbed , a neighborhood that knew that the nights only ended at dawn. Starting in 1975, while the streets began to gradually recover their imprisoned voice, the night owl and bohemian Malasaña became a true speaker with enough force to be heard throughout Spain .

There, the interest in alternative urban cultures , in the underground and in general in everything that until then had been prohibited lit the fuse of the Movida Madrileña, whose “official” birth was on February 9, 1980 , the day it had A tribute concert to Canito , drummer of the group that would later be called Los Secretos , took place. In that concert, broadcast by Onda 2, well-known groups from what would become La Movida participated, such as Alaska y los Pegamoides, Nacha Pop, Los Trastos and Los Bólidos.

From there, the Movida Madrileña made the leap to other capitals of the country , especially after the “Spring Concert” of 1981 , organized by the School of Architecture of the Polytechnic University of Madrid. In fact, the importance that the Movida Madrileña gained was such that it even flirted with some politicians of the transition who saw in it the desire of the citizens.

Countercultural expression of the Movida Madrileña

La Movida touched all strata of art , although its vehicle of expression par excellence was music.

Through art, the movement showed its rejection of what was socially correct , of mass thought that, due to inertia, was still dominant in those years. Thus, among his most famous proclamations were, for example, sexual freedom, drug consumption, the sale of contraceptives, etc.

In the music

The music of the Movida Madrileña was greatly influenced by punk , the rock subgenre that emerged in the 70s in the United Kingdom as a protest against the conventions of society. There was not a single musical genre, but rather a hodgepodge of sounds that ranged from punk to glam-pop , including new romantic .

Musically speaking, not all the members of the groups were great artists. Sometimes, it was just enough to know how to play an instrument minimally, get on a stage set up in any slum and do what one could (or wanted) in front of the public.

However, we can talk about highly valued groups not only in the Movida years, but also afterwards: Alaska y los Pegamoides, Zombies, Radio Futura, Los Secretos, Nacha Pop, Loquillo y los Trogloditas, Mamá, Leño and Duncan Dhu , to name a few from the extensive playlist. Many played in the legendary Movida venue, Rock Ola , and some, over the years, have become cult groups .

Most of these groups began to be known through the demos that were played on radio stations such as Onda 2, Domino and Dinamita . The younger ones will miss each other again, but at that time there was no Internet or social networks, so recording a first independent music album was really difficult.

At the cinema

Until then, the public was accustomed to the cinema of the time, films set in a rural, humble and corseted Spain.

However, in La Movida, the cinema showed completely different scenarios and characters , all with a background of social denunciation, reproducing situations never seen on the screen to date : homosexuals holding hands or kissing, people taking drugs, etc.

Although he started in a music group, Pedro Almodóvar ( Pepi, Luci, Bom and other girls of the bunch ) ended up becoming one of the greatest exponents of Movida cinema. Others also worth highlighting were Fernando Trueba ( Opera debut ) and Iván Zulueta ( Arrebato ).

Other manifestations

The Movida Madrileña was also expressed in other forms, such as literature, photography and painting . But there is another area through which it manifested itself unmistakably: aesthetics .

The aesthetics and fashion of the Movida

Yes, the Movida Madrileña was a verbal expression, but also a visual one. In fact, it marked a before and after in fashion , and some of its looks are coming back over time.

In those years, hairstyles that defied the laws of physics, prints, platforms, leather jackets, studs, tights were the order of the day... All finished off with accessories of all kinds, the better the more, such as chains. , bracelets, rings, piercings, etc.

There was no single way of dressing, but there was a common denominator: standing out, attracting attention, dressing in a way that clearly showed liberation from conventionalism .

It was in the years of the Movida, not only in Spain, but throughout the world, when denim garments became established as an absolute fashion icon . Jeans were made in more models, in more colors, in more finishes and in more washes . And it was a garment of horizontal and vertical expansion: it could be worn by both the most anti-establishment member of the Movida and the politician who felt chills when hearing about this social movement.

The 80s, although we could also include the 70s, were prolific in Spanish denim clothing brands , but few were as well known among the “Movida people” as the legendary Bustins STOCK, leading to its registered patent as BustinSTOCK, de la Costa. Brava .

BustinSTOCK, the brand that dressed the Movida Madrileña

Those who lived through the Movida Madrileña have probably worn a Bustins at least once in their lives. This company , originally from a small coastal town in Girona, crossed the pond and opened a store in Los Angeles in 1990 .

It all started with two brothers from a sewing family, Rosa and Albert Bustins , who started the business with a small store in Galerías Neptuno, Platja d'Aro, in 1968 . From there, they went to other nearby towns, such as Lloret de Mar and Roses , and to more distant ones such as Benidorm and Ibiza .

The growth of the company would soon take them, of course, to Barcelona and Madrid , where they opened two stores, one on Alcalá Street and another in Fuencarra l.

With the outbreak of the Movida Madrileña, BustinSTOCK became a leading denim brand in the Spanish capital , as well as in the places where it was present. The brand's jeans walked through the Movida environments, and dressed names that resonate in our heads, from musicians to television celebrities .

Among the regulars at the Bustins store (then STOCK) were Alaska herself, Miguel Bosé, Bibiana Fernández, Ana García Obregón, Pocholo, María José Cantudo, Norma Duval, Miriam Díaz Aroca, etc. Their attachment to the brand was so great that some of them traveled to the Platja d'Aro store to buy “at origin”.

As anecdotes, Duval sometimes went looking for Bustins clothes to wear on TV, Pocholo came with his brother and they used to park their motorcycles in front of the store, Ana G. Obregón used to stay chatting with the shop assistants, Miguel Bosé wore the brand to their successful album “ Los Chicos No Lloran ”, among many more stories as a result of the daily life that existed between them and the store workers.

As the years passed, with the Movida over (towards the end of the 80s) and due to globalization and new consumer habits, the brand closed most of its physical points of sale during the 2000s . However, the spirit remained and was taken up by the descendants of Rosa and Albert Bustins, who maintain the first store in Platja d'Aro from 1968, a tribute to their birthplace, and their online store .

Thus, with a name change, from BustinSTOCK to Bustins Jeans , the brand is still alive after so many decades in which other clothing brands were absorbed by multinationals or disappeared altogether. Today, they put the economic model of slow fashion into practice, handcrafting garments with kilometer zero, resistant and timeless materials .

The Movida Madrileña moved too quickly through the years from 1980 to 1986. It disappeared due to the commercial success of some of its older members, who lost their “essence”, and the rejection it began to generate among the younger population, a population that I was already beginning to forget that freedom had not been a gift from heaven, but rather a social conquest.

Although the Movida is only a memory that will disappear in one or two generations, for now, at Bustins , we cannot help but smile at the happy nostalgia of having experienced it firsthand , from our Madrid stores located, for more than 25 years, on Fuencarral Street, 9, (1975-2006) and on Alcalá Street, 155, (1976-2002), one of the most important social movements in the recent history of Spain .

Whether you want to remember or meet us for the first time, we're still here .