Photo: Tomás Monteiro
There are never any definitions broad enough to describe Luís Pereira. He was a model, a fashion producer and worked in public relations, and now he manages one of the biggest fashion media agencies in Portugal. Showpress. In this edition of In His Words, we will find out more about this unique figure in the world of Portuguese fashion.
Model, fashion producer, public relations, events promoter? Who is Luís Pereira?
I am all of these things because I am always trying to create something new. I always live for the future, which is perhaps why I love fashion so much. I am interested in the idea that something is reinvented and reborn every six months. There is always continuity, but there is also transformation.
In which role do you feel most comfortable?
All of them. I’ve experienced them at different times and they made sense every time. I would never be a model today, but then it would not have made sense to start my career as the CEO of a fashion media agency. It was through the experiences I had in the various phases of my life that I gained a sense of the environment, of its strengths and weaknesses.
You began as a model. Have your experiences of that role helped prepare you for the jobs you came to do later, particularly as a casting director?
Absolutely. Experiencing both roles means having a broader and more integral vision. I have been able to be more assertive and effective in interpreting and developing concepts and ideas. However, the code is constantly being updated. A casting today is very different from one ten or twenty years ago. We have new aesthetic ideas, we are more global, more immediate in processing information. A live stream fashion show has to be conceived in a way that is very different from a conventional show, where the audience plays an essential role. They are very different performances, and the pandemic has made this difference very clear.
You have a great deal of experience in this area. How has fashion evolved in Portugal over the past twenty years?
I belong to the first generation of professionals who gave birth to it all… Designers, studios, designer associations, model agencies, stores, international representatives, etc. We are still far from the ideal scale, which must be more global, but we have grown. I feel the new generations of designers already have a very clear idea about how they must develop their brands. How they should use social networks to energise their products and give them visibility. Despite the difficulties, they are beating the path.
What advice would you give to someone just starting out?
To have patience, resilience and an infinite ability to love beauty. Nothing is easy, but there is always room for a new look…
