Barcelona jewelry line founded in 2018 by designer Adriana Manso, known for chunky, brightly colored acrylic 'bon-bon' rings hand-cast at a family-run workshop using recycled and locally collected plastic.
Best for Barcelona Y2K resin rings and plastic-fantastic jewels
La Manso was started in Barcelona in 2018 by designer Adriana Manso, whose background is in lighting design for theatre. The brand's starting point was upcycling acrylic costume jewelry sourced from vintage shops around Spain, inspired by pieces from her grandmother's own collection. The signature product is the 'bon-bon' ring - large, brightly colored plastic baubles set with rhinestones and gold-tone orbs - made by hand at a family-run factory using molds and locally collected recycled plastic. The label built its following through Instagram before catching on with wearers including Bella Hadid, Dua Lipa and Miley Cyrus.
Barcelona's grand fashion house since 1843 — four generations of the Taberner–Sans family, 2,000 m² on Passeig de Gràcia by architect William Sofield, its own bespoke tailoring atelier, in-house fragrances, and a champagne bistrot. The Catalan capital's benchmark of luxury for 180 years.
Best for The definitive Barcelona luxury edit, with bespoke tailoring upstairs.
The Gothic Quarter workshop that invented the fashion espadrille in 1940 — wedge heels thirty years before Saint Laurent sent them down a runway. Jute soles hand-stitched to canvas in Barcelona; the Tasies family still guards Emilia's craft, and queues still form before the doors open.
Best for Authentic hand-made espadrilles from the source.
Learn to cook Catalan — market tours of La Boqueria followed by hands-on cooking classes where you learn to make paella, tapas, and Catalan desserts. The most delicious souvenir from Barcelona.
Best for The market tour, the hands-on cooking, and the paella class.
Companion Denim is a jeans workshop founded in 2013 in Sabadell, outside Barcelona. It cuts raw and selvedge denim from mills in Japan, the United States and Italy, most of it to measure. Visits to the atelier are made by appointment, and standing models include Jan 033CO and The Modernist. Rips and blowouts are repaired free for the life of the garment.
Best for Made-to-measure selvedge jeans from the Sabadell atelier near Barcelona
Companion Denim was founded in 2013 in Sabadell, a town outside Barcelona with a long history in textile manufacture. The workshop makes trousers in raw and selvedge denim. Selvedge is woven on narrow looms, which closes the edge of the cloth on itself, and the mills supplying it sit in Japan, the United States and Italy. Raw denim is left untreated, so it fades to the person wearing it rather than arriving aged.
Custom work is the centre of the business. A customer chooses from the denim library and the pair is cut to measure, and a measuring guide is published on the site for anyone ordering at a distance. Visits to the Sabadell atelier are made by appointment. A visit covers the making, the range of fits and the stock pieces held there.
Standing models carry names as well as numbers, among them Jan 033CO, Jan 034P Omaha, Joel 031CO and The Modernist, with a Deck Chino beside the denim. Hems are finished by chain stitch. Jeans made under the SUNMADE label are produced with solar energy, which the workshop states is its answer to the carbon cost of manufacture. Rips and blowouts are repaired free for the life of the garment.
Founded in Barcelona in 2004, Papabubble hand-pulls customizable rock candy and caramels in an open workshop-store. Customers watch the sweets being made in the Gothic Quarter.
La Pintoràmica runs paint-your-own ceramics studios in Barcelona's Gràcia and El Born neighbourhoods, supplying the pottery, paints and glazing so customers can decorate mugs, plates and bowls in roughly two-hour sessions. Finished pieces are kiln-fired and ready for pickup within three days, with prices starting at 15 euros.
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