Agatha Ruiz de la Prada the Aristocrat Who Painted Fashion in Color
By Silvia Gonzalo, Germany Correspondent
In 1981 she presented her first collection in Madrid. In September 2026 she brought her spring/summer 2027 collection to the Galería de Cristal of the Palacio de Cibeles.
When Agatha Ruiz de la Prada walks through the door of her studio in Madrid, the first thing she sees is her store. She thinks that’s great, because it keeps her in direct contact with the merchandise and the customers and lets her check that everything is properly arranged. She believes it is wonderful for the store and for her.
In September 2026, the Galería de Cristal of the Palacio de Cibeles fills with reflections during Mercedes-Benz Fashion Week Madrid. Large mirror-finish arches in bright colors multiply every model who passes, and strokes of paint across the dresses give a sense of movement. Gingham shoes rise on colorful platforms decorated with hearts and flowers; polka dots and stripes meet balloon pants, and linen and silk mikado give the pieces body. Green appears in the makeup and in the bridal gown, the final look of the show. The entire spring/summer 2027 collection takes its cue from the light of Madrid summers. Days later, it appears again at the El Taller pavilion in Madrid’s Macondo Park, during Shakira’s European residency.
As a girl, she dreamed of becoming a painter. She grew up among the works of modern art collected by her father, the architect Juan Manuel Ruiz de la Prada, and over the years she came to see painting as too solitary a craft; she chose fashion, she has explained, so she could work surrounded by people. That wish to paint, she says, left her with a strongly graphic style. In 1981, at the height of La Movida, the countercultural movement of 1980s Madrid, she presented her first collection at LOCAL, a design center in the city, and throughout that decade she exhibited painted garments and drawings in local galleries. Then came the runways of Paris, Milan and New York, fuchsia as her signature color and, in 2017, Spain’s National Fashion Design Award, which honored the way she brings fashion together with art, design and industry.
The archive of the foundation she created in 2011 holds garments from 1982 and 1983. She prefers not to lend them out, because clothes suffer so much wear and tear. She still uses her signature symbols, among them hearts, stars and clouds, though the rain motif may appear less and less.
The marquisate of Castelldosríus was created in the late seventeenth century. Its first holder was Spain’s ambassador to the court of Louis XIV at Versailles. Years later, he became Viceroy of Peru.
Today that title is hers. Agatha Ruiz de la Prada is Marchioness of Castelldosríus, with the dignity of Grandee of Spain, and Baroness of Santa Pau, two titles that came to her through the family of her mother, the Catalan aristocrat María Isabel de Sentmenat. Her formal style of address is Her Excellency.
Her son, Tristán Ramírez, runs the company as CEO and is first in line to succeed to her titles. He likes to consult her, and she believes it is important for him to make his own decisions. She praises his intelligence and the common sense he has had since birth. Tristán Ramírez is not one to take risks, and he is such a good person that, according to her, he should have been a priest.
Since 1986, licensing agreements have gradually carried her name to perfumes, furniture and notebooks. She says she has always turned down proposals involving fur. She also received proposals for soups and cornflakes bearing her name. She said no. She still regrets it. Many products with her name sold better than she expected, and others sold less; she admits it is very hard to get it right.
She had not been back to Santo Domingo in eleven years when she arrived in September as a special guest of EmergeRD, a platform for new designers, and the city named her a Distinguished Guest. She found the city center greatly improved. She stayed in a little house that she understood had belonged to Oscar de la Renta, and she thought it was lovely to see how these little houses are being turned into hotels. She loved walking through the Colonial City again and again. EmergeRD, created by Sócrates McKinney, opened its 2026 edition with Agatha Ruiz de la Prada’s collection, which included sixteen linen looks made with the New York label Yako New York, devoted to resort wear in natural fabrics. At the end of the show she appeared alongside the label’s founders, designer Yohanna Gursey and architect Jack Ramos. She and Jack Ramos have been close friends for years; he helps her enormously, they have worked together on many shows, and he is by her side whenever she travels across Latin America. According to Agatha Ruiz de la Prada, the collaboration was born in the atelier of Yohanna Gursey, whose good manners, kindness and passion for her work she praises, and with whom she has grown increasingly close. She recalls, with emotion, one Sunday night: they walked to a square where an orchestra was playing and people were dancing.
Latin America won her heart over the years. At home she keeps many objects from the region because, she says, its people are very generous, and she loves Latin American crafts. In Uruguay, in 2018, she designed the costumes for the Ballet Nacional del Sodre’s production of The Sleeping Beauty, and in Montevideo, in 2022, she spoke to the press wearing a sequined sweater with green and blue stripes, violet glitter tights and red-and-white polka-dot shoes. Cartagena de Indias gave her the keys to the city, and in March 2026 she presented a circular fashion collection in the plaza of Pica, in northern Chile; in November she will return to the country.
In Miami, in late 2024, an exhibition by the Parodi Costume Collection presented her work as that of a conceptual artist. She sees herself as a blend of designer and artist. She loves art and all things conceptual, and finds it very kind to be called that.
In September 2025, in Madrid, she presented a collection developed from images generated by artificial intelligence. Her team turned those images into garments, with organza hearts, flowers and stars that seem to splash across the dresses. If a machine learned her language, she would consider the design her own. Every designer works with a team, she points out, and the house of Chanel still creates in the spirit of a founder who died decades ago. If she likes the result and approves of it, it makes no difference to her whether it is created by a designer or a machine. For spring/summer 2027 she chose to draw inspiration from nature. She has a great many projects underway. Because not all of the projects she and her team develop with so much love come to fruition, she prefers not to announce them until the details are finalized.
Agatha Ruiz de la Prada is Her Excellency by inheritance and fuchsia by choice.
