#selmark

Pilar Rubio presents her second collection of swimsuits for the Galician company“Selmark”.

Pilar Rubio is a TV presenter, mother of four boys, a born athlete, as well as a designer and fashion lover. "My mom was a seamstress, and I grew up surrounded by fabrics and sewing machines" says presenter a few days before presenting her second swimsuit collection for Spanish company Selmark. Pilar was fully involved in this new project from the very beginning of the creative process ("We did everything through a video call because we started working on it just before my childbirth") and the five models (three swimsuits and two bikinis) reflect her powerful personality and inexhaustible energy. We discussed with her shortly after she announced that she tested positive for COVID-19. Pilar talks about fashion, design and family, three of her great passions, although she undoubtedly recognizes that her four children are the best project in her life: Sergio, Marco, Alejandro and Máximo Adriano.

This is the second collection you have created for Selmark. What will we find in it? It's a good news. After the success of the first collection, they wanted to make another one and I think we make a great team and we understand each other very well. We have the same idea of what a swimsuit is, what message we want to convey to women ... and I think it's a concept so different from anything we're used to. This first collection was so different from the others because we wanted women to feel that swimwear is their ally. When they offered it to me, they told me they wanted me to design the swimsuits, and I said, "Wow, swimsuits, the hardest thing there is."

How to find the perfect swimsuit? I'm a perfectionist and can spend days looking for a swimsuit that I feel good and comfortable with until I find one that I like. I think it happens to other women too. When you wear one you have to be very sure that it fits you because it shows a part of you that you don't show for the rest of the year. That's why the statement we use is perfect: "it suits you, you feel better". This is the message we want to send you because if this costume suits you, you'll be safer, more comfortable, you'll feel more beautiful, and it all adds up.

What's the key to this second collection? How was the creative process before launching it on the market? The important thing or the key to these two collections is that the shapes are perfect, that they fit all women and emphasize the beauty of women. We've spent a lot of time on it, calling it interior engineering because we've created designs that favor all curves, tweak beautiful parts and hide the ones we don't like so much. We have been working on the second collection since January 2020. I was not able to go to Vigo, which is where Selmark is located, but through a video call we understood each other, we saw fabrics, colors and found five models that are perfect without any doubt.

What inspired you this season? I have been inspired by powerful women, who for me convey that magic that we all have and that empowerment that seems to be very fashionable today but that I think we must always carry as a flag. May these designs make us feel like this: beautiful and powerful in equal measure.

The campaign also includes some spectacular photos, one of which is very wild, where you pose with a snake! Not only men will be in the jungle! (laugh) Women can also have a wild and glamorous point. That model, "Mamba", is beautiful, it goes back around the neck with a bow and makes it a perfect body to wear on a summer night, for example. You can be in the jungle, on the beach, in nature or in the city center, it's important to feel good.

You're not only the face of this collection, you were fully involved in the entire creative and production process ... Sure. I am not just an image, I actively participated in the entire design process. Whenever my image is behind something, it's important to me to take care of it. Each such product has to be something that I have tested and I'm sure it suits me. It's like another baby for me (laughs). I created it myself and that's why I took care of the smallest detail. There is also a very strong field work. I asked all my friends! I asked them what they like, what they want to hide, what they like to enhance with a bikini ...

These five models can also be used for going out to the city and not just for the beach or swimming pool, right? I also wanted them to be super useful, so that I could also go out into the street in them. We've already done it with another collection. I wanted the clothes to be so beautiful that you want to wear them all the time. In fact, many of the models in the first collection were sold out within the first hours of leaving. Now with this second collection I wanted to give it a further point of sophistication. Each model I have imagined in a different place. They are so versatile that they are not only for bathing, but can be worn for a drink at the beach bar or beach club for an afternoon in Madrid ... logically accompanied by a skirt, a pair of pants, a jacket ... But let the one who is brave and wants to take it out as is, I applaud her! (laughs)

What would be the best way to combine them? If I was in Madrid I would take a red swimsuit, model Diamond, and wear it with a jacket and shorts. I would like a total look in red. You can wear a bikini top with a floaty skirt to go to the beach club. To go by boat, you can combine it with a caftan. And I love the Dream model that is a bit psychedelic and Hindu, and that one with some hanging colored glasses, it would look great.

Where does this passion for design and sewing come from? My mother is a seamstress and all my life I was surrounded by fabrics and sewing machines, watching my mother arranging First Communion dresses, suits, and sewing skirts and dresses for me. And little by little I was tinkering, I took the old sewing machines that were at home, I asked her for patterns and I was making my skirts, my dresses. I've always liked it. It's a way to escape the world, it gives me peace. It's like therapy. It's my favorite hobby, although now I don't have as much time as before being a mom. But before, when I had a free time, I usually spent it sewing. At home I have an old sewing machine, which is more than a hundred years old, the kind you have to hit with the foot, which was my grandmother's. Before, I used it often. Now I have a more modern model but I keep the old one as a relic and it's also an excellent piece of furniture because when it's closed it's like a small table.

Are you still sewing clothes for yourself, or are you at least customizing some of the ones you already have? Yes! I customize everything! I still take scissors, bleach ... everything I find out there and I give it a lot of use. You can't even imagine! Suddenly, there are a thousand ideas in my head! But my main source of inspiration is the heavy metal bands of the 80s so every time I see articles from that era or read books from that hard rock scene, I try to make dresses or suits that are inspired by those artists, which are my idols.

Would you like to restart your own brand like you did years ago with rock shirts? Being who I am, who is involved to the fullest, now it is impossible, but you never know. At the moment my most important project is my children and from there I try to manage everything else.

Do you see a talent for creativity in your children? The truth is, they all love to paint. Soon I won't have walls to hang my children's paintings! They bring them to me every day and they are super cute with phrases like "I love you mommy" so I can't throw out any (laughs). But the one I see most interested of all, the most meticulous and detailed, is Alejandro, my third son. Every time I'm sewing or drawing something, he comes up right away and asks: “Mom, what are you doing? And because? And how do you do that? You teach me?"He already wants to take a needle, but for now I won't let him (laughs). I can see that he is very interested in anything creative.

Designer, TV presenter, you exercise every day, four little children ... Please tell me, how do you do it?! (Laughs) Like many others, I guess. Since you have to do this, try your best to align the pieces of the puzzle. But it's important not to neglect yourself as a woman, to have good mental and physical health that makes you send good energy to your loved ones. That's why I have to feel good to make others feel good.

Your husband, Sergio Ramos, is one of the most fashionable celebrities, would you dare to design something for him? I think it would be entering the men's field and I haven't done it yet (laughs), so far I'm only inspired by things that are for women.

How did you spend the last year of the pandemic? If we had to take stock and be able to get something positive out of this catastrophe, it would definitely be the fact that we could be together. We make a good team, distribute responsibilities, we also have very good children.