Call it Balance in the Unbalance
This is the story of a Majorcan farmer’s son, who left his homeland to conquer the Big
Apple’s fashion scene. All at once, Adrover was the dreamlike embodiment of the
American success story. The decline that followed, was just as rapid. In a trice the highly
respected fashion designer found himself again with nothing!
This documentary follows Miguel Adrover, former enfant terrible of New York’s fashion
scene, somewhere between yesterday and today, recognition and trauma.
This is the tale of the farmer's son from Mallorca who left home to conquer the New York
fashion scene. The immigrant who scaled the giddying heights of success and realized
the American Dream before a series of unfortunate events suddenly brought him face to
face with abject failure.
In June 2000 the Council of Fashion Designers of America (CFDA) awarded Miguel
Adrover the "Perry Ellis Award for Womenswear". The press and the fashion industry
agreed: Miguel was definitely the latest star on the scene. They loved his deconstructivist
designs where he turned everything inside out, or cut himself a cool coat out of an old
mattress. The New York Times was already referring to the self-taught designer as the
"prophet of a new realism in the modern age" when his follow-up show "Utopia", with its
Arab burkas and kaftans, was launched just two days before the September 11 attacks.
"Utopia" was never produced, and Adrover's financial backers went bankrupt. In 2004,
after 18 years in the US, Adrover was unable to stay in New York City any longer and
moved back to his home island of Mallorca. There he leads a withdrawn life, working far
away from the spotlights.
This film is a portrait of a creative freethinker who saw fashion as a catalyst of social
change. Archive material conveys the glory of the past, and interviews with people who
knew him and pioneers of that time are as much a part of the film as Super-8 footage, all
providing a fascinating insight into the mind of a creative individual who walked the thin
line between yesterday and today, and between recognition and traumatic failure.
Zürich Film Festival//2011
DOK Leipzig//2011
Filmfestival MAX OPHÜLS PREIS//2012