The Madrid Craft Week awards inaugurate the great week of craftsmanship

Madrid Craft Week Christmas 2022 kicked off its seventh edition on Friday and consolidated its position as the benchmark event for crafts in Spain. From 11 to 20 November, the capital will become the epicentre of contemporary crafts, celebrating creativity, the value of handmade goods and the new sustainable luxury.

This great week of crafts was inaugurated with the 2nd Edition of the Madrid Craft Week Awards at the Ateneo de Madrid, in a ceremony presided over by Begoña Villacís, Deputy Mayor of Madrid City Council; Miguel Ángel Redondo, Delegate of the Madrid City Council's Department of Economy, Innovation and Employment; Almudena Maíllo, Delegate Councillor for Tourism of Madrid City Council, and César Ramírez, organiser of Madrid Craft Week.

In the words of Begoña Villacís, "craftsmanship is a revolutionary movement against uniformity, it is an authentic dialogue without traps between the creator and the person who purchases the piece". The deputy mayor emphasised that by buying crafts you are buying the time of those artisans who are putting their soul into their work. And she concluded, "in society we always talk about redistributing money, never time, which is the most valuable thing".

For his part, César Ramírez, organiser of Madrid Craft Week, stressed that "crafts and the values they represent are becoming increasingly important on a social and economic level". Ramírez pointed out that "one of the challenges of this initiative is the involvement of citizens, who are still unaware of the crafts that are treasured in Madrid. We are opening the doors of more than 300 workshops to all of them so that they can work hand in hand with the artisans".

The Madrid Craft Week 2022 Awards, with the participation of Cervezas Alhambra, as a sign of its commitment to creation, processes and raw materials, recognise the effort, work and talent of the protagonists, as well as highlighting the value of craftsmanship from different fields.

These are the winners in the 9 categories:

Madrid Craft Week Artesana 2022 Award: Sara Uriarte, founder of Cordero Atelier

Sara Uriarte, founder and director of Cordero Atelier, is much more than a floral artist. Trained as a pharmacist, her botanical studies can be seen in her unique ability to recreate her own universes through flowers, which she seems to reinvent in expressive sculptural forms. She collaborates with luxury brands such as Hermès, Kenzo, Narciso Rodríguez and Loewe, and in her hands nature is a new artistic current. For a commitment that breaks with the tradition of floral craftsmanship, taking it to the dimension of the plastic arts, she received the Madrid Craft Week 2022 Artesana Award.

Madrid Craft Week Comercio Artesano Award: Calma Chechu

At Calma Chechu, Cecilia Mallardí and Alejandro Alloco design and produce furniture (which they sell in Spain and abroad) in collaboration with a team of iron and wood craftsmen. Their coordinates: interior design, industrial design and intuition. It establishes a dialogue with the materials to bring out the soul of each piece. His chairs are an icon of made in Spain. For his dedication to recovering and promoting traditional trades, generating links between them and taking them into the future, he received the Madrid Craft Week 2022 Comercio Artesano Award.

Madrid Craft Week International Projection Award: Mint&Rose

Mint&Rose, founded by Monti Gutiérrez, is one of the best brand ambassadors of the Mediterranean lifestyle. In 2012, when she created her fashion brand, an espadrille was her first product. An emblematic shoe from which she has been able to trace a business path with an unstoppable international projection, as well as diversifying her proposal, with textile design, accessories and beauty products. For taking the quality of the Spain brand to international markets such as the USA, Asia, Australia and the rest of Europe, it received the Madrid Craft Week 2022 International Projection Award.

Madrid Craft Week Business Award in Support of Crafts: La Hacería

La Hacería is a unique platform for finding craftswomen in Spain. The designer Moisés Nieto is the driving force behind this digital map that boosts the visibility -for now- of more than one hundred craftswomen, as well as their connection with the fashion sector and other producers, paving the way for a collaborative and efficient way of working. The search engine, a sort of Google for Spanish crafts, works by discipline or location. For connecting innovation and tradition, and opening a new path towards the future to favour the promotion, visibility and business generation of craft techniques and trades, it received the Madrid Craft Week 2022 Craft Support Company Award.

Madrid Craft Week Trajectory Award: Calzados Franjul

Calzados Franjul is 75 years old. It was born in 1947 in the Barrio de Las Letras and there, in its shop-workshop in Lope de Vega street, the second and third generation of craftsmen continue to carry out the process of design, pattern making, cutting, fitting and assembly in the traditional way. The history of Franjul is the story of thousands of women who have been able to make their exclusive shoes a reality, from singers and actresses to members of the aristocracy and royalty, but above all hundreds of brides and bridesmaids from all over Spain and abroad, who come in search of their best quality leathers from Spain and Italy, worked in processes that are one hundred percent handmade. For more than seven decades of uninterrupted work in the service of handcrafted footwear design, they have received the Madrid Craft Week 2022 Lifetime Achievement Award.

Madrid Craft Week Gastronomic Craft Award: Nino Redruello

Heir to a saga of restaurateurs, Nino Redruello is the third generation of a family business that began 100 years ago with La Ancha. This was followed by Las Tortillas de Gabino, La Gabinoteca, Fismuler, Molino de Pez (in Barcelona) and his latest opening, The Omar, in the Thompson Hotel Madrid. With the family maxim that "every day is opening day", Redruello carries out a daily exercise of care, surprise and continuous improvement, from the raw material to the preparation, and from the interior design to the atmosphere of his premises. Everything has a meaning. For knowing how to understand and embrace tradition and transform it into something new and vibrant, it has received the Craft Week 2022 Gastronomic Crafts Award.

Madrid Craft Week Artisan Neighbourhood Award: El Rastro

Over 400 years old, the Rastro has been the nerve centre of the artisan trade in Madrid for more than 400 years. A historic market, held on Sundays, which coexists with more than 500 shops, craft, decoration and antique centres. With exhibitions of plastic arts and even technology, and with the creation of new spaces for lovers of wine, comics, paper, cinema and photography, the Rastro neighbourhood continues to grow. For its historical and social character, beyond the purely commercial, and its unique role as a living gallery of art and crafts, it received the Madrid Craft Week 2022 Barrio Artesano Award.

SACo Contemporary Crafts Award: Toni Porto

A master turner with 30 years of experience, Toni Porto's workshop has seen several generations of turners. He combines expertise and sensitivity to the extreme, and his pieces exude mastery of touch and curvature. Porto collects the local woods himself (chestnut, oak, ash, boxwood...); he experiments with green woods, so that, once finished, the pieces evolve: he leaves the last word to the material in a very personal dialogue. He has an outstanding international reputation, so it is only fair to recognise him in his homeland. For his work in transmitting knowledge and excellence in execution, and for his research and personal commitment to raw materials and creative processes, he received the SACo Contemporary Crafts Award.

ACTM Textile Crafts Award: Pepa Carrillo

Pepa Carrillo, originally a watercolourist, moved from canvas to silk painting, and with this technique she has created textile accessories such as scarves, fans and textile jewellery, participating in numerous fairs in Spain and abroad. A specialist in shibori, the millenary technique of Japanese origin, she has become one of the most renowned teachers in Spain and has given numerous workshops. Among her latest activities, she has been selected to participate, among others, in the Contemporary Crafts exhibition at the Thyssen Museum. For her long career in which she has demonstrated great creativity and ability to adapt to change, which has resulted in a successful commercial and artistic career, she is the recipient of the ACTM Textile Crafts 2022 Award.