Sienna Bentley and Ray Leach

More than 130 people gathered at the Swiss Church to watch Genaro Rivas once again make history as the only Peruvian designer to make the London Fashion Week official schedule.

The collection explored the duality of light and darkness, drawing inspiration from witchcraft and the occult. All of the looks feature elements from John Dixon’s 1773 painting Incantation and several prints were developed by photographs taken by Rivas to add a contemporary twist.

We were lucky to sit down with Rivas for a second time to discuss the show in more depth and get his thoughts on how to raise the profile of Peru as a fashion hub.

How long did you spend on the conceptualisation of the collection and bringing it to life?

If I told you the truth, you wouldn’t believe me. However, a fun fact is that the penultimate dress in the show comes from a graphic 16th-century

Back in October, I was contacted by a group of artisans. They wanted to collaborate with me and I was so keen to do it. However, once I sent them the inspiration behind the collection, they were like “no”. But the penultimate dress of the show was hand-sown, and we have been working on it since last November. It’s one of the parts I love the most about the collection; it’s all about taking something that people are usually scared of and giving it a twist. I was finding all these paintings from the 16th century and their depictions of women – I was asking myself why they were painting women in this way.

The collection is all about transformation. Aside from the transformative nature of fashion, what personal story does this collection tell for you?

It’s all about transforming oneself and starting to acknowledge that there is light and fun and colour, but there is also dark and emotion and turning all of that into something beautiful.

I’m starting to feel a little bit more comfortable in acknowledging that I find beauty in those spaces, and I want to bring those spaces to my practice.

I found this silk, and I was like let’s cut it, let’s sow some bits on, let’s create something beautiful out of that.

There is this gallery in the United States, and I took inspiration from the depictions of women in those paintings and complement it with pictures I took on the streets. I started to build a narrative around not being fearful of a witch, magic or the occult – but to embrace it.

Over the last few months, I have delved into astrology – my astrologer is always the one telling me when we do things, when we should announce the show and everything. So lots of twos and fours.

It’s all about acknowledging that there is light and darkness and there can be courage and wounds, and making something beautiful out of that. That’s also why I wanted to create these dresses that look like they are torn.

Can you talk a little bit about the soundtrack for the show?

I hope you liked the music. I wanted it to sound ritualistic, and usually my process is to create playlists with references, and my main inspiration and reference for this collection was The Witch (2015). When I heard the first draft of the track back in October, I could really imagine the models walking to it with a heavy beat.

What do you think the fashion industry could be doing to amplify Peruvian voices?

Peru should first acknowledge that fact that we designers work a lot, we are talented, we come from a different background and we have amazing materials. But it’s also really important to have the support of the government, because without that, there is a lot of talent and many creators that are going to fall through the cracks.

I’ve been able to do my fourth London Fashion Week show because, first, I earned a grant, second, I took a lot of part-time jobs and third, I started building my own ecosystem. But if we had the government’s support that would be amazing and Peru could be seen as a fashion landmark. In order for us to make that happen, we need to create a fashion industry – instead of just letting people come to Peru in order to buy materials.

I have a lot of support from the BFC [British Fashion Council] and they have supported me from day one, which I love. As a foreigner, I feel at home right now.