Portuguese designer Manuel Alves, 73, of the Alves/Gonçalves fashion duo, died today at Hospital da Luz from cancer, friends of the designer confirmed to Lusa.
According to a family friend, Cila do Carmo, fashion designer Manuel Alves died late this morning at the Hospital da Luz in Lisbon from cancer, and the wake is due to take place on Wednesday at the Amoreiras chapel in Lisbon.
Speaking to Lusa by telephone, designer Miguel Vieira recalled his personal friend and professional colleague Manuel Alves as a person with “unbelievable humor”, a “great professional” and “one of the biggest names in fashion in Portugal”.
“He leaves behind a great legacy. He is one of the biggest names in fashion in Portugal and a person who has been able to reinvent himself over time. He was very ‘workaholic’, a person who was often misunderstood, even in the way he worked, and a bit misunderstood in the structure of fashion in Portugal, but a person who left a huge legacy.”
Miguel Vieira recalls that Manuel Alves was a teacher – he lectured at the Faculty of Architecture at the University of Lisbon – and so he created many designers, many stylists, many people linked to fashion in Portugal.
“It’s a great loss. Especially as a friend. He was a person with an unbelievable sense of humor. It wasn’t every day, but almost every day the two of us would exchange messages with jokes, and I’m going to miss him a lot. He was someone I had a lot of fun with,” lamented Miguel Vieira.
Manuel Alves was born in Montalegre, in the district of Vila Real (Trás-os-Montes), and has been a duo since 1984 with José Manuel Gonçalves, when they both decided to open two stores in Lisbon’s Bairro Alto to sell their creations for men and women.
Manuel Alves and José Manuel Gonçalves – who created the Portuguese fashion label Alves/Gonçalves – have designed uniforms for companies such as Portuguese airline TAP and telephone operator Vodafone, as well as costumes for cinema, theater and ballet, and have also developed a ceramics line and another for jewelry and accessories. In 2008 they also created a stamp for the Portuguese Post Office.
Between 1991 and 2013, the fashion designer was a guest lecturer at the University of Lisbon’s Faculty of Architecture, where he taught Fashion Design.
In 2009-2010, the Museum of Design and Fashion (MUDE) in Lisbon held a retrospective on the work and career of the two designers, “Creative Lab: Manuel Alves and José Manuel Gonçalves”, curated and designed by both of them.
With the support of Portugal Fashion, the duo showed their collections at various international fashion weeks, including São Paulo and New York.