In this week's broadcast, we take you to Mercedes-Benz Fashion Week Madrid, a highly anticipated event in the fashion calendar and a major platform for promoting Spanish creative talent internationally. Following last week's Autumn/Winter edition, we shine the spotlight on the EGO runway, a stage for showcasing emerging talent, which is celebrating its 20th anniversary this year.
Valentina Suárez-Zuloaga, creative director of Mercedes-Benz Fashion Week Madrid, highlights the importance of nurturing emerging talent and the many success stories that began on the EGO catwalk, where ten up-and-coming designers had the opportunity to showcase their work this year. We met two of them: Marta Granados, founder of Maison Gracen, and Erik Bruccia, the designer behind Eaftimos. They told us about their creative vision, their sources of inspiration and the challenges in establishing their own fashion brands.
We are also joined by historian Pamela Radcliff, an authority on the history of Modern Spain, who recently presented the assessment '50 Years of Scholarship on the Southern European Democratic Transitions' in Madrid. Professor Radcliff talks to us about this investigation, and also shares her thoughts on recent revelations about the 1981 coup attempt, as well as the surge of revisionist narratives about the Franco dictatorship. She is concerned that 'many people have lost the belief that democracy is making their lives better'.
Ahead of this weekend's Madrid Comic Fair, we also speak to its curator, writer and journalist Laura Barrachina. She gives us a preview of the cultural programme for this edition, which will bring together international authors and feature talks, panel discussions, live podcasts, radio broadcasts, screenings and comic-creation workshops for children and adults.
Finally, we address the war in the Middle East. In Lebanon, the human toll is rising dramatically and cultural sites are being destroyed, as humanitarian organisations warn that Israel is committing war crimes. Our collaborator in Beirut, Elsa Yazbek Charabati, gives us the details.
