Esteban Cortázar is no longer the new kid on the block, but with his new label Donde Esteban, he’s exploring a new approach to making clothes—one that more accurately represents his real life. “This is an idea that has been cooking in my heart for quite a long time,” the designer explains on a recent Zoom. “Donde Esteban is really a reflection of my personal life, my upbringing, my culture, my roots, my family, my friends, my community. It’s really merging my life into a brand and into a project that feels very authentic and personal.” Cortázar was born in Colombia, grew up in South Beach in the ’90s, and has since been splitting his time between Paris and Ibiza.
Launching today, the first Donde Esteban collection—think of it as chez Esteban in French or, Esteban’s house in English—is full of resortwear essentials; breezy cotton voiles button-down shirts, silk slip dresses, cotton jersey hoodies, and cashmere blend knits, all in bold landscape prints created in collaboration with his father Valentino, a painter. “He always said to me, ‘Wouldn’t it be great if we did plates together? Or a collection of scarves?’ Now my dad’s getting older and I felt like I wanted to do something that could really showcase his legacy,” Cortázar adds. “Every time I go to his studio I’m always looking through his paintings and drawings and sketchbooks; and it’s kind of like an encyclopedia of work that is his, and it’s also my heritage and to put that into a collection and make it be something that is like a permanent collaboration with him, it honestly fills my life with joy.”
Because of their easy, classic silhouettes the clothes are inherently gender-neutral. There are cotton pareos printed with little star and animal “doodles” drawn by Valentino. A blue slip dress with an abstract “mountainous” print is a painting of Es Vedrá in Ibiza (“It’s one of the most beautiful things to see and it’s very inspiring,” Cortázar sats). A matching set short-sleeve button-down shirt and shorts has an idyllic print of palm trees and crystal-clear blue waters depicting La Sierra Nevada in Santa Marta, Colombia, while pleated and gathered knit bodycon dresses and skirts in shades of green and yellow are an artful interpretation of the mountains near the Magdalena River, also in Colombia. “Nature is a huge part of this whole story—it’s my way to connect to the world, the way that my dad and mom taught me to do,” Cortázar explains. A slouchy crewneck sweater in shades of orange captures the golden hour of the sunset. “My dad never misses it,” he adds, “I grew up like that.”
Cortázar was barely out of his teens when he began showing his collections during New York Fashion Week, and by 23 was living in Paris, where he was named creative director of Emanuel Ungaro, a post he held for a short period of time. He has lived many fashion lives and he’s not yet 40. With Donde Esteban there is a sense that the designer is taking the lessons learned in the past and applying them to a project that allows him to be his most true self—it’s something that can shape and shift and encompass anything his heart desires. “Donde Esteban lends itself to so many other lifestyle universes that I can do in the future,” he says. “I dream of having a physical space that can be the first Donde Esteban—I can see it so vividly—collaborating not only with other brands but other artisans within my community, artisans in Colombia, just finding ways of showcasing other people’s works.”