Te amo, Barcelona

I have recently returned from a visit to the Catalonian capital and as always I now have a camera full of graffiti pics as I find it almost impossible to pass a well-tagged door without taking a photo. As the city is covered in spray paint I found myself having to stop and shoot every few minutes which admittedly was not so great for my weary travel buddies. The stuff that really grabs my eye tends to be the doors and shutters randomly plastered in layers of paint and stickers, however I also really like the amount of politically motivated grafitti that can be found around the city. During my last trip at the height of the Iraq war you couldn't move for 'No a La Guerra' slogans, there was even one rather majestically scrawled across the front of a bank in blood red paint. Hooray!

These are some of my favourites from this my most recent visit:


My Spanish is pretty limited never mind my Catalan, however i'm pretty sure that the first pic translates as 'Freedom for Amadeu Casellas'. Casellas is an anarchist prisoner that has staged a number of hunger strikes in protest of the conditions in Catalonian prisons. The fifth image I think loosely translates as 'Our life is Dada', a sentiment very close to my own heart.

Despite being occupied by photographing, cooing at all the Gaudi loveliness and looking after thirty 16-19 year olds, I did manage to squeeze in a little retail therapy at this rather lovely boutique Glint.

They had a really great selection of clothes and accessories by local designers and I went away with two really cool tees. The first was from a collaborative collection between the Barcelona based french grafitti artist Miss Van and the designer Anaoana. I was well aware of Miss Van's illustrations of fiendish ladies and it was great to see how well her designs translated onto cloth.

Miss Van urban.

This is the lovely Circus Horse tee I picked from the collection in a beautiful blush pink.

Miss Van couture.

I also purchased this ace tee by Cellophane Attitude featuring my beloved heroine Alabama Worley. I was very tempted to get the Billy Brown version too as I absolutely love Vincent Gallo's character in Buffalo 66. Unfortunately as those Euros don't go far nowadays Billy couldn't come home with me.