A night out with Izah: "Flores en invierno" at Fransen et Lafite.

A night out with Izah: "Flores en invierno" at Fransen et Lafite.

There is a moment in the depth of a Madrid winter when the city’s harshness meets a sudden, shocking delicate beauty. It is the contrast we crave. This same contrast defined the atmosphere last week, when we gathered in the heart of the capital for an intimate showcase of Izah’s latest body of work, "Flores en invierno".

We didn’t gather in a typical venue. We sought a sanctuary.

Tucked away on Calle Fúcar 18, Fransen et Lafite is more than a floristry. It is a sensory archive. In daylight, it’s a vibrant, aromatic escape. But for "Flores en invierno," it transformed into a candlelit crypt of exotic greenery and clandestine intimacy

The setting was intentionally dark. Lights were minimal, allowing the shadows of towering ferns, dried bouquets, and scented candles to paint the walls. The air was thick with the rich aroma of rare blooms and beeswax, creating a barrier between the attendees and the bustling Madrid city center just steps away. This wasn't a concert; it was a sharing of secrets among few.

And it was beautiful as Izah shared the spotlight with everyone around her, from Jet Vesper, who produced the album, to the star-studded musicians she collaborates with. It was special. 

Izah took her place surrounded by this living tapestry. Her presence was magnetic: a poised stillness that mirrored the beauty of a single flower persisting against the frost.

As she began to perform tracks from "Flores en invierno," the synthesis between her sound and the space was undeniable. Her voice, a velvety conduit of Neo-Soul and R&B, filled the vaulted room. She didn’t perform to the audience; she invited them into her world.

The songs: stories of vulnerability, resilience, and passion felt fragile yet incredibly powerful in the acoustic cocoon. The darkness amplified every breath, every subtle modulation, making the experience intensely personal.

"Flores en invierno" is a project that understands contrast. It is the bloom that requires the cold to fully realize its strength. At Fransen et Lafite, among the rare plants and ancient architecture, Izah’s flowers found their perfect soil.

...and it was a privilege to be amongst the few to experience it. 

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What If Miró Designed the Jumpman?

What If Miró Designed the Jumpman?

Originally released in 2008, the shoe has always felt slightly different from the rest of the Jordan archive. It doesn't simply reference basketball. It connects basketball, the Olympics, Barcelona and modern art through the work of one of Spain's most important artists, Joan Miró. Now, almost two decades later, the “Miró” is returning. And for us, it felt like the perfect opportunity to ask a simple question: What would the Jumpman look like if Miró were interpreting it today? To understand the “Miró,” you have to go back to 1992. Michael Jordan arrived in Barcelona as part of the United States Olympic “Dream Team,” arguably the most important basketball team ever assembled. The Air Jordan 7 had been introduced that same year, designed by Tinker Hatfield, and its identity became inseparable from that moment. Jordan wore the model during the Barcelona Games, helping establish the AJ7 as a symbol of basketball's arrival on a truly global stage. Barcelona itself became part of the mythology. And it wasn't just because of basketball. The city was undergoing a cultural transformation, and at its centre was an artistic language that had been developing for decades. Joan Miró had spent much of his life connected to Barcelona, developing a visual vocabulary built around primary colours, organic forms, lines, symbols and an almost childlike sense of freedom. One of his most recognisable public works, Dona i Ocell — Woman and Bird — became an especially important reference point for the Jordan 7 “Miró.” Its red, yellow, blue, black and white palette is translated across the shoe in an intentionally irregular way, with colours appearing almost as if they have been painted onto the architecture of the sneaker. And then there are the Olympic references: the number 9 on the heel, representing Jordan's Team USA jersey number in Barcelona rather than his familiar 23, alongside details in the outsole referencing the Games. We've become accustomed to seeing sneakers treated as canvases. Collaborations between artists, designers, musicians, fashion houses and sports brands have become commonplace. But the “Miró” arrived at a very different moment. In 2008, the current obsession with constant collaborations and endless storytelling around sneakers hadn't yet reached the scale it has today. The original pair was produced in very limited quantities — reported at around 1,000 pairs worldwide — which only added to its status as one of the more unusual and elusive Jordan retros. Because Miró's work wasn't really about putting a few colours together. It was about reducing things to their most expressive forms. A line could become a person. A dot could become an entire universe. A shape didn't necessarily have to represent something recognizable to communicate something. Rather than simply photographing the returning sneaker, we wanted to take the idea behind it and move it forward. The original shoe asks: What happens when Miró's visual language meets the Air Jordan 7? We wanted to ask: What happens when Miró's visual language meets the Jumpman itself? The Jumpman is one of the most recognizable symbols in sports. It is already a piece of visual shorthand. You don't need to see the word Jordan to understand what it represents. So we imagined taking that familiar silhouette and giving it back to Miró. Iimagining how the symbol itself might have evolved if Miró had been the person asked to draw it. The result is deliberately imperfect. The proportions become more organic. The body becomes less anatomical and more symbolic. Limbs turn into lines. Movement becomes a gesture. The figure becomes something that could exist somewhere between a human, a drawing and a constellation of shapes. The colours come directly from the visual vocabulary associated with Miró: red, blue, yellow and black against an almost empty canvas. And importantly, we wanted it to feel painted, rather than digitally constructed. Canvas. Brush. Texture. Imperfection. Because if we're asking what Miró might have done with the Jumpman, it doesn't make sense for the answer to look too polished. This is ultimately what makes the “Miró” such an interesting Jordan. It's a reminder that sneakers can be more than objects. They can be cultural documents. The Air Jordan 7 represents a particular moment when basketball, sport, music, fashion and global culture were colliding. The 2008 “Miró” looked back at that history through Barcelona and one of its most important artists. And now, in 2026, the shoe gives us another opportunity to look backwards while imagining forwards.

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What If Miró Designed the Jumpman?

Originally released in 2008, the shoe has always felt slightly different from the rest of the Jordan archive. It doesn't simply reference basketball. It connects basketball, the Olympics, Barcelona and modern art through the work of one of Spain's most important artists, Joan Miró. Now, almost two decades later, the “Miró” is returning. And for us, it felt like the perfect opportunity to ask a simple question: What would the Jumpman look like if Miró were interpreting it today? To understand the “Miró,” you have to go back to 1992. Michael Jordan arrived in Barcelona as part of the United States Olympic “Dream Team,” arguably the most important basketball team ever assembled. The Air Jordan 7 had been introduced that same year, designed by Tinker Hatfield, and its identity became inseparable from that moment. Jordan wore the model during the Barcelona Games, helping establish the AJ7 as a symbol of basketball's arrival on a truly global stage. Barcelona itself became part of the mythology. And it wasn't just because of basketball. The city was undergoing a cultural transformation, and at its centre was an artistic language that had been developing for decades. Joan Miró had spent much of his life connected to Barcelona, developing a visual vocabulary built around primary colours, organic forms, lines, symbols and an almost childlike sense of freedom. One of his most recognisable public works, Dona i Ocell — Woman and Bird — became an especially important reference point for the Jordan 7 “Miró.” Its red, yellow, blue, black and white palette is translated across the shoe in an intentionally irregular way, with colours appearing almost as if they have been painted onto the architecture of the sneaker. And then there are the Olympic references: the number 9 on the heel, representing Jordan's Team USA jersey number in Barcelona rather than his familiar 23, alongside details in the outsole referencing the Games. We've become accustomed to seeing sneakers treated as canvases. Collaborations between artists, designers, musicians, fashion houses and sports brands have become commonplace. But the “Miró” arrived at a very different moment. In 2008, the current obsession with constant collaborations and endless storytelling around sneakers hadn't yet reached the scale it has today. The original pair was produced in very limited quantities — reported at around 1,000 pairs worldwide — which only added to its status as one of the more unusual and elusive Jordan retros. Because Miró's work wasn't really about putting a few colours together. It was about reducing things to their most expressive forms. A line could become a person. A dot could become an entire universe. A shape didn't necessarily have to represent something recognizable to communicate something. Rather than simply photographing the returning sneaker, we wanted to take the idea behind it and move it forward. The original shoe asks: What happens when Miró's visual language meets the Air Jordan 7? We wanted to ask: What happens when Miró's visual language meets the Jumpman itself? The Jumpman is one of the most recognizable symbols in sports. It is already a piece of visual shorthand. You don't need to see the word Jordan to understand what it represents. So we imagined taking that familiar silhouette and giving it back to Miró. Iimagining how the symbol itself might have evolved if Miró had been the person asked to draw it. The result is deliberately imperfect. The proportions become more organic. The body becomes less anatomical and more symbolic. Limbs turn into lines. Movement becomes a gesture. The figure becomes something that could exist somewhere between a human, a drawing and a constellation of shapes. The colours come directly from the visual vocabulary associated with Miró: red, blue, yellow and black against an almost empty canvas. And importantly, we wanted it to feel painted, rather than digitally constructed. Canvas. Brush. Texture. Imperfection. Because if we're asking what Miró might have done with the Jumpman, it doesn't make sense for the answer to look too polished. This is ultimately what makes the “Miró” such an interesting Jordan. It's a reminder that sneakers can be more than objects. They can be cultural documents. The Air Jordan 7 represents a particular moment when basketball, sport, music, fashion and global culture were colliding. The 2008 “Miró” looked back at that history through Barcelona and one of its most important artists. And now, in 2026, the shoe gives us another opportunity to look backwards while imagining forwards.

Lire la suite