Barcelona does not only look at the sea and does not only live from its architecture. It also wants to dress up in catwalk, fabric and creativity. This is evidenced by the ambitious 2025-2030 Fashion Strategic Plan, a recently presented roadmap that seeks to put the city on the international map as the capital of fashion and signature design.
Behind the project there is more than just good intentions: an annual budget of almost 1.3 million euros, consensus with the sector and a clear commitment to sustainability, innovation and emerging talent. In other words, not only glamour, but also commitment.
Eight lines of action to transform the sector
The new plan leaves no loose ends. It is comprehensive and covers all stages of the industry, from training to distribution. Training, digitalization and internationalization are the pillars on which this near future is built. But there is more.
Among the actions planned is the promotion of the Disseny Hub Barcelona as the nerve center of promotion. Not only will activities and exhibitions be held there, but also the connection between fashion and other disciplines such as art and gastronomy, two worlds that have their own weight in Barcelona and can generate powerful synergies.
Fashion Factory arrives and Shopping Night returns
One of the plan’s star projects is the creation of the Fashion Factory, an infrastructure that will give a new home to the Barcelona Fashion Forward program, focused on accelerating entrepreneurial projects. This space will not only serve to accompany emerging designers and brands, but also to give them visibility and connect them with the market.
And so that this visibility does not remain only in the professional environment, the plan also recovers an event very dear to the local public: the Shopping Night. This initiative seeks to strengthen local commerce, focus on signature stores and attract an increasingly aware and selective public.
Because Barcelona fashion does not want to imitate anyone: it wants to be strong in its own, local, innovative.
Sustainability is no longer optional
One of the clearest axes of the plan is the promotion of responsible consumption and production models. There are no half measures here. It is committed to recycling, circular economy and sustainable fashion as an obligation for the future of the sector.
It’s not just about generating brand image or following green trends. The goal is to build a textile ecosystem that is more conscious, fairer and aligned with the challenges of the planet. And Barcelona wants to be among the cities leading that change.
International connection and emerging talent
The plan also looks outward. It wants to take Catalan brands to international fairs and markets, foster collaborations with other cities and take advantage of every window to showcase what is created here. It is not only a question of visibility, but of competitiveness.
In this sense, the 080 Barcelona Fashion catwalk plays a key role, which will continue to promote design schools, young creators and innovation. The alliance with the Generalitat in this event allows us to weave a public network that supports the sector, something that not many cities can say.
A powerful and diverse industry
The data speak for themselves: Barcelona is already an important node in the fashion ecosystem. In 2024, the city had 5,152 business establishments in the sector. Of these, 13% were dedicated to the industrial side and 87% to distribution and commerce.
The most active areas in the industrial sector are L’Eixample (28 %), Sarrià-Sant Gervasi (18.2 %) and Sant Martí (14.4 %). Distribution and commerce, with 4,407 companies, are also concentrated in L’Eixample (34.8 %), followed by Sarrià-Sant Gervasi (19.6 %) and Ciutat Vella (12.5 %).
These figures confirm that the business fabric linked to fashion is alive, young and growing, with 45.4% of the companies created in the last twelve years.
A city that dares everything
This new plan was not born by chance. Barcelona has been positioning itself for years as a creative city, open to new trends and with a unique ability to mix tradition and innovation. Fashion, in this scenario, appears as another tool to project its identity, to generate quality employment and to diversify its economy.
Moreover, by opting for a sustainable, inclusive model, connected to other creative industries, the city distances itself from the fast fashion model and proposes something more interesting: a model of its own, with soul and with a future.
What’s next?
The Fashion Strategic Plan 2025-2030 is already underway. Now the hard part begins: turning words into actions, budgets into results and good ideas into real impact. If it succeeds, Barcelona will not only be a fashion capital, but a world reference of how to make fashion with meaning.
Because in the end, dressing well is not only a matter of style, but also of values.
