Spilling Wine with Evade House

Can you tell us about your practice and how you define what you do?

I’m Evangelina Julia, CEO and founder of Evade House. My practice operates at the intersection of fashion (and by fashion I mean questioning who it is for, how it is constructed through collective mirroring, and whether dressing alike is conformity or communication), material investigation, performance, and spatial thinking. Through garments, environments, and actions, I explore processes of transformation, erosion, and reconfiguration, using clothing not as a fixed object but as a mutable system.

I subject materials to slow interventions, burial, tension, repetition, wear, allowing time, memory, and the body to inscribe themselves into form. My work is driven by an interest in how systems of taste are constructed and transmitted, and how these systems ultimately shape the body: how belief becomes posture; memory becomes silhouette; ideology becomes weight — drape. Rather than proposing fashion as an aesthetic outcome, I approach it as a spatial and emotional condition, one that reorganizes how bodies inhabit space and how space, in turn, acts upon bodies.

At the core of my practice lies a persistent question: is fashion driven by memory, or by reaction? Are we dressing from the memory embedded in objects, inherited, cultural, ancestral, or from the memory of what we have just acquired? Or is fashion, inevitably, a reaction to the other, a force that sensualizes us, that makes us visible, responsive, affected? By treating garments as environments and environments as garments, I challenge conventional hierarchies between object, body, and space, proposing fashion as a site where perception, memory, and sensation quietly collide.

You’re from Madrid and still based there. What was it like growing up there, and what were you drawn to as a child?

Madrid is full of contrasts, opposites that attract each other. Madrid felt raw and intense, yet deeply ceremonial and traditional and that duality stayed with me.

As a child, I became obsessively focused on whatever captured my attention at the time. I wanted to learn everything about it. I moved from football to wanting to be a veterinarian, then to volleyball, then trombone, then running, then philosophy, then art. I was a bit of a nerd in all of them. I still don’t know if that comes from being observant, passionate, or simply deeply dedicated, maybe all three.

Alongside that, I started collecting objects very early on. I was drawn to things that carried time, wear, or history. That habit of accumulation, of knowledge, of practices, of objects, eventually became a way of thinking, and it still informs how I work today.

You’ve spoken about studying biology at school and growing up in a family of doctors. How has that influenced the way you think today?

Because I come from a family of doctors, scientific thinking was always present around me. And like most children, my first instinct was to push against it. Science represented structure, explanation, and certainty, and I was instinctively drawn to what escaped that logic.

That resistance led me toward intuition, toward forms of knowledge that aren’t easily measured or quantified. I became interested in the gaps of science rather than its rules, in quantum physics as a concept more than as a formula, in the idea that not everything that exists can be proven through linear reasoning. Wanting to decode and, at times, dismantle the practicality of scientific logic ended up driving my creative path.

That tension still lives in my work. I’m interested in systems and cycles, but also in what resists classification. Nature, it’s intelligence. And that balance between structure and intuition continues to shape how I think about it.

You’ve worked with processes like burying fabrics in the ground. Can you tell us about this relationship between material, time, and environment?

Burying fabrics began as a way of reconnecting materials to time and environment. When a textile is placed in the ground, it absorbs minerals, moisture, bacteria, traces of a place. It’s not about destruction, but about exposure.

This process also became a way of learning. Working with natural fibers allows the cycle to close: the material gives back to the soil, feeding microorganisms with the minerals they need. In that sense, the fabric is no longer separate from nature, it becomes part of an ecosystem. This exchange makes visible what fashion actually is for me: not an isolated object, but a living system in constant negotiation with its surroundings.

There’s a very delicate balance in this process. I want the material to be altered, marked, humbled, but not erased. That tension mirrors how I think about fashion itself: transformation without loss of identity.

Materials seem to evolve across your collections rather than remain fixed. How do you approach material selection today?

Materials in my practice are never fixed. Some belong to a specific moment in my life or research and then naturally fall away. What remains constant is not the material itself, but the sensitivity toward it. Traveling often feeds the narrative rather than the garment directly, landscapes, decay, rituals, or even absence become conceptual anchors. The material then follows that emotional and conceptual logic.

During your studies in London, experimental pattern-cutting methods were formative for you. How do those experiences still inform your work?

During my studies in London, techniques like Shingo Sato’s zero-waste approach and Julian Roberts’ subtraction cutting were very formative. They taught me to think beyond the flat pattern and to see garments as systems rather than silhouettes. While these methods aren’t central pillars of my practice today, they opened a door to experimentation and to questioning conventions. That mindset, more than the techniques themselves is how I work.

You’re also a teacher at universities in Madrid. What do you focus on in your role as an educator?

Teaching is a responsibility for me. I focus less on aesthetic outcomes and more on helping students develop criteria, ethics, and critical thinking. I want them to understand why they make something, not just how. Process, failure, material research, and honesty are central in my classrooms. I also try to dismantle the idea of fashion as purely aspirational and instead present it as a tool for reflection, dialogue, and cultural contribution.

Why have you chosen to remain based in Madrid rather than moving to Paris or London?

Madrid gives me space, mentally and creatively. Being slightly outside the main fashion capitals allows me to work without constant noise or the pressure to perform on someone else’s timeline. I travel constantly, but having my base here keeps me grounded.

There’s also a very practical reality behind this choice. For small, independent brands not born within those capitals, starting out in cities like Paris or London can be financially overwhelming. Even if we like to say money doesn’t matter, survival becomes part of the equation. For many of us, beginning from where we come from, sometimes even from our parents’ homes, isn’t a limitation but a blessed.

Cartina Lunga is a newer project of yours. Can you tell us what it is and how it exists alongside Evade House?

Cartina Lunga is a hosiery project dedicated to transforming everyday moments into heightened experiences. The name comes from the Italian translation of “long rolling paper,” and I liked the idea that, in this case, the content of the paper isn’t tobacco, but tights, garments that keep both the wearer and those who encounter them “high,” in a sensory, emotional way.

The choice of an Italian name is both a playful gesture and a statement. It nods to high-end Italian material culture, while also building a strong European identity, and it reflects the collaboration with Laura Petrucci (Erotocomatose), my partner in crime on the project. Humor is important to Cartina Lunga, but it’s never detached from intention.

At its core, Cartina Lunga focuses on life’s simplest moments. Walking, becomes an aesthetic practice, a daily ritual through which we express ourselves. Hosiery is something we wear almost every day, often without thinking, and I wanted to bring attention back to that gesture. There’s a mindfulness in repetition, in valuing what is closest to the body and most present in our routines. Cartina Lunga is bold but soft, relaxed yet elegant. It’s not distant or aspirational in a traditional sense. It speaks like a friend talking to a friend, familiar, accessible, but trustworthy. Alongside Evade House, which is more narrative, performative, and spatial, Cartina Lunga operates at the scale of intimacy and daily life. They’re different languages, but they come from the same desire to reconnect the body with sensation, presence, and meaning.

You just had the installation in Antwerp, by Guillermo Santomà, and you previously did an immersive pop-up in Milan during Salone Mobile for Cartina Lunga. What's your thought process when coming up with your ways of presenting your brands IRL?

Working with Guillermo in Antwerp was especially interesting because we embraced the logistics of the space rather than trying to neutralize them. Instead of building inward, we moved outward, we let the project spill into the street and used the city itself as part of the installation. That shift came from asking a very simple question: can a shop exist beyond its physical boundaries?

For me, these presentations are about expanding definitions. A shop doesn’t have to be a closed container, just as fashion doesn’t have to be confined to a garment. When space, logistics, and context are treated as materials, the work can move, leak, and exist in unexpected places.

You have an intensive presentation coming up for Madrid Fashion Week. Can you tell us about it?

This upcoming presentation (13th March) is titled MANEVA, which speaks about movement, transition, and the moment before crossing. MANEVA is not a collection in the traditional sense, but a state. It emerges from the idea that bodies sense change before it happens, that they respond to intuition, vibration, and direction rather than instruction.

The presentation is conceived as a hybrid between runway, performance, and ritual. It’s built around liminal moments. Garments appear not as finished statements, but as companions in a process of becoming. Movement, sound, and scenography are not supports, they are the work, equally important.

MANEVA proposes fashion as a passage. It’s about surrendering control, allowing instinct to guide form, and accepting that transformation doesn’t always need explanation. The audience isn’t there to observe from a distance, but to be present within the experience, to feel it unfold rather than decode it. I hope to see you there.