This week, post surgery, I’ve been relegated to mostly sitting or lying about which usually drives me batty. I’m not a sitter by nature, but pain meds and healing have necessitated repose. I have enjoyed my sedentary self, however, thanks to streaming from PBS. I have especially enjoyed one series in particular, which I recommend to you, if you don’t want to or can’t think much (thanks, pain meds!), and you want a good laugh and a good cry and a feel good moment or two, you love fashion, and finally, a look back into your early, early past if you are my age.
The series I’m referring to takes place in the 50’s fashion world in a large department store called Velvet, in Spain. The lead characters, Alberto and Ana have loved each other since they were children, which as they turn teenagers is not a good thing because he is the store owner’s son and she is the niece of the head manager, not of the same class. Oh-oh. He’s been sent away to school to forget her and her uncle has confiscated all the letters he has sent to Ana over the years. You’ve read Romeo and Juliet so you know whatever the grown-ups decide to do, however heinous, is not going to keep these two lovers apart. And so the story begins.
There is every kind of character in this tele nova that you could want to see. There are Mateo and Clara, the lothario and the sexpot who fight each other and then come together off and on all the way through the series. Will they/won’t they? The same question is present in every episode regarding Alberto and Ana, and Clara’s sister Rita and Clara’s old boyfriend Pedro, who is a packing clerk. Romance is everywhere, even between the head tailor Dona Blanca and the young swindler who pretends to be her son. Later in the series, she is tricked again in love. Sigh. We never learn!
There is the requisite gay designer whom one can’t help loving, so talented, so effusive, so influential when it’s necessary. He brightened every scene he was in.
There is the evil father-in-law who stipulates that Alberto must marry his daughter if he wants backing to keep the store running after Alberto’s father commits suicide. There is the innocent and loving daughter who has loved Alberto since they were children and is happy to be asked to be his wife.
Of course, there is a fair share of even more evil—the wicked stepmother who is being blackmailed to keep an important discovery secret, and who doesn’t want her daughter to be any part of the running of the store; the blackmailer; the swindler and his buddy; Dona Blanca’s former lover and father of her child who was given away; and the evil brother-in-law who has more shares than Alberto once the deal is done and compromises the store’s existence by his incompetence and business deals—and his affair with Alberto’s step-sister. There is the lecherous husband of a client who forces one of the seamstresses, Luisa, to have sex with him in exchange for his helping her husband be treated for his illness. He mysteriously dies in a hotel and no one can figure out who did it. After having an abortion, Luisa later becomes a nationally famous singer everyone listens to on the radio.
Each episode is an hour and a half long, so watching this was like watching 26 separate movies with the same characters. One is never bored with so many things happening in every episode. Just when one thinks everything will be resolved, something goes wrong, which means more drama and a holdover until next time. Just when it looks like Alberto and Ana will get married, they don’t. Twice. Just when it looks like Pedro and Rita will get married, his old girlfriend from the village and their son show up. So many “just when it looks like…” in this series.
This series was filmed in Spain with Spanish actors, so one must read subtitles if one doesn’t’ speak Spanish. I had fun listening to the Spanish to see if I could use what little knowledge I have to figure out what was said before looking at the subtitles. One thing that mars the second season is that the Spanish and English subtitles are on top of each other so it is difficult to know what’s going on sometimes. That’s when my meager knowledge of Spanish had to kick in. One other strange thing was that all the music used in this series was from the U.S. What’s that all about, anyway?
If you need something to watch as escapism, Velvet is the perfect choice. Guapo men and Guapa women, all sorts of lovely fashion, and loads of action. Who could ask for anything more?