Manuel Alves, the designer, died this Tuesday, May 14th, from an oncological disease, as reported first by the newspaper Público, information confirmed by Notícias ao Minuto from a source at Portugal Fashion. The designer, 72, was part of the duo Alves/Gonçalves with José Manuel Gonçalves. Together, they presented collections for almost four decades and, in recent years, were a highlight in the Portugal Fashion calendar. 

According to a family friend, Cila Carmo, who spoke to the Lusa agency, the fashion designer Manuel Alves died today in the late morning at the Hospital da Luz, in Lisbon, from cancer, and the wake should be on Wednesday, at the Amoreiras chapel, in Lisbon.

Manuel Alves was born in Montalegre, in the district of Vila Real (Trás-os-Montes), and formed a duo since 1984 with José Manuel Gonçalves, when they both decided to open two stores in Bairro Alto, in Lisbon, to sell their men's and women's creations.

Manuel Alves and José Manuel Gonçalves - who created the Portuguese fashion brand Alves/Gonçalves - designed uniforms for companies such as the Portuguese airline TAP and the telephone operator Vodafone, as well as costumes for cinema, theatre and ballet, having also developed a line of ceramics and another of jewelry and accessories. In 2008 they also created a stamp for the Portuguese Post Office.

Between 1991 and 2013, the fashion designer was a guest professor at the Faculty of Architecture of the University of Lisbon, where he taught the subject of Fashion Design.

In 2010, the Museum of Design and Fashion (MUDE), in Lisbon, held a retrospective on the work and career of the duo of designers.

With the support of Portugal Fashion, the duo paraded their collections in several international fashion weeks, namely São Paulo and New York.

In the meantime, the Portuguese designer Miguel Vieira reacted to this news on Instagram. "Portugal has lost one of the greatest talents in Portuguese fashion... who always knew how to reinvent himself, and who many generations of students gained and had the privilege of being trained by him. A giant hug, Manuel Gonçalves".

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Speaking to the Lusa agency over the phone, the 'designer' Miguel Vieira, remembers his personal friend and professional colleague Manuel Alves as a person with an "unbelievable sense of humor", "great professional" and "one of the greatest names in fashion in Portugal".

"He leaves behind a great legacy. He is one of the greatest names in fashion in Portugal and he is a person who knew how to reinvent himself over time. He was very 'workaholic', a person who was a bit misunderstood, often even in the way he worked, and a bit misunderstood in the structure of fashion in Portugal, but a person who left a huge legacy".

Miguel Vieira recalls that Manuel Alves was a teacher - he taught at the Faculty of Architecture of the University of Lisbon - and therefore created many 'designers', many stylists, many people linked to fashion in Portugal.

"It is a great loss. Especially as a friend. He was a person with an unbelievable sense of humor. It wasn't daily, but almost every day the two of us exchanged messages with jokes, pranks, and I will miss him very much. He was a person who amused me a lot", lamented Miguel Vieira.

Alexandra Moura, a Portuguese designer, also reacted to the news describing the designer with the words "elegance, contemporaneity, rebellion, futurism, sophistication, disruption, avant-garde". She also recalls that "it was a delight to skip classes and go to the store to listen to him!" 

Alexandra Moura's Story © Instagram / Alexandra Moura

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