Entrepreneurship, Local Fashion, Tourism Development, and the Hippie Movement: The Case of Adlib Fashion (Ibiza, Spain)

Abstract

On the island of Ibiza, the sixties and seventies saw a touristic boom and the rise of hippies. The hippie presence ended shortly after, but left various elements considered to be direct legacies. Among these elements, it is worth highlighting the creation of a local fashion inspired by traditional clothing and hippies. This fashion was called Adlib and has its appearance date in 1971 with the first Ibiza Fashion Week. In this paper, a case study is carried out, supported by interviews, which delves into the historical evolution and the current situation of Adlib Ibiza fashion and the businesses under this umbrella brand. Adlib fashion has always had more relevance as a tool for promoting and differentiating tourism than as an independent economic sector. Even so, it is a small sector made up of small or micro businesses created by entrepreneurs from the island who seek to market their designs. Unfortunately, many businesses fail shortly after their opening and do not survive the retirement of their founder, due to the strong link of these businesses to the designs and creations of their owner. The evolution of the brand and its businesses undermines any optimism in future trends, and possibly suggests a slow decline.

1. Introduction

The young people who participated in the protest movements in the United States and Europe in the sixties looked for a vital outlet, and they found it in the hippie movement [1]. The hippie movement employed the countercultural values of the Beat Generation, i.e., psychedelic rock, sexual revolution, radical activism, and drugs and hallucinogens to “expand consciousness”. They arrived in Ibiza on their journey to the East, just coinciding with the years of the island’s touristic boom [2]. Ibiza was a stop on the road that took them to Morocco, North Africa, and, finally, to India and Nepal, seeking knowledge of Eastern philosophies and, at the same time, fleeing from the Western world. Some of them settled on the island permanently and others continued their journey to India and Nepal weeks, months or years later [3].

During their stay in Ibiza, there were cultural loans between Ibizans and foreigners, but they did not develop according to converging evolutions that would lead to a common and intermediate point between both communities. Instead, reciprocal acculturation went through an imaginative appropriation of the other culture. As for clothing, the hippies began a new style that would soon become counter-fashion. The pleasure of transgressing classic norms led to incongruous combinations that, over time, have become a symbol of Ibiza’s counterculture. Later, when the hippie movement began to decline, a local and autochthonous fashion, under the name Adlib, appeared, proclaiming its legacy and testimony to the hippie audacity and lifestyle [4].

Although home tailoring had existed for several decades, the fashion industry emerged in the sixties. The presence of imaginative foreigners, the existence of a workforce made up of seamstresses, and, finally, a touristic clientele with non-conformist tastes ensured the success of the first initiatives. Some new residents opened boutiques and surrounded themselves with creators who invented original fashion, using natural fibers and local fabrics, creating a synthesis between peasant tradition (cotton fabrics, lace, and local jewelry) and hippie fantasy (transparencies, groundbreaking colors, and combinations). This fashion was made through homework, which played a bigger role in the irregular economy of the island. Ibiza fashion acquires a letter of nobility with the official launch, in 1971, of the Fashion Week [5]. Since the seventies, Adlib fashion has become one of the characteristic elements of Ibiza’s image as a touristic destination [6]. Unfortunately, knowledge about Adlib fashion, and the clothing industry in general, is very limited. of the involvements of Adlib fashion, the meaning of the term Adlib, and its origins are known in broad strokes; however, this economic activity has not yet been studied in depth.

The first thing is to indicate the situation of clothing on the island and what Adlib fashion consists of, or what is meant by Adlib and not Adlib. Since its origins, clothing in Ibiza has been, and continues to be, an economic sector with tiny businesses within an irregular economy. These are almost always businesses run by their founder and designer who have a small dressmaking workshop from where they direct all business activity. The products of Ibizan designers come in different styles and clothing lines, but perhaps the only thing they have in common is the use of natural materials.

Adlib Ibiza is a collective brand managed by the Ibiza Island Council that encompasses part of the island’s designers. Adlib fashion is a type of clothing with an informal character and warm colors in which the use of white, lace, and transparencies abounds, and, for the most part, it is clothing designed for young women. Images linked to the Adlib fashion of residents and tourists, transmitted in the tourist promotion, are summarized in the screenshot of Figure 1.

Fifteen designers are currently part of Adlib Ibiza and regularly participate in the Fashion Week organized by the Ibiza Island Council. It should be noted that, in Ibiza and Formentera, there are about twenty or twenty-five designers who are not part of Adlib Ibiza, although many of them share the Adlib fashion design philosophy and characteristics.

Regarding the geographical context where the Adlib fashion businesses operate, it should be noted that Ibiza has a population of 160,000 inhabitants [7] and receives nearly three million tourists a year [8], which implies a high economic dependence on touristic activity and enormous demographic pressure on the 572 square kilometers of the island’s territory [7]. The sixties and seventies, together with the presence of the hippie movement, determined the current economic situation and the image transmitted by the island until today [6], with complementary offers to sun and beach tourism that are direct legacies of the hippie presence, as is the case of Adlib fashion [4].

In relation to the various complementary offers, Adlib fashion is perhaps one of the ones with less economic weight. There is no reliable data on the sector but, as an indication, the fifteen designers covered by this brand have between one (several cases of self-employment) and half a dozen people employed (in the best of cases). This implies that Moda Adlib employs fifty people, or a little more, within a population of 160,000 inhabitants, and that its direct impact on the economy is insignificant (the rest of the garment sector on the island is equal to or smaller than Adlib fashion). Its media impact is very important and, therefore, the Ibiza Island Council has been involved for forty years in the promotion and management of the Adlib Ibiza brand.

It should be noted that Adlib fashion is an example of entrepreneurship [9,10,11,12,13,14,15,16] that combines local tradition with innovation in designs [17,18,19,20], understanding by innovation “an idea, practice, or object perceived as new by an individual or other unit of adoption” [21] (p. 35), and by tradition elements transmitted by ancestors through generations [22,23]. Adlib fashion has allowed elements of traditional clothing, reduced to simple folklore and without daily use after its abandonment in the middle of the 20th century, to survive reinterpreted and incorporated into a current and accepted fashion among young people [17].

This paper provides one of the first approaches to the history, current situation, and characteristics of the commercial management of the businesses covered by the Adlib Ibiza brand. As part of this analysis, a brief review of the origins and characteristics of the hippie movement in Ibiza is made in Section 2. Next, the methodology used (essentially a case study) is presented in Section 3 and various aspects of the sector are described in Section 4. Finally, the situation of the sector is discussed in Section 5 and some brief conclusions are raised in Section 6, which relate to previous articles and outline the possible future of the sector.

Although this study seeks a first approximation, it is proposed as a starting point based on the hypothesis that it is an important sector for the differentiation of Ibiza as a tourist destination with insignificant direct weight in the economy (thus indicating that it never has been constituted by more than 30 micro-businesses). Due to its importance for the image of the island, it is important to diagnose its situation and detect possible shortcomings in its management and development. As a main result, it continues to be a sector with a precarious situation and with an important need for improvement in the business and brand management in order to increase the life expectancy of their businesses.

2. The Hippie Movement in Ibiza

Ibiza and Formentera were important points on the route followed by the hippies; however, in order to understand the hippie phenomenon in Ibiza, it is necessary to understand the counterculture in Western society. Countercultural movements began in the forties (hipsters) and fifties (beatniks), reaching their apogee in the late sixties with the hippies, anti-Vietnam war groups in the United States, and student and social protests in Western Europe [5]. Between the end of the sixties and the beginning of the seventies, the members of these groups were dispersed to other parts of the world due to the failure of the original communities [3,24]. The hippie route began in San Francisco and reached India passing through intermediate points such as Paris, Ibiza, Crete, Goa, or Istanbul [25]. The countercultural movements of the sixties are a reflection of the general context of the time and therefore the members of the counterculture who arrived in Ibiza on their trip to the East fall into three ideological lines [4]: the classical utopian tradition [26,27]; the American countercultural protest [28,29,30,31,32]; and European student revolts [33]. The period 1968–1974 represents the “classic” era of the counterculture and has become the model for later movements to imitate. It is as part of the exodus of the members of the counterculture that Ibiza becomes an enclave of the hippie movement. After the exodus of the seventies, the counterculture was divided into groups with different objectives [3].

Although some members of the hippie movement arrived on the island in the first half of the sixties, after the beatniks had arrived in the second half of the fifties, who started a countercultural movement in California and attracted hippies to Ibiza, it is in the second half of the sixties when the massive arrival begins [5,24], reaching important figures at the start of the summer of 1968 [25,34], although the exact figure cannot be known. The arrivals of hippies reached their peak between 1973 and 1974, to later decrease the arrivals, increase the returns, and mutate the community towards behaviors more integrated in the local economy and society [4].

The hippies arrived on the island individually or in pairs and, with the exception of the first wave of the years 1968–1970, it is the result of an individual journey and individualistic motivation. It was an experience of collective life that cannot be confused with a community lifestyle; this greater individualism is what differentiated Ibiza from the main movements of that time [27,35]. Ibizans were also defined by many outside observers, particularly individualistic [36,37], with greater individualism possibly being an influence of local society on the hippies. The hippies who arrived were characterized by being from the great Western metropolises, aged between twenty and thirty [35], with high educational and cultural levels [3,24], and their previous professional activity belonged to middle and upper categories of the cultural and artistic sphere [38].

There was a tendency among hippies to opt for the immediacy, the natural, the colorful and baroque, the spontaneous, the irrational, or even the playful, which are easily perceptible in all facets of everyday life [39]. The Danish Nina van Pallandt was not exactly a hippie, but she lived in similar conditions and her comments may serve as an example:

“During the winter of 1964 I rented a house from Carl van der Voort, in Es Viver. It was very romantic, but terrible: I spent the coldest winter of my life […] It was a beautiful house, but dilapidated and leaking…”.

[40] (pp. 127–128)

Among the resident population there was an attitude of distancing towards hippies, rather than tolerance [25,40]. The two social groups (islanders and hippies) had very little contact. Totally different daily rhythms, together with radically different evaluations, prevented authentic communication [25]. This does not mean, however, that there are cultural loans between Ibizans and foreigners. For the islanders who were beginning to gain access to the consumer society thanks to tourism and unreluctantly adhere to imported urban models, everything associated with “modernity”, a priori, had positive connotations, and the city and salaried work are the referential values, providing access to an ideal way of life. Conversely, the new residents, in their search for authenticity, idealize the rural world and the past. The Ibizan utopia largely involves the materialization of said ideal, and foreigners magnify the insular tradition by attaching themselves to various objects or cultural traits that symbolize it [5].

The newcomers modeled themselves on the simplicity and frugality of the native way of life, sewing their own clothes, adopting a near-vegetarian diet, and stubbornly denouncing the waste of the “consumer society”. However, this imitation of local tradition was superimposed on a counterculture where the ludic dimension and the taste for excess permeated everyday life. In other words, if peasant existence was moderated by austerity, measure, and savings, hippies privileged hedonism and the enjoyment of the present moment. The dresses were complemented with whimsical decorations (pearls, flowers, handmade jewelry, etc.) and the color was taken to the maximum [3].

The hippies experienced the effects of the evolution of the island, caused by the strong touristic development of the sixties and seventies [2]. The impossibility of surviving (utopia is utopia) outside the market circuits forced them to reconsider their insertion in society. Most leave the island, which they considered definitively trapped by industrial civilization. Some resumed their journey in search of more preserved places: southern Spain, the Greek islands, the Antilles, India, etc. Others returned to their countries of origin in the hope of possible readaptation. Those who stayed opted for a compromise that took into account the new economic realities. The Catalan poet Francesc Parcerisas commented on this circumstance:

“A year can be tolerated, for its novelty, change of life, new organization, but in the long run it is necessary to restructure life, plan, work… And here it can already be said that life is identical to that of the city, in this sense. […] In Ibiza they do not tie dogs with sausage, rather the opposite. Leading a different life is a utopia, at least in Ibiza, which is an island, which is a society of exchange… there is no choice but to get involved. Except for guys who live by the mug”.

[41] (p. 25)

The period constituted by the years 1972 to 1974 marked the beginning of the obligation to integrate into the economic game. The rise in the cost of living and the gigantic influence of capitalism requires a review of lifestyles. The reconversion strategies put into practice were more conditioned by their social origin than by their personal aptitudes or their initial training [3]. Nevertheless, it was not only a matter of adapting to a new situation imposed by the touristic and political situation, but also because the utopian immigrants had aged, had a family to look after, and had aspired to a certain stability. Two professional branches reached a certain prominence in Ibiza and acted as legacies to the image extended by the counterculture [6] and as a refuge for those who want to be as close as possible to the utopia pursued by the hippies: the crafts and fashion [4]. Around 1980, much of the hippie style, but very little of the essence of the movement, was absorbed into mainstream culture. The ex-marginalized, inserted in the local economic circuits, depend largely, like the Ibizans, on touristic fluctuations.

Since the eighties, the hippie movement has represented a partially mythologized and partially unknown element of the past that has left several elements of the tourist offer (craft markets, Adlib fashion, sunset celebration parties, etc.) and the touristic image (freedom, tolerance, a way of dressing and living, etc.) of Ibiza. For the younger generations, it is one more element of local folklore, along with the elements recovered prior to the development of tourism and the arrival of the hippies, and a lifestyle that a residual group of people, mainly in the north of the island, try to maintain in their own way. For people from outside the island, the hippie movement is the only element of the island past that is familiar to them [6].

The characteristics of the traditional culture [37], the tourist development [5], and the hippie movement [3] constituted a local society with characteristics different from the rest of the country, but which are only perceived in detail by the most observant: greater tolerance and freedom towards various personal behaviors, and predominance of improvisation and social contacts in economic management, among others. Greater freedom and tolerance can be considered as either positive or negative depending on the ethical principles of the observer; however, it has constituted a differentiating element of Ibiza as a tourist destination that has been subject to high international recognition, beyond what would be expected given its natural and cultural attractions. Improvisation and economic operation through personal social networks are considered positive elements by the native population; however, they present problem for the implementation of modern business management principles aimed at promoting a competitive economy.

3. Methodology

This research consists of a case study [42] that describes the historical evolution and the current situation of the native fashion of Ibiza, known as Adlib, emphasizing its importance for the image of the island [4,6]. The analysis has been carried out from the review of diverse bibliography, both books and press, and the visit of various shops included in the Adlib Ibiza umbrella brand.

In order to collect data and be able to carry out a brief analysis of the basic characteristics of the businesses, a telephone survey was carried out with a dozen questions. The questions were mostly open-ended in order to obtain as much information as possible; however, some were categorical with multiple answers. The questions referred to the type of products, the modes of production (type of workshops, etc.), the ways of distributing and promoting its products, and the opinion about the future of the sector. The survey, due to its small final size and being made up of open-ended questions, was used as a qualitative complement to the rest of the tools, that is, as scripted interviews.

To obtain the list of members of the clothing sector in Ibiza, the address list of Adlib Ibiza [43] and the list of businesses dedicated to clothing from the Institut d’Innovació Empresarial [44] were used. Once the repeated data of both lists was filtered, the result was a list of 35 names of which there were only 30 telephone numbers. Of the 30 telephones, 2 corresponded to designers who had stopped dedicating themselves to fashion, 2 more were not dedicated to Adlib fashion, 1 had the intention of dedicating herself to Adlib fashion but due to bureaucratic difficulties in opening the business she had not yet started, and several designers declined to answer. Finally, there were only 10 surveys that were answered with enough precision to be used, which represents 33% of the population. The problems of the survey were due to the fact that it is a sector where there is reluctance to respond due to the irregular economy. In addition, the lists with which we worked were old and accessed through voluntary registration, which resulted in very poor results. It should be noted that, as of 2021, the Ibiza Insular Council has reviewed the criteria belonging to the Adlib Ibiza brand, which has allowed the list of businesses under this brand to be refined, as shown in

Table 1. Individual brands under the umbrella brand Adlib Ibiza [43] in 2022.

Dolors Miró 5	Elisa Pomar 4	Espardenyes Torres 2
Estrivancus 2	Etikology 1	Ibimoda 1
Ibiza Stones 1	Ivanna Mestres 1	K de Kose-Kose 3,4
Monika Maxim 1	Piluca Bayarri 1	S72 Hat 3
Tony Bonet 1	Vintage Ibiza 1	Virginia Vald 1

Note: ¹ clothes; ² footwear; ³ hats and headgear; ⁴ jewelry; ⁵ baskets.

. These difficulties in preparing the survey and the actions taken by the Island Council in recent times are a first indication of the management difficulties that the sector has, since it has not even been possible to make a verified list of the businesses covered by the umbrella brand Adlib Ibiza until recently.

It should also be noted that some authors of this article have followed up the sector over the last twenty years, knowing the day to day in the local context. This has demonstrated first-hand the evolution of companies, successes and failures, and their causes, i.e., knowledge that is a far more direct and detailed than what could be obtained by a research team from outside the island’s society.

4. Adlib Ibiza Fashion

Home tailoring has existed in Ibiza for generations as an element of the autarkic economy. It was an artisan confection and very limited in quantity, without tailor-made work. Pedal-operated sewing machines or manual sewing were used, and the work was carried out by women with basic knowledge of pattern-making and sewing who sought to supplement their family income. This confection was dedicated in part to the island’s residents and in part for export outside.

With the development of tourism, a type of clothing began for the tourism market characterized by low quality. In this case, as in the previous one, it was about housewives who supplemented the family income with home sewing work. However, the first workshops also appeared, consisting of women with knowledge of pattern making and clothing who acted as an intermediary between the women who worked in their homes and the representatives who dealt with distribution to shops in touristic areas. In some cases, authentic workshops were created with workers dedicated to clothing and with working conditions similar to those of other businesses; however, the labor cost and the enormous volumes that are necessary to work at full capacity made, and still make, these workshops uncommon.

Normally, tiny workshops were used to cut the clothes that the women would later make at home and to prepare the delivery of the orders to the commercial representatives and distributors. The operation was simple, and the women with workshops in their homes received orders from distributors and took care of cutting the fabric, if it had not been delivered already cut, and dividing the work among a group of other women who worked for them. These women did the work at home and returned it to the workshop finished. The women who worked in their homes received an amount per garment that was the result of subtracting the commission from the intermediary pattern maker from the price paid by the distributors.

The level of knowledge of the workers who made clothes for the residents was low; however, they still had dressmaker skills, i.e., pattern making, sewing, etc. In the clothing made for tourists, the knowledge of the workers was even lower, reaching in some cases a situation where the woman who had the workshop only knew how to cut, and sew a little, and the women who did homework barely knew how to sew. The products they made were summer garments with very repetitive patterns or very monotonous colors. The designs were very simple and classic, partly to reduce costs and partly because the level of knowledge of the workers hardly allowed simple designs, making more sophisticated designs unimaginable. The prints helped to hide the defects of the fabric and the clothing. These defects have become, over time, the symbol of clothing designed for tourists and the main argument against clothing made by homework.

At the same time that this type of workshop was emerging, dedicated to making low-quality clothing for the touristic market, similar workshops appeared but operated with more qualified workers and were dedicated to making clothing for the national market. This case is not as well-known because the clothing was distributed through conventional channels and the clients did not link it to homework. However, over time, both formulas have disappeared. The first due to the tourism crises and the opening of international markets, with which now it is the developing countries that produce cheap and low-quality products, and the second due to the creation of large business groups (e.g., Inditex) that have managed to reach very competitive costs.

In the years of the hippie movement, there were important cultural influences between the native population and visitors, especially in clothing. Ibizan peasant women abandoned traditional clothing to “dress short”, that is, according to urban fashion, relegating traditional clothing to the bottom of trunks. This change was perceived by local women as an emancipation from the past. In contrast, for foreign women, peasant clothing was full of charm, combining the different pieces of peasant clothing with items typical of hippie crafts (sandals, leather bags and belts, costume jewelry, oriental-inspired scarves, etc.), turned into a new fashion or counter-fashion [3]. Within this same movement, the typical espadrilles of the island and the traditional senalló (“unisex” palm basket with long handles) are characterized by a non-rigid structure that allows it to adopt uses similar to shoulder bags, beach bags, and large cloth bags. At the opposite pole, the islanders adopt dress shoes and Ibizan women the accessories of recognized firms.

Until then, the owners of the clothing workshops were people with knowledge in pattern making, cutting, and sewing; however, there was no creativity or ability to generate new ideas. Thus, clothing lacked any direction or instruction. However, in the years of the hippie movement, there were people with enough creativity to design the clothes they make, thus passing from clothing to design and clothing. The change in the mentality of the sector was of great importance since, with the beginning of the design activity, a true fashion sector began and brands of Ibizan origin appeared. Within this group, some opted for more conventional clothing, but an important group opted for a clearly differentiated style that was soon associated with the name of Ibiza. This clothing was characterized by its originality compared to clothing made outside the island and by the predominance of natural fabrics, light colors, and daring elements in its design. Within this style arose what would come to be called Adlib fashion. It should be noted that not all designers, with clearly differentiated clothing, became part of Adlib fashion and have remained so ever since.

The Adlib (Ad libitum) fashion, whose motto was “dress as you want, but with pleasure”, was a great novelty of the seventies and a consequence of the hippie movement, proclaiming its own legacy and testimony to the audacity and lifestyle of this countercultural community [4]. Smilja de Mihailovitch defined the Adlib fashion philosophy in a 1973 interview:

“‘Dress as you want, but with pleasure’ is a new possibility to acquire beautiful, affordable and easily consumable dresses. Dresses that are used and thrown away… […] Adlib fashion has the great advantage that it adapts the dress to the physical convenience of the body, a fact that did not occur in another […] The ‘dress as you want, but with pleasure’, refers to the particular style of the dress wearer. Everyone can choose the model that best suits their measurements, without highlighting mini, maxi, pants or other types of clothing. Now women have complete freedom to choose what really suits them best, and keep in mind that all women know their body perfectly. If before they chose the mini, even to the detriment of her own physique, was simply to be fashionable. With Adlib fashion, this basic problem no longer exists: you can be fashionable and highlight the most beautiful parts of the body at the same time. I believe that more beautiful women have never been seen in Ibiza, and it is for what I tell you. Because everyone chooses the best for her body. […] In Adlib fashion, in effect, personality and imagination find all outlets…”.

[41] (pp. 155–156)

According to Fernando-Guillermo de Castro, “the Adlib fashion came up with Miguel García de Sáenz” [45] (p. 208). The Adlib fashion induced a small group of designers who had their inspiration and origin in hippie clothing. Ernesto Ramón commented:

“He took advantage of the image that the hippies had given to Ibiza. The purely Adlib designs consisted of an imitation of hippie fashion, combined with evocations of women’s peasant dress: light fabrics, with lace, simple and informal, with white and natural fabrics as protagonists. It was about projecting through the dresses the sensation of freedom, cosmopolitanism and peace that were supposed to constitute the pillars of the image of the island”.

[5] (p. 124)

The main element for the promotion of designers was, and still is, the Fashion Week that began in 1971 with a parade with brands such as Rosa Negra, Azul, Zoe, Calixta, Tip Top, Aivis, Cucaracha, etc. At that time, Adlib fashion was conceived not as a springboard to establish a textile industry in Ibiza, but as a lever for promoting tourism abroad [5], demonstrated by the fact that the 1st International Fashion Week, held in 1971, was financed by the Ministry of Information and Tourism [46]. Although it later became more professional, the first objective was to get one more excuse for the national and international press to talk about Ibiza and its cosmopolitan and liberal atmosphere. It was also possible to differentiate the destination through a unique image transmitted on clothing.

Smilja de Mihailovitch is a name linked to the Ibiza touristic industry, and especially to the beginnings of the Adlib fashion. Her dynamism and people skills, as well as her ability to “open doors” and other qualities, made her an invaluable and essential person for tourism in the seventies and eighties. From the very beginning, and thanks to the good relations that Smilja de Mihailovitch maintained with members of the jet set of that time, the Adlib fashion attempted to attract the national media, because only in this way could the intended promotional character be achieved [5].

The seventies were the golden age of the Adlib fashion and, in addition to the businesses that had already been created at the beginning of the decade, new businesses were formed in successive years. The designers who began their activity at this time were generally characterized by having self-taught training based on professional experience due to the non-existence of specialized studies in Ibiza. In some cases, the designer devised the designs; however, it was the seamstresses who put the idea into practice due to the designer’s educational deficiencies. Already in these years, the need to coordinate the promotion and production of the various designers was established [46].

In the seventies, the characteristic elements of Adlib fashion already appear clearly (Figure 2), i.e., informal clothing mostly designed for young women, as well as the predominance of white, lace, and transparencies. These elements remain today; however, the cut of the dresses has been updated to fit current styles (Figure 1).

In the eighties and early nineties, fashion in general, and Adlib fashion in particular, underwent major changes that led to a restructuring of the sector. On a global scale, the great haute couture designers, a paradigm of fashion for decades, began to lose influence and sales, surviving today thanks to their respective pret-a-porter divisions. Furthermore, on a global scale, the formation of large business groups, such as the Spanish case of Inditex, is worth mentioning. As a basic effect, the power of the creative (design) was replaced by the power of the managers (brand management, cost management, distribution management, etc.). In Ibiza, this global change harmed the sector because the owners of the firms were designers with great creative capacity, but with very poor training in business management, since their knowledge was due only to experience in the sector [46], taking these changes by surprise.

Another element that affected Adlib fashion was the touristic crisis. Adlib fashion is closely linked to tourism; when a tourism crisis occurred, the difficulties for local designers became more acute. The situation in the sector has always been difficult, as evidenced by the fact that, in the years of economic boom, businesses dedicated to fashion also closed.

The nineties saw the biggest change in the industry since the advent of the Adlib fashion. New designers began to emerge, mostly from the figurines promotions, first, and then from the clothing modeling of the Ibiza School of Arts and Crafts. With this qualification, they were able to receive more solid training in design, but also notions of business management.

Another important change in Adlib fashion occurred with the death of Smilja Mihailovitch in November 1994. Until then, the management of Adlib fashion was in the hands of Smilja and, on her death, public administrations took over through the Fashion Board, created in 1981 [46]. It is in 1997 when, at the hands of the Board, the Adlib fashion resurfaces strongly. With the entry of the public administration in the direct management of the joint promotion of Adlib fashion, foreign promotion at international fairs began strongly, which was scarce before [47].

Currently, many of the designers are very young and have started their activity in the last ten years, although designers with many years of experience survive, such as Luis Ferrer, Maru García, and Melania Piris. The new designers are usually former students of the Ibiza School of Arts who, after a few years working for other designers, have decided to become independent businesses and create and make their own designs. This high level of entrepreneurship among fashion graduates is something that is not unique to Ibiza and has been described in previous papers [16].

4.1. Adlib Fashion Features

In the aspects related to production, marketing, and even in some aspects related to promotion, Adlib fashion businesses and businesses outside of Adlib fashion have followed the same guidelines and have the same problems and opportunities. The main difference is in the use of Adlib’s brand and, in recent years, in the actions of the public administration in promotional functions.

Adlib fashion businesses are very small and, in some cases, it is more a situation of self-employment than company creation (there is only one person behind a fashion business). Therefore, they are designers and entrepreneurs who make their own designs and distribute them through their own stores, multi-brand stores, fairs, or representatives. They usually have a more or less small dressmaking workshop, depending on the volume of work, in which the designer and hired employees work and, in some cases, their own store where they sell their products.

The most common products in stores where Adlib fashion is sold, and the characteristics of these clothes, can be seen in Figure 3. As mentioned in the introduction, it is clothes with lace and transparencies, which are wide and comfortable, predominantly white, and which are mostly designed for young women, girls, and children. In reality, Adlib fashion of colors and designs, other than that shown in Figure 3, is less and less common in the island’s stores, especially since the appearance of “white weddings” (where all attendees must wear white Adlib clothing). In relation to this last element, one of the star products of the last decade is Adlib wedding dresses and several of the designs that appeared in Figure 1 are this type of dress.

In the clothing sector, training is usually scarce and based on many years of work experience, and the sector in Ibiza is no exception. People who have been working in the sector for several years have self-taught knowledge and a lot of experience in the sector. Since 1995, designers with specific training in the sector have emerged. In this case, when observing the characteristics of the entrepreneurs, three situations are to be noted:

• The designers who began their activity in the seventies are characterized by being self-taught and by carrying out many promotional activities.
• Designers who began their activity in the eighties and early nineties are characterized by being self-taught and having learned through professional experience and correspondence courses, such as CCC or CEAC. They are the least active group in promotional actions.
• Designers who have started their activity in the second half of the nineties are the best trained, since most of them have passed through the Ibiza School of Art, and they are among the most active when it comes to promoting their products.

If the groups are compared, it can be seen that the young designers who have studies in the matter carry out the same or more promotional activities than the designers who started in the seventies, with which it is possible that they have more chances of survival. Therefore, there is no evolution in the training of designers from a situation of absence of studies, in a situation with mostly new designers trained at the Ibiza School of Art, through studies in the training cycle of Clothing Modeling Higher Degree. The relationship that the Ibiza School of Art maintains with Adlib fashion is so important that it is common for students from the Ibiza School of Art to participate in the Fashion Week parade, along with twenty professional designers. This illustrates the current trend of Ibiza Art School graduates towards Adlib fashion as a career opportunity, whether to create their own business or work for another designer.

The Clothing Modeling studies, together with the previous titles of Figurines, have introduced the greatest change in Adlib fashion since its appearance. Thanks to these studies, business management has been improved and the sector has been given a chance of survival. Despite the existence of the training cycle for Clothing Modeling in Ibiza, there is no training cycle for Clothing Styling that would help to complete the educational offer of professional training in the matter. However, the most important deficiency in the training of designers is the non-existence, with a few exceptions, of university graduates in design and fashion management.

4.1.1. Product

Although Adlib fashion is characterized as informal clothing, with light colors, transparencies and lace, designed by women and for women, there are exceptions to this generalization. Although the majority of designers are women, there is a significant percentage of men. Most designers are natives of Ibiza, but a significant percentage are foreigners who have lived on the island for years. Where there is greater diversity in the type of product and in the lines that they produce, the essential elements of Adlib fashion can be maintained. The general typologies of the Adlib fashion are listed below.

• Serial production of Adlib clothing for all lines. These businesses produce Adlib clothing for men, women, and children in series, and distribute them through fairs and representatives. Each season, they create a set of samples dedicated to a number of units that depends on the orders received.
• Customized production of one or several types of garments. It is a work based on the realization of unique pieces and to the choice of the specific client. In many cases, although they produce other types, they are specialized in a specific type of clothing, such as wedding dresses.
• Serial production of some types of clothing. This is a group of designers that can be divided into two: designers who specialize in Adlib clothing for women or for women and girls; and designers who make garments with embroidery, leather, or other elements that make them stand out from the rest of the designers. Both groups are characterized by not carrying out tailor-made work and by being specialized.

The Adlib fashion has persisted since the seventies due to differentiation and because the non-essential elements of the design have been changing to adapt to the changes that have occurred over the years. In this way, the Adlib fashion that is currently marketed takes the same basic elements as those of the seventies; however, there is more variety in the ways of interpreting them, resulting in a greater variety of products covered by the Adlib brand.

All designers have their own dressmaking workshop, whether it is small, located in the designer’s home, and only used for the designer’s creative work, or a moderately sized workshop with hired staff and industrial operation. In addition to the own workshop, workshops on the Peninsula are usually used to meet the peaks of demand that cannot be covered with their own capacity. There is an undetermined number of women doing homework for the island workshops; however, measuring it is very difficult and, over the years, these women have become less common. In the cases in which the production is marketed in its own stores, or in the case of custom-made work, it is not usual to resort to outside workshops, but it is very common to use it in cases in which the demand is very variable, as is the case with distribution through fairs and representatives. Therefore, the production of Adlib fashion is based on its own dressmaking workshop that centralizes all production, whereby homework or contracts with workshops are made outside to complete production.

There are no quality management systems in place, since it is usual for the designer personally or one of their employees to review the quality of the products. The main technical investment of these businesses involves the purchase of machines for industrial use; this has led to changes in the oldest businesses which started their activity with machines for domestic use, and, in some cases, are still pedal-operated [46]. The purchase of industrial machinery is not a negligible investment since its cost is very high and repairs make some types of machinery a luxury.

4.1.2. Marketing

On the island of Ibiza, differentiation has been achieved through the collective brand of Adlib; however, promotion is largely deficient due to the apathy of many of its designers and entrepreneurs. The Adlib brand is well known, mainly linked to the Ibizan touristic offer. However, knowledge on the product that goes by the name of Adlib is scarce among the population and among tourists. The Adlib fashion logo is not as well-known as the brand name; however, it is widely used in the promotional elements of the Ibiza Island Council. The Adlib brand should be promoted as an identifying element of the clothing it represents, since there may be confusion between Adlib clothing and other types of clothing, which the brand name or logo as a label could help mitigate.

First, the Fashion Board, the Fashion Council, and the Ibiza Island Council represent the main and direct forms of public support within the clothing sector. The main function of the Ibiza Island Council is to organize promotional acts and attendance at national and international fairs that, due to their cost, are unattainable for designers on their own. All joint promotional actions of Adlib fashion designers are organized by the Ibiza Island Council. One of the events it organizes is the Fashion Week, which celebrated its fiftieth anniversary in 2021. The aim is to make residents and tourists aware of the designers’ proposals for the current touristic season.

The distribution of the Adlib fashion has not changed in its forms and continues to be based on four options, used alone or in combination:

• Not all designers have their own store, and they rarely have more than two stores. Many of these stores are concentrated in the neighborhood of La Marina, in the port of Ibiza.
• Boutiques are stores supplied directly by the designer without going through intermediaries or fairs. They are usually multi-brand stores from the island itself.
• Designers make samples of their designs and attend fairs organized in order to connect designers and retailers. Designers display their samples at the fair and retailers place their orders on the displayed samples. All Adlib fashion businesses with the highest sales volume and those looking to increase their production quickly turn to this tool.
• The representatives are an element that totally or partially replaces the designer–entrepreneur role in distribution functions. It is usually combined with the presence at fairs and is an element widely used by Ibiza clothing businesses, except for those that sell only in their own store.

The main elements of Adlib fashion promotion are:

• Internet use is very limited among Adlib clothing designers. The only Adlib fashion-related pages are several very basic pages from various designers and the umbrella brand website [43]. Designer pages only contain a few photos of the designer’s latest collections, a contact address, and sometimes a short reference to the designer. Various designer pages ask for an access code, indicating that it is a page with restricted access to their wholesale clients (they are online catalogues). The level of use of social media is similar, with the profiles being inactive and with little information.
• Fashion shows are the most attractive and classic promotional element in the fashion sector. Its purpose is to expose the samples of a clothing collection on a moving body. In the case of Ibizan designers, only small fashion shows are possible, outside of the big catwalks.
• The fairs act as a place of distribution to make contacts with customers and also of promotion towards them, since the fairs offer the opportunity for new brands and new designs to make themselves known to retailers.
• The representatives, within the delegation of functions carried out by the designers in them, deal with direct promotion to the clothing establishments and prepare fashion shows, catalogs and samples in their regions of operation.
• In Adlib fashion, the use of printed material is not very frequent due to the low volume that businesses in the sector move, but even so, some of them use catalogs and make advertisements in specialized magazines.
• The stores in Ibiza and Formentera are, together with the mentions in touristic guides and brochures, some of the main showcases of Adlib fashion for consumers.
• As very small and recent businesses, word of mouth only affects a very small group of designers who, after a long time in the sector and a lot of promotional effort, have managed to be known by retailers and customers.

In general, marketing is centered on the island’s own stores, mostly located in Ibiza town, highlighting the areas closest to the port. As clothing with an image and style strongly linked to the Ibiza Island, its marketing outside is a major handicap that on too many occasions ends in failure, with few success stories (e.g., Charo Ruiz). The reality is that Adlib fashion offers clothes for the island’s summers, therefore, it is mainly focused on tourists who visit Ibiza, highlighting young women as the main target.

This highlights that the vast majority of Adlib Ibiza stores are in tourist areas and are only open during the summer season. Residents also buy some Adlib clothing; however, this is uncommon as it is much more expensive than clothing from major international brands. Therefore, with minimal external market and local sales focused on tourists, Adlib fashion is mainly a souvenir for tourists.

5. Discussion

Adlib fashion has helped shape Ibiza’s image as a touristic destination [6]; however, it has not developed enough to constitute an economic alternative. In reality, Adlib fashion has always been a complement to the tourism sector, with a very limited real economic weight. As stated in the introduction, Adlib fashion consists of fifteen micro business (they are considered craft activity) that employ half a hundred people on an island of 160,000 inhabitants. In its origins, its purpose was to promote tourism and, today, it is one more element of the complementary offer and the destination differentiation. However, if there is no improvement in business management, providing sustainability and survival in the long term, it will end up disappearing. The disappearance of the Adlib fashion would eliminate its effect on the tourist image and differentiation. Therefore, the combination of tradition and innovation [17,18,19,20] is not enough for the survival of businesses created in highly competitive sectors, such as fashion. Without a modern and professional management of the businesses and the collective brand, the survival of this type of sectors is impossible, reducing them to a folklore equal to the tradition that it seeks to revitalize through innovation [18].

Since its inception, it has been common for many businesses to cease their activity after years of success, resulting in the existence of few businesses with more than twenty years in the sector. For example, all the designers and brands that existed when Fashion Week began in 1971 ceased their activity years ago. The situation is so serious that one cannot speak of family businesses, because no generational change has occurred. The causes of the closures must be sought in:

• The production costs that make it almost impossible to survive for a small fashion business that complies with the law, and makes the survival of businesses that resort to the irregular economy difficult.
• The inexperience of designers in business management can cause clothing business to go bankrupt after several decades with good results, due to management related to the fashion business or due to other personal investments that economically damage the entrepreneur.
• Crises in the clothing or tourism sectors can cause a drop in demand or changes to business who do not know how to adapt. Adlib has suffered cyclical ups and downs throughout its history, with the latest upturn being due to bridal fashion and white weddings [46].
• The generational change in businesses closely linked to a specific person. Adlib fashion businesses are small and their owner is both the designer and manager simultaneously, making it very difficult to find a person who can master both aspects and replace the founder. This implies that these businesses do not survive the retirement of their founder, even in the most successful situations.

All this reduces the probabilities of survival of Adlib businesses beyond thirty or forty years after their foundation. Despite the fact that the changes that have taken place in the last twenty years represent a substantial improvement for the sector, the Adlib fashion is still far from the levels of management training, promotional investments, and production volumes managed by successful fashion businesses in Madrid or Barcelona. In highly competitive sectors, even when innovation or design are a central element, business management is essential. Breakthrough innovation or creativity and rigorous management hardly coincide in the same person. For this reason, in this type of business, it is important to separate business management from innovation applied to the product, resting both functions on different people who act as a counterweight in strategic decisions.

The future of the clothing industry, and Adlib fashion as part of it, is not too optimistic. The liberalization of the world textile market is a threat to the textile sector in Western countries, as liberalization is not possible without the consequent destruction of this sector in Western Europe and North America, as confirmed in 2005. In addition, large business conglomerates in the fashion sector put small entrepreneurs in trouble, due to the economies of scale and innovation in management aspects, as opposed to groundbreaking designs.

In the case of Adlib fashion, Ibizan designers show a certain degree of ignorance and a lack of concern regarding the global changes in the sector because they trust handmade and differentiated production will not be negatively affected. In a tremendously global environment, even small businesses strongly linked to local tradition and society must take into account what happens beyond their region. To ensure the future of the clothing sector in Ibiza, several elements will be necessary:

• An increase in the training of designers, employees, and managers. With this improvement, businesses can be trained to deal with unexpected changes. The training and preparation of entrepreneurs and employees is never excessive for the challenges they may face. In the case of Adlib, perhaps in the future, it will be interesting to consider the possibility of increasing existing studies in design and fashion management in Ibiza as an element of support for the fashion sector.
• An offering of products with high quality and groundbreaking design, i.e., to create product differentiation that can open up a market for Ibiza fashion. Traditionally, quality is seen as target customer satisfaction; however, more recently, positive experiences are widely discussed as the target. In practice, positive experiences are achieved by exceeding customer expectations, i.e., a reference to determine their degree of satisfaction. This translates into a continuous improvement in technical quality, and continually seeking to exceed what is being offered on the market. This should be the goal of all companies (large and small) in all sectors.
• Institutional support for the promotion and development of the industry. It is necessary to go beyond promotional actions. However, the management of the Adlib Ibiza brand depends on the local authorities for its operation and, due to the frequent changes in the government team of the Ibiza Island Council, stoppages and management changes in Adlib Ibiza are frequent. In local economic sectors, the administrations’ support is essential for their development and empowerment within and outside the region.
• Increased business cooperation. The business cooperation is intended to offset the higher costs incurred by businesses on the island due to their size. One possibility is to centralize business management, production, distribution, and promotion, thus maintaining the brands and the different styles of the designers. Something already claimed in the seventies by various personalities in the sector, and not achieved yet. This cooperation strategy is the only way to partially compensate for the lack of economies of scale that affects sectors with small businesses.
• Increased control over the use of the Adlib Ibiza brand and the designers who use this brand. Over the past decade, there have been lawsuits for the registration of the brand and the logo by businessmen from other countries, for example in China in 2013 [46]. On the other hand, as of 2021, a new regulation is being prepared for the Adlib Ibiza brand that seeks to protect products produced on the island by businesses registered on the island. These new requirements reduced the number of participants in the 2021 Fashion Week to sixteen.

Although the new regulation seems to bring order to the use of the Adlib Ibiza collective brand, many more measures will still be necessary to guarantee a future for the collective brand and the private brands placed under the umbrella of Adlib Ibiza. Improving training in the design and management will be essential, but also the support and coordination to face the economic challenges involved in the production of quality clothing and the generation of a brand image for it is equally as important. As previously indicated, the actions of local administrations can be of great help to face the challenges of the Adlib fashion, and other local sectors in similar situations.

6. Conclusions

This paper is an approximation to a small sector made up of small businesses or micro-businesses headed by designers and entrepreneurs who, when founding these businesses, looked for a form of self-employment while creating their own designs. In this case study, the island’s traditional bespoke clothing and tailoring has survived, albeit to a limited extent, thanks to innovation [18] representing Adlib. However, perhaps the most remarkable thing is that Adlib is an innovation in the fashion sector based on rescuing tradition [17] of the typical dress of the island women, something that only survives through folklore. Nevertheless, it should be noted that after half a century, the hippie movement and Adlib fashion are already part of the local tradition and culture, given that culture and tradition represent a dynamic element, in continuous adaptation and transformation, as opposed to something static and immovable.

The impacts of Adlib fashion on the local economy have been small. It has generated small activity in the secondary sector (almost non-existent on the island) and the tertiary sector (some clothing stores), and it has helped to offer a more diverse and differential image of the island, On the negative side, it should be noted that part of the activity in this sector represents part of the non-formal economy.

The effects of Adlib and its promotion on Ibiza tourism are similar to other elements, such as gastronomy, craft markets, nightlife, etc., which can help to offer an image of a diverse offer that favors longer tourist stays and increased spending. However, within this combined action, there are little data on Adlib fashion since it is not a predominant style of clothing among tourists on the island. The image of Ibiza is built around freedom, and Adlib fashion follows this, building on the high heterogeneity in the clothing of people (tourists and residents). Within this freedom in clothing, Adlib is seen as an elegant local design adapted to the Ibiza summers that provides a sense of integration of the tourist in the local tradition while constituting an Ibiza travel souvenir.

Unfortunately, after more than fifty years, businesses with a long history and significant volumes of production and sales have not been consolidated, since it is very difficult to make a commercial leap outside the island and the strong connection between the designers and entrepreneurs. Furthermore, these businesses struggle to survive the retirement of their founder. So, this case study is bittersweet. On the one hand, a local fashion sector has survived for more than half a century, although with very small and insignificant data within the island’s economy. On the other hand, the management and marketing problems of the sector’s microbusinesses have not been resolved. Half a century of existence shows that Adlib fashion is resilient to local and international social and economic developments; however, the lack of resilience of the businesses covered by the umbrella brand raises doubts that cannot be mitigated without the application of various actions, e.g., improvements in the training, coordination of covered businesses, greater involvement of the administrations, among others.

The future trend of the sector, based on the monitoring carried out by the authors for twenty years, is one of stagnation or slight decline, going from almost thirty brands at the beginning of the 21st century to fifteen in 2022. All of this is also linked to the lack of training, the improvisation, and lack of planning, as well as low cooperation due to the enormous individualism of local society. The new regulation to limit the use of umbrella brand to only designers who carry out artisan work, inspired by local tradition, and who manufacture and design their products on the island, in addition to maintaining the headquarters in Ibiza, is a good step to “clean” a catalog of outdated designers without a consistent image. As an example, in 2003, the Fashion Board had a list of 45 members, many of whom had no activity, and today the list of members is reduced to 15, but all who undertake production and marketing on the island.

Even so, new measures are necessary, and encouraging the training of specialized personnel outside the island in design and fashion management university degrees [16], among other measures, should not be ruled out. The existing professional training in fashion on the island must be expanded with help from the administrations so that the best upcoming designers can be trained in specialized university degrees currently existing in Spain and abroad. The sector also suffers from an excess of individualism, typical of local society [37], which prevents cooperation between designers and the formation of business companies that provide centralized support in the production and marketing of various designers. This lack of coordination can be counteracted by the Ibiza Island Council, the administration responsible for managing the umbrella brand, and through the creation of a public–private company aimed at centralizing business management activities carried out by individual designers (production, promotion, quality control, market analysis, accounting and tax management, among others). However, the cultural base of the local society and the lack of long-term planning of the island’s public and private sectors make it very difficult.

The development of economic sectors other than tourism in destinations that are highly dependent on tourism activity is essential for economic diversification and facilitating sustainable local development. Nevertheless, this development will not have the desired effects if it is not supported by adequate training, in this case, in fashion entrepreneurship [16], i.e., “support” from institutions, such as universities, research centers, and public administrations. The tourist development of Ibiza has been disorganized and improvised, but yet still successful. However, this specific situation of tourism in Ibiza cannot be extrapolated to other economic activities, especially in highly competitive sectors, such as fashion. It is important to keep in mind that personal or collective success in one sector does not guarantee success in another sector. It is necessary to be aware of the fact that success requires a competitive advantage (achieved through training and experience), making an enormous effort (especially in highly competitive activities) and being lucky (that is, uncontrollable factors are favorable). This requirement implies that, in reality, there is a high level of failure (all the variables are rarely favorable) and there rarely lasting success without being accompanied by all the indicated factors. In the case of Ibiza, the tourist boom of the sixties was a stroke of luck; however, Adlib does not meet all the requirements for success.

The main limitation of this paper is that it uses a limited number of interviews, which are necessary to carry out future studies that expand and complement this analysis in various aspects, and that seek to delve into the reasons that have led to the sector and solutions required to reverse the trend. It would also be necessary, in future works, to analyze if there are comparable cases in other parts of the world. All of this is useful in order to determine if what happened in Ibiza is really exceptional, in the good and in the bad, or if it is conventional. The degree of awareness and value of the Adlib Ibiza brand outside the island should also be measured, both in the rest of Spain and beyond.