João Pedro Estelita Mendonça is Portugal’s New Best Talent. The prize was awared yesterday in Lisbon at the Fashion Awards, an event hosted by Fashion TV Portugal and which is there to acknowledge the best in Portugal fashion, from designers to fashion journalists, through to hairdressers, producers, photographers, make-up artists, stores and brands.
This year’s new best talent is one of the most promising names in Portuguese fashion, someone with a very consistent body of work. Trendenz has always kept an eye on the work of this Oporto-based designer whose style is marked by a revealing simplicity and whose collections are a true statement.

Estelita Mendonça designs for the urban man and his outfits match the spirit of modern cities. His garments fit in perfectly in offbeat cities like Berlin, in the most alternative corners of Madrid or Barcelona, suitable for fashion conscious Asian men, for avant garde New Yorkers and for those for whom Antwerpen is still a reference.
But the city of Oporto plays an important part in his work. This city is booming with new artists, a place where fashion, architecture, performing arts, design, sculpture and painting intersect in a curious way, a city both proud of its legacy and increasingly open to the world.