I knew about Octaevo a few years ago. Probably the same year Marcel founded it. As a sea and Mediterranean lover I soon got one of their small notebooks. Apparently it was that obvious that we had a connection, that during those months, an Octaevo travel notebook was something that more than one friend brought to the boat for my birthday or for a special occasion.
A couple of years later I met Marcel. He has joined some “Narinan” trips. We have been out in the blue a couple of times; we also have been living the sea gipsie’s life around the Balearic Islands. As with most of Narinan crew members, we have laughed, cooked, cleaned, dived, rowed, walked, seen, felt, learned… we’ve done all these adventures together.
Some of you know that once I made an almost ten years break in my sailor’s life. I worked as a shoe and clothes designer. Pretty different, you’re right... Although now I am very disconnected from it, also kind of disgusted about conventional fashion and design industry, about consume patterns; I keep a taste and an eye for a very small number of clothes and few other things. During the miles we have sailed together with Marcel, several times we talked about doing something together, Narinan and Octaevo, a small collaboration. Our conversations were always going around clothes. But time passed by, and like many so desired plans or goals, it never happened yet.
But a few weeks ago Marcel gave me a phone call. It was a Sunday evening, month of May. He had some questions, about one of his drawings sailing through the Mediterranean Sea. He was asking about the possibility of having a sail made with Octaevo’s Janus personality on it. At the end of the night he sent me some Photoshop images with their drawing on Narinan’s genoa sail. It was brilliant.
I wanted to read up on Janus meaning. I found he is a god with a double nature. For that reason he was normally represented with two faces looking in opposite directions. Janus symbolizes change and transitions such as the progress of past to future, from one condition to another, from one vision to another, and young people's growth to adulthood. He represents time, because he can see into the past with one face and into the future with the other. Hence, Janus represents the middle ground between barbarism and civilization, rural and urban space, youth and adulthood, abstract or concrete, sacred or profane. As a god of transitions, he has functions pertaining to birth, to journeys; he is very concerned with travelling and sailing.
A couple of days later Rebecca and Marcel visited me at the boat in Barcelona. We agreed. I felt very excited that we had found a way to do something very nice together. I also thought it still had to do with clothes, with sail cloth. We were going to give Narinan a new piece for her wardrobe. A new front sail which, will probably cross the whole Mediterranean Sea with its ancient roman deity. I started to organize everything with a local sail maker loft.
In Narinan we have printed Janus in both sides of the sail, as he is commonly represented. He is looking at the contrary sides of life. I wish that below his presence will be under his essence of passage, between the past and the future. I wish he will help us to stay longer and enjoy the only important thing, the slippery, the evasive, the precious present.
The Mediterranean gods save Octaevo and Narinan in our beginner journeys!
Thanks to Marcel, Rebecca and the whole Octaevo team.
Please, visit their website to follow their extraordinary nice brand:
A very special thanks to Alba Yruela, Coke Bartrina and Aitor Bigas <3<3<3 for their effort and work to document this story with the nice pics above and the video bellow these words.
