When and where does Las Fallas festival take place?
The Las Fallas is a traditional celebration held annually in commemoration of Saint Joseph in the city of Valencia, Spain. The five main days celebrated are from 15 to 19 March, this festival is full of energy and spirit, vibrant colors, fire, and plenty of noise and smoke, attracting visitors from every corner of Spain and all over the world.
Firework displays, live music, and traditional costumes feature prominently in Las Fallas celebrations, but the true focal point of the festival is the hundreds of towering cartoonish monuments that fill the streets of Valencia. On the final night of Las Fallas, these monuments are ceremoniously set ablaze and burned to the ground.
Origins of Las Fallas festival – why is Las Fallas celebrate
The origins of the Fallas festival are rooted in commemorating the day of Saint Joseph, the saint of carpenters. This dates back to the 15th century when carpenters used wooden handles to hold up their lamps during winter. When spring was approaching and the days began to get longer, carpenters no longer needed their wooden poles.
Therefore, tradition would have it that in honor of their patron saint, San José, they decided to burn them on March 19th. It was symbolic of the winter coming to a close and the arrival of spring. In the festival we see today, this symbolic burning is represented in La Cremà, taking place on March 19th respectively, the last day of the Fallas festival.
As with most traditions, the Fallas gradually evolved over time. They adopted a critical and ironic tone, displaying scenes of condemned social behaviors in their artwork.
Fireworks for weeks
To say Valencians like fire and explosions would be the understatement of the year. Valencia gets into the party mood well before the official festival week, and you can expect official firework displays on the weekends as well as plenty of firecrackers going off in the streets day and night. Expect the volume to increase steadily from the end of February.
Falleras and Falleros
On March 17 and 18, falleras dressed in their traditional 18th century clothing parade from all the neighborhoods in the Valencian Community, each carrying flowers to offer to the Virgin Mary.
The Valencians that don the traditional costumes are called falleras and falleros. The hand stitched dresses and tight hairstyles that feature prominently on Valencian women, young and old, are one of the most widely recognized features of Las Fallas de Valencia.
The Fallas Festival is arguably one of the most important traditional celebrations of silk in Valencia, commemorating the city's long Silk Road history. The famous traditional clothing, worn by the "Falleros" and "Falleras", is made using embroidered silks and special fabrics of various colors and patterns, thus preserving the tradition of production using ancient handmade silk looms. The top of the costume is a tight-fitting top, from the shoulders to the waist, with white lace borders on the neckline, and crossed white lace ribbons sewn on the front chest of the top. The lower part of the dress is a wide skirt, which is very fluffy. Coupled with silver triangle earrings, a beautiful Miss Falla is born.
Sourced from China, the silk for these traditional dresses was initially brought back through Filipino and Latin American colonies, across the Atlantic and into Spanish ports. Contemporary fallera dresses are typically one of a kind, with prices starting at €2,000 and reaching €15,000 and beyond.
Each neighborhood falla committee selects one adult, a fallera mayor, and one child, a fallera mayor infantil, to represent the neighborhood. The community-wide fallera mayor and fallera mayor infantil are chosen from this pool of falleras. The responsibilities of these women extend beyond Las Fallas, as they make public appearances and speeches at all major religious and cultural events in Valencia over the course of the year.
What Do Men Wear At Las Fallas
Much like the women’s clothing, Valencian men’s folk costumes are inspired by clothing of the 18th century to the 20th century.
The main style influences on this type of clothing are Anglo-French and Moorish-Balkan. Western European fashion was mainly copied by the Spanish ruling minority, and thus some fashion patterns were slowly and partly adopted by the working-class majorities.
Compared with Ms. Falla's gorgeous clothes, men's clothes are very simple. White shirts, vests of various colors, belts and trousers are all Mr. Falla's outfits. These exquisite and gorgeous costumes vary widely in price because of the different fabrics and craftsmanship. Under normal circumstances, a set of clothing also costs 5000 to 6000 euros. There are also clothes sewn with gold thread, which are even more expensive.
Experiences in Valencia that you will never forget with the sound of music and the smell of gunpowder that transforms the Valencian streets. So here are a few things to expect if you’re coming to Valencia for Las Fallas next year.