What: El Corte Inglés has become an official sponsor of Mercedes-Benz Fashion Week Madrid, backing Spanish fashion and launching the new Premio El Corte Inglés al Mejor Modelo

Why it is important:  It shows a department store moving beyond a commercial sponsor role into active patronage of national design talent, mirroring how Galeries Lafayette and Printemps use fashion-week platforms to back emerging and established designers.

Mercedes-Benz Fashion Week Madrid (MBFW Madrid) has confirmed El Corte Inglés as its newest official sponsor, just over a week before the pasarela's next edition opens. The department store will drive activations in support of Spanish fashion and launch a new award, the Premio El Corte Inglés al Mejor Modelo, honouring the model who best combines runway presence, projection and the ability to represent a collection.

The alliance runs through the September 14–19 edition, organised by Ifema with support from Madrid's city council. Both parties frame the partnership around reinforcing Spanish design, growing MBFW Madrid's national and international visibility, and generating high-impact experiences around the pasarela. The new model award succeeds the one previously run by L'Oréal Paris, giving El Corte Inglés a recurring, named presence at the event going forward.

MBFW Madrid's organisers describe the deal as strengthening its ecosystem of strategic partners and as a step in consolidating the pasarela's position as Spain's leading fashion platform and a fixture of the international fashion-week calendar.

IADS Notes:  El Corte Inglés' MBFW Madrid sponsorship extends a well-established pattern of aligning the retailer with high-profile national events to build brand visibility and drive engagement — most recently its role as a local sponsor of the Formula 1 Madrid Grand Prix (El Correo, June 2026), where it built a dedicated Fan Zone, merchandising and travel packages around the race, and its earlier sponsorship of San Diego Comic-Con Malaga (Press Release, October 2025), which folded retail promotions into the first SDCC held outside the US. On the fashion-week side, the move to back a national platform for designer talent echoes how other department stores use fashion-week moments to support emerging creators: Galeries Lafayette Haussmann's recurring "Africa Now" pop-up spotlighting African designers during Paris Men's Fashion Week (Fashion Network, May 2026), and Printemps' relaunch of its L'Endroit designer space around curation and exclusivity as shoppers tire of "normalised luxury" (WWD, June 2026).

El Corte Inglés joins Mercedes-Benz Fashion Week Madrid as official sponsor