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"On the second leg of my mystery fashion-finding trip around Europe, I headed to this Spanish city&amp;amp;#8212;the setting of many a Pedro Almodovar film&amp;amp;#8212;where I checked out a fantastic vintage shop that&amp;#x27;s a favorite of Penelope Cruz&amp;#x27;s. I also popped by the showroom and studio of local label Peseta, which has, over the past few years, been collaborating with Marc Jacobs on special-edition handbags. And I visited with jewelry and homeware designers Eva Ruiz Romero and Marre Moerel who share a boutique space in the city&amp;#x27;s trendy Triball neighborhood. Can you guess what city I visited? That&amp;#x27;s right! I was in Madrid! So I&amp;#x27;m finally back in New York after a week of mystery-fashion-tripping on an American Express Travel NEXTPEDITION&amp;amp;#8212;a tailor-made mystery-vacation created for you based on a free personality test you can take on the company&amp;#x27;s website. In case you missed it, the first few days of my adventures took me through Rome, where my NEXTPEDITION-assigned mystery activity involved meeting a young American designer Jessica Harris and taking a tour of Monti, an up-and-coming part of the city where lots of young creative people live and work. Second stop? Madrid, where I met up with Joanna Wivell, a British expat who specializes in custom-tailored tours. My fashion-finding goal for Spain was to find some fantastic out-of-the-way shops, bask in the spirit of Almodovar, find out who cuts Penelope Cruz&amp;#x27;s hair (she is my hair idol), and meet some cool local girls doing cool creative things. Here&amp;#x27;s what happened. My first stop was Peseta (Noviciado 9, peseta.org), a shop-slash-studio in Triball founded by designer Laura Martinez del Pozo. Laura started out making these elaborate wallet-pouches, above, as gifts for her friends&amp;amp;#8212;who loved them so much, they encouraged her to try and sell them. So she went off to New York with a bunch of samples, and within a week sold them to a Japanese buyer who placed a huge order for her store in Tokyo! These days, Laura creates her bags and accessories from colorful printed fabrics she sources from conventional sources&amp;amp;#8212;like Liberty of London&amp;amp;#8212;as well as from artisans in developing countries and local textile makers. The Peseta store&amp;amp;#8212;which is adorable&amp;amp;#8212;sells Laura&amp;#x27;s designs as well as batches of fabrics and yarn, just in case you&amp;#x27;re feeling a bit DIY. Since founding Peseta, Laura has collaborated with New York&amp;#x27;s New Museum&amp;amp;#8212;creating a series of bicycle caps for the museum&amp;#x27;s gift shop. She&amp;#x27;s also in the fourth season of a bag collaboration with Marc Jacobs&amp;amp;#8212;whose president, Robert Duffy, stumbled into Peseta&amp;#x27;s boutique while walking around the neighborhood a few years ago. Here&amp;#x27;s a video of the latest Peseta for Marc Jacobs bag: Next, I headed over to see Marre Moerel (Calle de la Luna 19, marremoerel.com) at her studio/gallery a few streets away. First of all, I&amp;#x27;m obsessed with Marre&amp;#x27;s hair. Second of all, I&amp;#x27;m obsessed with her work. Marre takes everyday objects&amp;amp;#8212;pieces of discarded sculpture, miscellaneous objects, found items, and (most recently) food-animal parts&amp;amp;#8212;and repurposes them (or their form, in the case of animal parts) into household objects. Her latest series is inspired by Spanish food&amp;amp;#8212;and includes tableware pieces in the form of kidneys, tongues, and bull testicles. In the history of tableware, she explains, fruits and vegetables have always been popular. &amp;quot;This pays homage to the meat side,&amp;quot; Marre says, pointing out a water jug with a cow tongue-shaped stopper. &amp;quot;I&amp;#x27;m interested in changing one material into another&amp;amp;#8212;just to see what happens to its shape.&amp;quot; Marre shares her retail space with jewelry designer Eva Ruiz Moreno (ymetal.es), above, whose pieces are intricate conceptual studies of forms and figures that occur in nature. I&amp;#x27;m obsessed with her brooches (I have a thing for brooches)&amp;amp;#8212;especially the snowflake, which (I wish I could show you a bigger, more detailed photograph) has a really organic, soft look (like snow) in real life. I also love that brooch to the left of the snowflake&amp;amp;#8212;not sure if you can tell, but it&amp;#x27;s a collection of scarabs and beetles. It&amp;#x27;s really beautiful. Over at Guk, brother and sister team Angel Sanchez and Montse Sanchez run a two-level shop that&amp;#x27;s dedicated to Scandinavian designers. Yup&amp;amp;#8212;if you&amp;#x27;re thinking that the Nordic aesthetic is pretty much in diametric opposition to the mainstream Madrid aesthetic, you&amp;#x27;d be right. But in this neighborhood, the Sanchez siblings tell me, lots of young people&amp;amp;#8212;and even some older women&amp;amp;#8212;are looking for something a little bit different. So at Guk it&amp;#x27;s all about blonde wood, simple silhouettes, and Scandic sleekness. Out of all the stores I visited on my shopping tour of Madrid, my absolute, hands-down favorite one was a double-store&amp;amp;#8212;one store with another store inside&amp;amp;#8212;called Femisa Objetos Perdidos (Corredera Baja de San Pablo 8, corachanydelgado.com), which houses a mindblowing vintage shop called Corachan y Delgado in the back. Owned and operated by Bernardo Corachan and costume designer Paco Delgado, the bi-level retail space sells cool vintage pieces (check out these gorgeous hair combs from the 1940s, below!) alongside covetable modern home and office items (this place is notebook heaven&amp;amp;#8212;if you&amp;#x27;re a notebook obsessive like me, you will love it here). The lower level of the shop serves as a warehouse of vintage that Corachan and Delgado rent out to film productions&amp;amp;#8212;Delgado himself is a major costume designer who&amp;#x27;s worked on films such as Almodovar&amp;#x27;s Bad Education, Biutiful, and the most recent The Skin I Live In. In fact, if you&amp;#x27;ve seen The Skin I Live In, there&amp;#x27;s a vintage clothing shop that&amp;#x27;s featured in the movie&amp;amp;#8212;that&amp;#x27;s Corachan y Delgado&amp;#x27;s previous location. For sale vintage pieces include mint garments by Balenciaga and Pucci. Penelope Cruz (my hair idol) is a loyal customer. So, side note, I have this theory that if you go to a store, and there are adorable dogs at the store, that store is usually a good store. I don&amp;#x27;t know why, but this theory hasn&amp;#x27;t been proven wrong yet. Anyway, here are Corachan y Delgado&amp;#x27;s two adorable Yorkies: Vincent and Pepito&amp;amp;#8212;Vincent is Pepito&amp;#x27;s dad and, funnily enough, half Pepito&amp;#x27;s size. They are so cute, I almost died. Here&amp;#x27;s Vincent: And his boy Pepito: If you&amp;#x27;re ever in Madrid, I highly highly recommend stopping by Corachan y Delgado to do some major shopping&amp;amp;#8212;and to play with the cute dogs! PLUS... &amp;amp;#183; Jessica Harris is an American designer living in Rome &amp;amp;#183; I&amp;#x27;m in Europe on a mystery fashion-finding trip &amp;amp;#183; Isn&amp;#x27;t This a Hot (Yet Romantic!) Messy Bun Here on Penelope Cruz? More Ways to Get Glamour: Get the latest fashion updates via Twitter on @glamour_fashion Check out our chic Tumblr! Read Glamour magazine on your iPad&amp;amp;#8212;print subscribers, it&amp;amp;#8217;s now part of your subscription plan! Like freebies? Enter the latest Glamour sweepstakes! Sign up for our fashion and beauty newsletters to get easy style tips (it&amp;#x27;ll make your inbox 10x sexier, we promise). And, did you know you can read glamour.com on your smart phone?! It&amp;amp;#8217;s the ultimate boredom buster. All photos by Danica Lo"^^<http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema#string>
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