Madrid, Feb 19 (IANS/EFE): Aware that women want clothes that are long-lasting, versatile and very wearable, designers at the 57th Mercedes-Benz FashionWeek Madrid have unveiled apparel that is saleable, restrained and coherent.

After a season away from the Madrid runway, Nuria Sarda came back with a collection marked by softer, subtler styles compared with her sometimes ostentatious past creations.

Meanwhile Francis Montesonos did some time-travelling to retrieve for opening day his best designs of the 1980s, a period when the designer used "made in Spain" as a fashion statement.

A fashion that was a cult which also extended to music, art and culture in general, and which must be resurrected to combat Spain's present economic crisis, he said.

Coherent and refined was the collection of Teresa Helbig, a designer who shunted aside handcrafted embroidery to adorn her pieces with geometric figures of methacrylate. "Maybe my collection is more complicated," she told EFE.

Inspired by "the geometric lines and optical illusions of op-art", Helbig has constructed a collection of warm, elegant clothing for women who are "sophisticated and sure of themselves".

In the early afternoon, Miguel Palacio made the dress the backbone of his style for the coming season, a piece that brings back a feminine silhouette with "big shoulders, straight and uplifted", to give the collection a 1980s air.

To the rhythm of the rapper Eminem, Palacio presented a commercial collection for Hoss Intropia.