According to the gala's costume designer since 2003, Emilia Perdomo, councilor of Social Services, the area in charge of organizing this event, went to his workshop in December to hire his services as her predecessor, Lolina Curbelo, had done in previous editions. Toño Aparicio presented the invoice for the cost that his work would have for the City Council on December 10 and they gave him the go-ahead. Since then, activity began in his workshop. "We had already done all the work of rhinestones, accessories for the dress and necklaces, all the crafts. We only needed to cut the dresses, the confection work," he explains.
But he assures that the payment of the invoice presented to Social Services did not arrive. "I was waiting to be paid to go and get the merchandise that had already been ordered and for which I had already made part of the payment," says Toño Aparicio, who calculates that at this point he has put "more than 7,000 euros" out of his pocket. He says that on Friday, January 11, he called Emilia Perdomo in the morning to warn her of the few days left for the gala and that he had not yet been paid, so he could not pick up the fabrics to make the dresses. "Emilia agreed to call me but she didn't," continues Aparicio, who found out about the change of designer after "another councilor", whose name he preferred not to make public, told him that the City Council had commissioned the designs to the designer Albania, "a very good dressmaker that I know", Toño Aparicio points out.
"When I called Emilia Perdomo she told me that on Friday afternoon she decided to do it with Albania, her seamstress, because the City Council was delaying the payment of my invoice," explains the designer.
Emilia Perdomo does not want to talk about the issue
The councilor of Social Services has declared to La Voz that the change of designer for the Gala for the Election of the Queen of the Carnival of the Elderly is true, but she did not want to make any further clarification in this regard.
For his part, Toño Aparicio feels that he and five other people who make up his team have been left "completely hanging, with the material made" and with merchandise waiting in boxes that he says he cannot return, in addition to the disruption for the aspiring queens, seven candidates who had already gone to his workshop to take measurements, had chosen their designs and "even the order of appearance in the gala, everything was organized", Aparicio asserts.
Willing to denounce
The designer maintains that Emilia Perdomo promised that they would reimburse him the money he had put in, but as he did not finish receiving the payment, this same Tuesday he spoke with the councilor again. "She told me that first I have to deliver the merchandise and then they will pay me, but that is not a deal, when they come with the money I will deliver the material," he defends, "I am going to wait until Thursday and if they have not paid me, I will show up in court and file a lawsuit against them."
