Madrid

"Jefferson started by inviting Spain’s diplomat, Carlos Martínez de Irujo, to the White House. This was surprising. While Jefferson and Irujo were friendly—the diplomat had helped him find a chef for his White House dinners—Madison handled most of these meetings. But Jefferson wanted to do this one himself. On December 1, Irujo arrived and found the president in a shockingly good mood. They talked briefly about New Orleans, but Jefferson seemed more interested in sharing his new idea for an expedition. The president confided in Irujo, explaining that the mission would be framed as a commercial one, for constitutional reasons, but that his real hopes—he could be honest with Irujo—were science and geography. As he talked, Jefferson grew excited, even agitated. Then he paused and asked if Spain would have any objections. Spain certainly would, Irujo said. Jefferson was trying the same trick he always saw in others—emphasizing the Enlightenment to deflect from the colonizing. The diplomat didn’t buy it. After leaving the White House, he sent a report to Madrid. “The president,” he wrote, “has been all his life a man of letters, very speculative and a lover of glory.” But Irujo sensed a different motive. The expedition, he believed, was a step “by which the Americans may someday extend their population.”"

"He opens his iPhone and checks the sales data in real-time in individual countries. He is worried about Spain, observes how sales are going in the flagship store in Madrid, monitors the performance of his Spanish representative's deliveries."

"Trends, colors, successes of each season arrived at the design tables of Arteixo from all over Europe and beyond the seas. This was always this man's obsession: reworked, reinvented clothes, in direct connection with what consumers expected. Clothes that appeared very shortly after hanging in Madrid, Barcelona, and other cities in Spain; in Porto, Paris, or Mexico."