Mr. Vicent, as his employees call him, goes every morning to the huge warehouse that Ale-Hop has in Oliva (Valencia), a few kilometers from his hometown, Gata de Gorgos (Alicante), where it all began, and sets to work armed with a pen and notebook. Around them, young employees tinker in a scale recreation of one of their accessories and gift shops, ubiquitous on beaches, stations, airports and shopping streets in Spain, Italy, Portugal and Croatia and recognizable by the life-size sculpture of a cow at the door. Grimalt, very affable, prepares for the talk accompanied by Raúl, one of his four children who, along with two of his brothers, manages the day-to-day running of this family business. It is the son who tells the anecdote: one year, on the eve of Fallas, a ninot creation contest was organized among the employees and the one his father liked the most was one in which he was represented with his perennial pen hooked from his shirt pocket and a smear of ink. And if he liked it it’s because it was him, essentially. Encouraged by the good mood of the environment, I take out an object from the bag and show it to the owner of all this. Continue reading
