Velvet

If you like this era (late 50s/early 60s), you'll love Velvet. I love the look and feel of this show: the clothes, the cars, the music, the cocktails. I even love the sunglasses the lead character sports in a few episodes. But nostalgia aside, it's a terrific show. The crux of the series is a great once-in-a-lifetime love, a love that should be the destiny of the boy & girl. But of course, everything is against them: their parents, their class difference, and financial issues. The two actors who play the leads couldn't be better. Both are gorgeous to look at AND terrific actors - what more could you ask for? Besides the main story, a number of secondary plots, both comic and tragic, will engage you. I just finished watching the first season in less than 2 weeks. And I'm about to watch all 15 episodes again because I love this show so much. Whether Spanish or American, this is one of the best shows I've ever seen.

SPOILER: The show is visually stunning, characters are interesting (Raul De La Riva for instance) and almost everyone is really good looking. My main beef with the show is that it makes it really hard to empathize with the main characters. The premise is that you root for the lovers who almost never have things going their way (at least for too long). But their actions make it hard to root for them. Alberto marries Christina for her money to keep his store afloat. Christina loves Alberto earnestly, yet he continues his flirtations with Ana and one other woman. He cheats on her and treats her badly. And we're still expected to be on his side. Ana is too 'principled' to marry Alberto in a secret ceremony but has no qualms hanging around with a married man, while befriending his unsuspecting wife. It's all a bit hard to reconcile. The characters being 'flawed' is not the problem here, it's that the show carries on strongly making the assumption that you're on their side despite their actions. I personally struggled with forgiving them for their actions and wishing them to be united in spite of all the people they hurt along the way (in many cases unnecessarily and selfishly). Yet they are portrayed as being 'golden'.

Found this by accident and got hooked. Acting is very good and the story lines are very easy to follow. loved the way they played background music throughout. Have watched season 1 & 2 on netflix I don't speak Spanish so I can't say if the translation is all correct but it worked for me. Does anyone know where one could get a soundtrack of the music. Not all of the music was composed for the series there are a lot of 50's 60's and so on used. I would love to get a soundtrack or CD of the music. So much was new to me but really great I was brought up in a Spanish speaking home and surprising how much of the Spanish I could understand.

My wife and myself were hooked watching the series Velvet and staying late every night until we finished the First season. We loved the series and highly recommend it. While watching the series we were pleasantly surprised when we discovered the true story behind the story that, probably, very few people know except, of course, the writers of the series.

All the founders of Velvet, as per the story, came from Cuba from working in a place call "El Encanto" which was, in reality, the queen of all the stores in Havana, Cuba and the Americas in the 50s. My wife and myself are both Cuban, I was born in 1940 and my wife in the 1950, so we knew this store "in person".

"El Encanto" was started by two Spanish immigrants that went to Cuba in the 1880s, last name Solis, as a modest fabrics store. The store grew with the managerial intelligence of the founders and, in spite of all the endemic political problems of Cuba, by the early 50s became what it was, an impressive building six stories high with different departments on each floor and with branches in every big city in the island. On the early 1950s two of the partners went back to Spain and were instrumental in the creation of two stores in Madrid, "Gallerias Preciado" and "El Corte Ingles". We should add "Velvet".

Unfortunately, "El Encanto" was nationalized in 1960 by the communist government of Cuba and in a few months later it was burned down by some ex-employees that prefer a burnt building than the government ownership. (The above data can be verified on numerous articles in the internet and the Wikipedia Encyclopedia, also pictures of the actual store are available.)

Very light amusing distraction. Stuff for watching before bed with the wife. (Avoid the follow-on Velvet Collection - which is trash)

In the same genre - Spanish sloppy stuff - Grand Hotel is better.