María

María a lady of the Hippy Market
41 years being part of the Hippy Market family is said quickly but not something that everyone can claim. This friend came on July 75 to Ibiza (two years after the beginning of the Hippy Market) and we are honoured to have her still at the market.

How was her arrival at the Hippy Market?
María is from Catalonia although she lived many years in France. In those years she met an australian hippie who came every summer to Ibiza and who told her about the island. She decided to give up her comfortable life, her job as a stewardess for taking a new direction in search of a freer way of life. The people of her environment asked her if she was crazy, giving up all she had and with the education she was blessed with.
She gave up everything and only came with a book which was wonderfully called: "Start a new life" (in which they descibe how to build a house, raising children, plant a garden etc.).

How were those early days in the market?
She tells us that the people were trying to sell everything what they could, as it was the livelihood of many. They made crafts, cakes ... She started selling clothes and making cakes.
She has seen every stage of the Hippy Market since its inception and says that it changed slowly in the beginning. The essence of those years you can still live nowadays in the street of the craftsmen next to her stall, she says, this is what her reminds most of those years.
From the 80s the market began to grow more and more and made him the largest one of the island until today.

What currently sells María at the Hippy Market?
Her stall transformed step be step, now she sells inddian products, related to indian rituals and philosophy, which have a very direct relationship with Ibiza for her: freedom, respect for nature and love. 

What does the hippie spirit means for her?
With her sweet voice she tells us that the hippies were people with a lot of culture, they were against the established society, rigid and outdated social structures; they wanted freedom. She talks about the transformation that existed and the current term "neohippie", which mixes the past with the future.The hippie philosophy for her means respect and love for the earth and the nature, community ... a connection with the earth.

What does the Hippy Market mean for Mary?
It was a way to change her life, before she lived so properly, she had all, but she wanted to be happier and live freely.
Everyone had the chance to make a living being creative and living without fixed work schedules or closed social structures. This lifestyle allowed them to raise their children well and educate them with the philosophy they liked.
She has adapted to the hippie way of life with respect to the nature, although always mantaining her her own ideas and criteria.

An anecdote
When María was picking figs or carob trees on the island to make her cakes she met
people who did not have a lot of money and lived with what they could, they lived super happy without having money, nowadays this exist not anymore, times changed she says.
At the market she always remembers a guy who was waiting until she sold all her cakes she made for asking her for the eatable rests of the cakes who stayed in the cake pan, to get something to eat.
These hippies were not at the market for the money, they were there because of the atmosphere, to show what they did and created. In these times it was very nice she tells us, there was a lot of music, the people were very quiet, the money if it came well but sometimes they went home without nothing but it didn´t matter.

Craftbeer Ibosim

Oscar and the hippest craftbeer
Oscar awaits us, smiling behind the bar in the center of the multicultural tent in the Hippy Market, to tell us how he and his partner Carlos four years ago in 2013 created Ibosim, a brand of authentic craft beer. It is now the third year they collaborate with the Hippy Market. 

What do they produce, how, where and what materials do they use?
Oscar and Carlos, alongside two more assistantss form a top craftsmen team and togehter they manufacture their craftbeer with 100% natural ingredients, unfiltered and natural carbonation, without additives and produced in Ibiza, always looking for the highest quality of raw materials and in the processes.
They have 5 different flavors in their standard range and at the Hippy Market you can try two flavors, which are Rosemary and Weissbier alongside with a personalized Hippy Market label to get the special touch.
We highly recommend to everyone to get to know Ibosims BrewHouse in Port des Torrent near San Antonio, the first microbrewery in the island of Ibiza, where they offer tastings togehter with tapas all year long, with the possibility of sale and wholesale plus guided visitor tours. We will not miss it!

What does it mean to Oscar to be a craftsman?
For him it means to create products with love, produce something good and having an eye on every detail. To think more about the product itself and its qualities not in selling it.
Being a craftsman means producing quality, everything else what happens after ist just an extra. 

What does the Hippy Market mean for Ibosim?
A historical and representative place on the island of Ibiza well known not only in Ibiza. This is a great opportunity for them to present their craftbeer to the thousands of people of the whole the world who visit the Hippy Market every summer.

Come along and try ladies and gentlemen!

Website:
http://www.cervezaibosim.com

Sebastián

Sebastián, craftsman as a state of life
We surprise Sebastián working on his materials in the bustle of the Hippy Market. His stall is located at the beginning of the Street of Craftsmen and from far away you can already recognise that he loves what he is doing and certainly he is contributive in telling the world how pleasant it is for him to be a craftsman.

When he became a craftsman?
Although Sebastián arrived at the Hippy Market only in 2014 he already 16 years ago embarked on this beautiful profession of being a craftsman and on his way he worked on materials such as silver, bronze, alpaca or leather elsewhere around the world.

What is he producing, how, where and which materials he uses?
He works with leather, which he cuts, braids or whatever it needs, also with metals such as bronze, silver or alpaca and stones brought from around the world. He shows us stones from Peru, Canada or Mexico.
In continuous learning which his profession requires him, he is now beginning to make waistcoats as a new product and he shows us one of his most traditional creations, sus crowns.
Although he works with materials from other places of the world, he elaborates and creates all his works in Ibiza, feeling its energy, believing and focusing on local products.

What means the Hippy Market for Sebastían?
For him, it is an amazing place that brings together people from all over the world, very good music of many different styles, a combination of many cultures.
The most important thing for him in the Hippy Market is the art of craft, the craft stalls, he does not like much the stalls who sell industrial products but fully respects the sellers.
For Sebastián it is necessary to open more spaces around the world like the Street of the Craftsmen at the Hippy Market, as these are arts that are getting lost and will not be found again, something of man´s life that we ​​should never lose.

How he sees the importance of craftsmanship today?
Nowadays people are beginning to realize what craft really means and is, there is a small awake regarding its value, the same like with organic food.
Many people prefer to pay a little bit more, knowing what they buy and not support industrial companies, exploitation or resale.

What does it mean to be craftsman? Is it a way of life?
When you are a craftsman, you dedicate your whole life to this, it is a way of life, you wake up every day and you practice.
He works every day about  seven to twelve hours, either at home, in the Hippy Market or wherever.

Do not miss the street of the craftsmen at the Hippy Market, watch them working live!

Mónica

Mónica, creator of Hippy Kids
Everyone knows her as Mona and she is the queen of the kids world in the Hippy Market. We sit amongst parents making crafts with their kids surrounded by colors everywhere and she tells us the story of Hippy Kids.

How came the idea of ​​this space?
It all started with her visits to Ibiza ten years ago, and of course on wednesdays to the Hippy Market, but the idea finally came when she becames a mother; she always thought that it is a nice market but because of her motherly circumstances she saw the need that there should be also a space for children.
With this idea in her mind she made a proposal to the orgnaization and thanks to several supports, now she sees her fruits growing, since 2013, three years ago, and always bringing new ideas.

What's it all about Hippy Kids?
It is a space dedicated to families where the fathers and mothers can relax and sharing time together with their children, playing and creating. There are creative workshops with the aim to create a very own special memory of the Hippy Market and take it back to their homes.
But the main idea of the area and in what Monica is most interested, is family integration, or say that the parents and children make crafts together, taking advantage of being in holiday, sharing  time togehter, escaping from their daily routine at their homes where often there is not enough time making things together.

What do the families take with them from the Kids area?
They take a lot more than they think while participating in the workshops. When the parents and children are back at their homes they will always remember that they have been created something nice together, every time they look at their selfmade dreamcatchers or crownflowers they will remember that special day of their holidays.
Hippy Kids reactivates the almost lost hippie ideals, ideals such as peace, love and family unity.

 ¿Wanna spend a good time with your children?

Miriam

Miriam, passion for recycled materials
Black and gold colors on a turquoise colured background shows us that we have reached the stall of Miriam. Since she discovered the endless possibilities of working with recycled materials, she is now developing different techniques and applications for twelve years.
She works on different types of recycled materials, such as truck tires, zippers, bicycle chains, bicycle tires, sprocket wheels, measuring tapes ... and  everthing she creates she does by hand.

What does it mean for her to be craftsman? 
She tells us that being an craftsman for her is much more than a way of life or a profession, for her to be able to spend her time on what makes her happy is the most important thing.
The craftmanship is her daily life and kidding, she confesses, also her night life. Because she spent the night producing for the market without being able to sleep. 'That's the life of a craftsman' she says with a somehow weary smile.

How does she see craftsmanship today?
As a constant struggle with the industrial market from abroad. Crafts and handmade products can not compete on the market with prices and products coming from big industry companies from foreign countries.
She tells us with worries that we have our future in our own hands, because if we produce and buy everything abroad we all will be left without jobs. "If we would produce and buy in Spain it would be much better and we could not complain about the situation we are living."

How were her beginnings?
Miriam, who lives and produces in Ibiza, studied design at the School of Art and Design in Valencia, and focused her final project to work with recycled materials. She liked it so much that she was increasingly involved so far, that she is now more than 12 years working on these materials to create handicrafts.

What does  it mean to her to sell her products at the Hippy Market?
Before answering Miriam smiles at us with her whole face and especially her eyes, to say simply:
" I love it ".
The Hippy Market gives her the opportunity to dedicate her live for what she truly is passionated about, and that is priceless. Despite the great effort, the lack of economic compensation and sleepless nights it is something that makes you enjoy every day of your life.

Roberto

Romel and his art
Roberto Mellino is one of the craftsmen you can meet every Wednesday at the Hippy Market. ROMEL is his pseudonym, formed from the first syllables of his name.
Fashion, art and design are the three pillars that give life to his products. Roberto worked 20 years in the fashion industry, when then he came to a point when he decided to find a way of doing his art. He confesses with sadness that today quality and art have been relegated to the background because today it is only important to make business.
After a period of a personal crisis when he didn´t find his way in life, he realized that what he really wanted was to keep creating, but creating things that come out from his heart.
Now he is making his art and creates his own fashion. He is not considering himself as a painter, but as an art designer. He didn’t wanted to lose his passion for fashion and has continued to implement his artistic part in the products he sells at the market.
Everything that he is selling is not only handmade by him but all created and invented by him. He transforms bulbs, key chains or buttons in art works. He loves to give new life to things and confesses that: "What some see as garbage, for me it is a treasure."
He admits that maybe he is not getting rich in selling what it does, but he is having such a good time and people are so excited of what he is creating, and that is what he loves.

What does it mean for him to be a craftsman?
A craftsman or an artist it is not something you choose, for him it is simply a way.
He realized that fashion was no longer made in stores, but on the street.  So 6 years ago he left the fashion business to dedicated himself to do crafts and to create his own ideas. He always liked to break with tradition and establisment, and he realized it.

How does he feel to sell his products in the market?
He chose to sell in the market for two main reasons.
First because of the environment. Beeing able to work outdoors in the nature is a luxury for him.
On the other hand because, without realizing it, he has identified with the hippy mentality.
He says he was surprised when he discovered that he had been a hippy throughout his life, without realiing it until he reached the Hippy Market, where everything was so easy, so normal, so finally ... he found his place.
"When you see 100 people moving to one direction and chose the other one you seem to have a problem, but when you come to a place where evrybody goes in the same direction like you, you realize that you are not abnormal, you've just found your place."

Mario

Mario, a living story-book
Mario is one of the veterans of the market. He came 39 years ago, exactly in summer 1977.
In his beginnings he worked leather, but since many years now he sells silver, together with stones and jewelry.

How has the market changed since those years?
In former times there were no stall structures like today in those times we put our few products on scarves on the grounds of the Punta Arabí Club, now the market has become much morge bigger witha lot of more people and also became more commercial. "Like life itself," he comments. When we started there were around 150 or 180 stalls in high season. Now there are currently more than 550 stalls and hundreds more on the waiting list.

What means the Hippy Market for Mario?
It is part of his life and history. Since 39 years he almost has not missed one Wednesday with his stall at the market and the thousands of tourists who come to visit him. So pleasantly it is part of his personal history.

What means to be hippy for Mario?
40 years ago being hippy was to break with the establishment. Today most are framed in ecologicals non profit organisations and practice a form of life related to nature, based on important values ​​such as freedom, tolerance and respect.

What does he miss of those times?
Ibiza in those years was much safer and we lived in total harmony with he the ibicencan farmers. We had almost everything outside in the fields, leaving the houses open. This tranquility and is what is missing nowadays.
Also the democratisation of the parties. Mario explains that in former times Ibiza was much more democratic, and tells us that in recent years it has been transformed into a VIP style.
Now there are coming a lot of people who do not share anything with anyone, just go from Vip to Vip"
He tells us yearningly how in those years in the 70ies you could dance in a restaurant with film director Roman Polanski, German actress Nastassja Kinski or a known Formula 1 racer sitting in a table next to you.
Now they separte so much that the people go crazy and chase them to sign them autographs.
Before, nobody bothered them, they all went to the same places and the same beaches. Ibiza was peace and tranquility and this is what he is missing the most of those times.

Anecdote:
Mario tells us about the very special and funny parties at the discotheque KU (now Privilege). To promote their parties a group of 4 or 5 people passed through the market on a little cart with wheels and a kinda like soundsystem on it and gave away many free tickets for all the people and sellers. 
Once they made a special hippy party and invited all the sellers for having food.
"They prepared some excellent roasted chickens", he tells us.

Franchesca

Francesca and her hats
Francesca is one of the ladies of the market. Since 1987 she iscreating her original hats in Ibiza and selling them on the Hippy Market.
She was part of the hippie era in California that suddenly ended very quickly. At that time Ibiza called her attention of its hippie reputation. So she decided to come here and when she saw that people could still continue living that way of life she liked it, and stayed.

What means being a craftsman for her?
She has spent her entire life dedicating to craft and for her the great value of being a craftsman is to be able to work for herself without having to answer to the wishes of others. She confesses us with her beautiful smile that "it means having the freedom to go your own way creating things that really make you happy"

How looks her daily life like?
She gets up every morning to create her creative hats using natural fibres for unique and quality pieces and always respecting the same schedule; from 9 to 2 and 5 to 8.

How does she see the importance of craftmanship in these days?
It is difficult to put everyone in the category of a craftsman, she is considering herself more as a designer. In the particular case of the craft of millinery, which is a tradition for a long time, it has lost a lot with all the imports from China. The quality has declined a lot today because the vast majority of the materials used today to make hats are synthetic.

What it means for her to sell her hats at the Hippy Market?
Longingly and with gratitude Francesca confesses that selling on the Hippy Market for her is already a kind of routine. After nearly 30 years getting up every Wednesday to sell their hats at the market it has become part of her life. She knows that every Wednesday she has to arrive early, put her stall and promote her product. Blessed routine!

What she misses of the first years of the market?
She likes to live in the present and not to miss the past. She feels just grateful to have been part of that generation that changed so many things and fought both for the environment, for a way to eat and live healthier and as well especially to respect the planet. She feels proud that it was that generation who started out with all this and that it has still an effect on our ways of life today .

Gustavo

Gustavo, a recycled hippie
Gustavo is one of the real veterans of the market. His first appeared at the market in 1975, so that he is part of the history, memories and crazy adventures of those early years of the Hippy Market.
When he arrived, the market of Es Canar was already existing two years, he started learning to develop wood to glove puppets and marionettes. And also he realized some creations with ceramics and glass. Always developing his personal designs.
After a break of several years he returned to the market because he had many ideas in his head and many things to do.
These days he and his wife work together as craftsmen and everything they sell are products of their own imagination and hands.
They describe themselves as recycled hippie, from the year they began to study ending up as graphic and industrial designers. They had ideas bubbling in their heads so this was the only real way to return to the public.
Currently the products they sell in the market are magnets, bookmarks, posters, stickers, pins ... everything related to design. And these special designs they apply to different kind of items they produce.
With a simple way of life away from the consumer society, they are living with the minimum to live in harmony and to be happy. He says ironically regardind the size of their company: "Our company is way too large, the size of the home dining table. When we eat, we have to fold the company. "

How does he see the importance of the craftsmen today?
They are very confident that the boom of chinese goods has come to an end, and that craftsmen will be valued again. Prices of products made in China have made craftsmen disappeared from the map for 10 or 12 years.
Now most of the crafftsmen are very happy because the public has already started to buy those things they know that are unique. They want unique pieces rather than mass production.

Being one of the veterans, what you miss about that early years?
With a smile he confesses that nothing surprises him because each time was good and different. What they experience and live in these moments is exceptional and to reminisce the past is very nice to laugh and celebrate the good things they did but also the blunders they committed.

An anecdote:
In those years, any foreign hippy returning to its origin, it was because they were reclaimed by their families, which were very well-funded. Before leaving they had to give away their cars and they left it as a gift to the nearest. To me they gave a Volkswagen which we used among all who knew it, also because there was no key left for it. Until one day the police threatened me that I needed to regulate it and wo we saw no other alternative but to give it a dignified burial.
All of us hippies we went to Cala San Vicente and made an extraordinary celebration to bring the car, which was in perfect condition, to the cemetery. It was a very nice farewell because the car had a name, it was called La Petronia.
And like this stor , they have a thousand of stories to tell about that crazy and liberated times of Ibiza, where Hollywood superstars rubbed shoulders with hippies. It was a natural and healthy relationship between all without class differences; all were in Ibiza to enjoy the island amongst each other and having fun.