Oskar Metsavaht, creative and style director at Osklensees Rio de Janeiro incarnated in a woman wearing a pleated silk dress, a colorful print scarf and walking shoes. His fashion image, based, as he says, partly on the mix of styles — noble fiber clothes with sports shoes — and, partly, on sweaty, golden bodies strolling along Ipanema’s promenade, will reopen Rio’s fashion week.
This Tuesday (14), the brand holds the opening parade of Rio Fashion Week with his clothing from an idealized southern zone, an imaginary very far from the ills that plague the capital of Rio de Janeiro. The fashion show at the former British embassy in Rio de Janeiro marks the resumption of a fashion week in the city, after a hiatus of more than ten years since the extinct Fashion Rio and Rio Moda Rio.
With 20 fashion shows until Saturday, mostly concentrated at Píer Mauá, Rio Fashion Week arrives with important brands on the catwalk, such as Lenny Niemeyer, MisciSalinas and Blue Man. The idea, according to the event organizers, is to place Rio back on Brazil’s fashion calendar and leverage the city’s tourist potential, which had its image strengthened after the Madonna concerts and of Lady Gaga on the sands of Copacabana —in other words, the focus is not just on the clothes.
In the case of Osklen, Rio’s best-known fashion brand, the show will feature 36 urban and beach looks that, according to Metsavaht, will be a tribute to Rio — basically what the brand has done since its creation, 36 years ago. The clothes and accessories capture the “healthy hedonism of Rio de Janeiro, a lifestyle expressed by well-cared for, healthy and beautiful bodies”, he says, “the gestures of capoeira, embaixadinha, the girl sitting on the sand, diving in the sea, coconut trees in the wind”.
“You’re going to dress to walk along the Ipanema sidewalk at sunset. You’re going to choose light, casual clothing, but with a certain sophistication. You want to look beautiful. These are the elements that I bring to Osklen. If someone invites you to go to dinner at one of the hotels on the seafront or in someone’s apartment, you’re well-dressed. But if they invite you to a luau on the beach, you’re well-dressed too.”
Among the labels chosen are also Normando —which dressed actress Alice Carvalho on the Oscars red carpet with a strange jute dress that looked like armor on her body, the Pietwhich shows a collection made in partnership with Riachuelo, fast fashion that now tries to be more “fashion” than “fast”and Handred, with her well-executed clothes cut from silk, cotton, wool and leather.
There are three premieres. Argalji, a more experimental brand that exaggerates volumes to play with silhouettes; Hisha, with handcrafted pieces made by embroiderers from Minas Gerais; and Karoline Vitto, a Brazilian who has already paraded in London and arrives in Rio with her outfits created for different bodies. Other than that, Blue Man, a beachwear brand active since the 1970s, puts on the catwalk Helô Pinheiro, the inspiring muse of the song “Garota de Ipanema”.
What was the criteria for selecting the brands? “There was literally a checklist,” says Olivia Merquior, Rio Fashion Week’s content curator. “What the show adds to the fashion week in terms of communication, attracting sponsors, the public, and new things that will help to oxygenate the fashion system. What it will create to project the event in the best way.”
And where does the excellence of clothes fit into this checklist, the report questions. Merquior responds that the selection “undoubtedly involves quality” and states that it needed brands with the potential to represent Brazil abroad — the brand’s desire to export its products was also a cutting criterion.
This is because Rio Fashion Week puts buyers from two of the most important and visited luxury clothing department stores in the world, Galeries Lafayette, in Paris, and Selfridges, in London, on the front row of the fashion shows, as well as buyers from stores focused on Latin and Ibero-American brands — St. Dom, from Bogotá, and Proyeto República, from Mexico City. In parallel, there will be representatives from federal government agencies to educate designers about exporting.
With the arrival of Rio Fashion Week, the Brazilian fashion calendar changes. As the event is organized by IMM, the same company that produces the São Paulo Fashion Weekthe São Paulo fashion week, which took place twice a year, will now only take place in the second half of the year — in the first half of the year, brands show in the neighboring state. There are at least three editions of Rio Fashion Week agreed with the city hall, according to Gustavo Oliveira, one of those responsible for the two fashion weeks at IMM.
Daniela Maia, Rio’s municipal secretary of tourism, says that attracting visitors is part of the fashion week’s strategy. The city already hosts major events and hosts concerts by pop stars, she recalls, adding that fashion was missing from this package.
Maia also cites the fact that international brands have used the resort as a setting for their advertising campaigns in recent years, such as Tom Ford, Loro Piana and Jacquemus. “The city of Rio is going viral,” she says.
