On and off the runway in São Paulo, it was common to see women wearing ’70s-style printed dresses with such assertiveness that global trendsetters looking for something fresh should pay attention. Remembered as the golden age for Brazilian fashion, the decade was widely explored during São Paulo Fashion Week‘s winter ’06 collections.

The ’70s haute bohème mood began with André Lima‘s collection, which featured extra-floaty, Pucci-like dresses with exuberant prints of birds and flowers and a wild palette of pinks, corals, and royal blues. Neon, an emerging label designed by the eccentric duo Dudu Bertholini and Rita Comparato, also embraced the retro glamouresque mood, with models who were wearing silk togas, kimonos, and maxi circle skirts that featured oversized abstract prints of owls (exclusively designed by artists Filipe Jardim and Fábio Gurjão), performing a brash striptease. Bold geometric patterns and a 70s stretched silhouette made for dresses that made big statements. Tufi Duek’s Forum line mastered this look in a technicolor collection influenced by constructivism. Models wore ’70s-style satin mini- and maxi-dresses assembled in a geometric patchwork. Everyone’s favorite designer of the moment, Isabela Capeto, also sent geometric patchwork designs down the runway, but she took a more ethnic approach. With Peru as her inspiration, Capeto mixed Incan monster prints with colors such as sky blue, fuchsia, paprika, and saffron, putting everything together with vertical striped prints that were actually hand-stitched and made of wool. The ethnic color palette was also the designer’s favorite when it came to embroidery. Internationally known for her contemporary handcrafted work, Capeto used a wide variety of sequins to embellish her cotton vests, jersey tank tops, pinafores, and circle skirts. These details, along with the embroidery all along the hemlines, made for an assured collection that will surely help to raise the stock of this designer.

The ample silhouette continued in Tufi Duek’s younger line, Triton, only this time with shorter hemlines and looser shapes, along with garden scenery appliqués à la Japanese designer Tsumori Chisato. Karlla Girotto went for an amplified shape in billowing muumuu/baby doll dresses covered with colorful cat prints. Bubble skirts were also popular during the six-day event. Ronaldo Fraga went for it and presented a variety of teardrop-shaped skirts (the best one was done in crochet) and cropped jackets with puffy sleeves (another hit). Alexandre Herchcovitch also bet his coins on this type of silhouette, but he chose to work with lighter, more airy fabrics. For inspiration, the designer went back to the Renaissance, presenting fluid, Juliet-like dresses worked in an organically cut patchwork of liberty prints and medium-sized floral prints, accessorized with leather belts with skull buckles. The medieval aura was best represented in a cropped silk coat with a hood and sleeves that were fully adorned with metal rose buttons. Herchcovitch’s masculine collection stuck to the same medieval timeline, making cropped, hooded jersey coats the new, must-have item for this season. Herchcovitch also experimented with hooded sweatshirts with chain prints and well-tailored suits made of sweatshirt fabric, creating pieces that erased the boundaries between streetwear and formalwear, especially when accessorized with bedroom warmers with royal insignias.

Indeed, hoods and sweatshirt fabric were seen in both men and women’s shows. The streetwear label Cavalera explored it in its women’s collection, which was shown outdoors in a Parisian-style garden. Inspired by the fin de siècle expressionist movement, the label, which is owned by Alberto Hiar, sent out cropped medieval silhouettes with heavy pleats on the back of dresses and hooded capes paired with circled skirts made of sweatshirt fabric. The best pieces were printed with ink pen designs of psychedelic graphics mixed with portrait appliqués of of Karl Lagerfeld and other designers. With Herchcovitch’s and Cavalera’s shows, it’s clear that Brazilian streetwear is being pushed to a new, deluxe level. This impression was undeniably strengthened by Nelson Alvarenga’s Ellus collection where a "fashion rock opera" was staged inside of Auditorium Ibirapuera — an amazing building designed by Oscar Niemeyer. As the designer explained, "plenty of luxury" was displayed in oversized pieces of classic perfecto jackets, precious rock T-shirts, and slim tailored outfits — all of which were adorned with stones, appliqués, feathers, and metal.

High-end street label Maria Bonita stood out with a collection that played with the contrast of black and white, showing slim, deconstructed pieces made of tulle, jersey, and knit. Daniela Thomaz, the label’s head designer, treated her clothes as canvases for photographic imprints of bodies and amazing macro photos of pieces of threads and folds that created an illusion of wrinkles all over the dress. Patricia Viera also experimented with fabric’s identity, proving that leather can be disguised as any type of fabric. In her 100% leather collection, Viera worked with digital prints of classic patterns such as houndstooth, checks, pinstripes, and lace, all displayed on sexy pencil skirts, perfecto jackets, tailored pants, and cropped trench coats. The designer went so far as to create overwhelming three-dimensional prints of oriental gardens on her clothes, using hundreds of tiny leather petal appliqués. Another innovation worth mentioning was shown by Renato Kherlakian’s Zoomp label, which impressed the audience with macro crocodile prints over denim. According to the designer, to get this effect, which has never been seen before on jeans, he used laser printing and manual washing. Kherlakian also showed velvet-like imprints over slim, sleeveless satin dresses. Velvet was a popular fabric across the collections, and Reinaldo Lourenço mastered it when he used the fabric on feminine suits finished with extra-large, triple-ruffled necklines. Lourenço also worked well with horizontal pleats as seen on the back of his cotton ensembles.

As for the top prize this season, Fause Haten excited like no other. Showing a collection that harkened back to the days of ’50s Balenciaga, Haten turned out voluminous and structured jackets, heavy silk shirts that crinkled and ruched to create new shapes, and a black tuxedo with white piping that’s simply one of the best seen anywhere this season. Haten used the same concepts to create the briefest cocktail dress along with mega tulle and satin skirts in oxblood and forest-green, with heavy underpinnings. This was a collection for the record books.
-Flavia Mendonça

Photos:

Alexandre Herchcovitch a/w ’06
Forum a/w ’06
Reinaldo Lourenço a/w ’06
Triton a/w ’06
Cavalera a/w ’06
Zoomp a/w ’06
Maria Bonita a/w ’06
Neon a/w ’06
Patricia Viera a/w ’06

Ellus a/w ’06
Isabela Capeto a/w ’06
Fause Haten a/w ’06