Brazilian Fashion Matures @ IHT

Great article about the coming-of-age of Brazilian fashion posted at the International Herald Tribune site - written by Robb Young. It states that in the past 10 years Brazilian fashion has matured from splashy visuals to a more subdued approach, such restraint influenced by a changing, less ostentatious consumer. The need to be commercial, appealing to the foreign market and a recent focus on brand-building are also main reasons for the toned-down looks from most fashion houses in past season's runway presentations. The article contains many blurbs by local fashion editors and designers , such as Erika Palomino and Dudu Bertholini of brand Neon.

"Long gone are the days when fashion insiders tried to evoke a Brazilian aesthetic from trite references like Carnival plumage or bikinis on a Copacabana beach. It has taken designers here 10 long years to convince the outside world that there is as much diversity in their native fashion panorama as in the natural one.
But no matter what distinctive quality that might be - piercing prints, primitive handicrafts, strong colors or futuristic silhouettes - the Brazilian design kaleidoscope has often had a wild edge, at least by Paris or New York standards. So why is the one place we could rely on for a fix of exotica falling prey to subtle and even bashful design this season?

Not long ago, critics dismissed much of Brazilian fashion as highly derivative of European brands. No more. A decade since the inception of São Paulo Fashion Week, some Brazilian labels are now confident enough in their own identities to even parody fashion itself. Wild theatrics have given way to tongue-in-cheek flourishes."

Check out the whole article at International Herald Tribune

The Saggy Jeans Debate

Some American counties are outlawing those oversized saggy jeans, often worn bellow the buttocks with the underwear on display.

A style popularized in the early 1990s by hip-hop artists, are becoming a criminal offense in a growing number of communities, specially in the racially dived American South. Starting in Louisiana, an intensifying push by lawmakers has decided that pants worn low enough to expose underwear poses a threat to the public, and they have enacted indecency ordinances to stop it. Behind the indecency laws may be the real issue - the hip-hop style itself, which critics say is worn as a badge of delinquency, with its distinctive walk conveying thuggish swagger and a disrespect for authority. Also at work are the larger issue of freedom of expression and the questions raised when fashion moves from being merely objectionable to illegal.
Sagging began in American prisons, where oversized uniforms were issued without belts to prevent suicide and the use of belts as weapons. The style spread by way of rappers and music videos, from the ghetto to the suburbs and around the world.

According to Andrew Bolton, the curator at the Costume Institute of the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York, fashions tend to be decried when they "challenge the conservative morality of a society." Like past fashion bans, the prohibitions on sagging are seen by some as racially motivated because the wearers are young, predominantly African-American men.

Personally, I deeply dislike the whole look but I am strongly opposed to any type of censorship at the same time. When I was younger dressing-up was an insintric part of who I was. This "personal statement" was what I stood for and what I didn't want to be associated with, at least in the mind of an young man. The idea of a court ordinance prohibiting my fashion choices seems too dictatorial and old-hat. If politicians can decide what you can or cannot wear, where will it stop?

I see the image below as "threatening to society" as saggy jeans. Where are the ordinances against that?

Via International Herald Tribune