Rio fashion week just ended last week. I didn’t pay much attention to the new 2008 winter collections; Carioca fashion is not my thing.
I prefer the Sao Paulo street-smart, hyper urban style. 
The only irritating thing about Sao Paulo Fashion Week (FPSW) is the opening statement of Gilberto Gill. This year the Brazilian minister of culture preached: "Elegantes são os negros da Bahia, do Ilê-Ayê, que usam calças brancas comuns e camisetas sem mangas com a mesma graça de quem veste um estilista bacana”. Nice. But when asked why the government is not funding fashion projects and how the lack of fashion courses in public schools could be sorted, the man didn’t really have a convincing answer in his pocket. Worse, when informed about his personal fashion style, Gilberto answered in roaring words “that he believes in elegance and that elegance has nothing to do with money”. When the journalist than asked why Gilberto was wearing Prada, the man just smiled.
Enough about him, I made my point I’m not a fan of his role as a minister of culture. We all know that fashion is not about politics or ethics. The models are as skinny and white as they have been before.
2007 however showed us that Brazil is becoming one of the leading countries in textile and fashion production. Huge European and American acquisitions have been done in Brazilian fashion brands and this is just the start. Brazil could become a major player on the international textile market. They have a fully-integrated cotton-industry and are investing massively in polyester projects to develop man-made fiber textiles and apparel industries. Until now Brazil has been self-sufficient in cotton fiber production. Brazil produces 1 million tons of cotton yarn per year and an ITMF cost comparison shows they produce it a lower costs than China. Today the Brazilian textile industry is focusing to produce polyester fibers at Asian prices. This allows them to have a fully-integrated textile industry. Already today 1,5 million Brazilians work in the textile industry, with a production output of 32 billion US$ and 3,6 billion US$ of exports. An increasing amount of the 30.000 Brazilian textile and clothing companies are international players. Think of Coteminas and Vicunha who went into a JV with Spring Industries (USA). The JV ‘Springs Global’ is now the largest vertically integrated textile home furnishing company in the world. But the biggest competitive advantage of Brazil is it’s creativity layer on the output level. Sao Paulo Fashion week became one of the leading worldwide fashion shows over the last decennium; with a reason.
My personal favorite collection this year? Forum ! 
Anyone who can send those boots form the Barao da Torre shop?
