Don’t think that Brazil’s reputed sea, sex and sun attitude leads to laziness. Keen to become part of the avant-garde in global fashion, the country is promoting home-grown designers ahead of time. Its spring-summer 2014 fashion collections are being showcased at Sao Paulo Fashion Week and Fashion Rio almost three months before the official readyto-wear schedules in the fashion capitals of Paris, Milan, New York and London.
This is the message of those at the 8th edition of Inspiramais, the leading business platform for Brazilian fabric and accessory suppliers, which closed less than two weeks ago.
Our cultural and ethnical diversity is something that can be easily translated into fashion
The latest official data provided by ABIT, the Brazilian Textile and Apparel Industry Association, only underscores the country’s fast-growing fashion sector: Brazil is the fifth largest textile producer in the world and the second largest for denim, with a garment sector that consists of about 32,600 firms that produce around 9.8 billion pieces every year.
The textile sector is the second largest employer in the country, the fourth largest exporter in the world and is expecting a 2 per cent rise in production this year.
Brazil’s growing interest for the fashion world is not surprising, even if there are still major hurdles to be overcome. At present, 23 per cent of the country’s overall garment consumption is imported, of which Asia, particularly China, accounts for about 60 per cent. A policy that shows a clear aversion to large-scale imports – and exports too.
