The collection includes long and short sleeved tops made of fine quality cotton with minimal designs or richly embroidered with thick cotton lace, metallic zippers and decorative buttons in silver, oxide or black metal. Prints inspired by traditional Nomadic scarves are incorporated into the collection as embroideries or panelling applied to the garments in order to accentuate the male silhouette.

Trousers come in crisp natural cottons, cargo shapes that can be separated from knee, or as strong statements in the form of sculpted leather that can also be seen in three different styles of leather jackets as part of the range ‘Artesanal by Conquistador’. In addition, the varsity jacket is reworked in all natural leather material with detachable sleeves so that it can be styled as a vest.

Conquistador’s choice of colours for the label’s third collection includes dove grey, white, black, and caramel-camel brown hues to resemble nude and sensual tones.

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However, the most significant of Burberry’s achievements over the last year was the expansion of its retail network, with some existing stores being refurbished and nine mainline stores opened. Earlier in the year, the brand inaugurated a new flagship store in China (located in Shanghai’s Kerry Centre), and reopened its flagship store in San Francisco (in a four-floor historic townhouse on Post Street). More recently, Burberry reopened an expanded two-floor store in Munich, unveiled its biggest store to date in Japan (occupying four floors of a building in Omotesando, Tokyo), and opened a new flagship store in Los Angeles.

To mark the opening of the Los Angeles store (set on the corner of Rodeo Drive and Dayton Way in Beverly Hills), Burberry’s design director Christopher Bailey unveiled the Burberry Rodeo Drive Walk of Style plaque, which commemorates the contribution the brand has made to the fashion industry and its connection with Los Angeles’ entertainment community.

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Claiming inspiration from the fantastical science-fiction undertones of the 2013 film Under the Skin (directed by Jonathaazer and featurin Glng Scarlet Johansson), the collection is anchored by a colour palette of black (with occasional accents of sand, pink and off-white), with leather playing a prominent role as the material of choice (in either soft or heavier versions) against soft wool. Silhouettes juxtapose urban subcultures (through hoodies and biker jackets fastened by zippers) while channelling suave dandyism in the form of tuxedo jackets with peaked lapels, sharply angular shoulder and collar lines, and merino wool tops incorporating blocks of chiffon.

At the same time, stark details such as slit elbows, horizontal and vertical appliquéd fabric stripes on trousers, and cropped, sleeveless shirts serve to elongate the shape of the body while subtly drawing attention to the role of flesh in engendering the physicality of contemporary menswear.

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Featuring unique technical detail such as patented diagonal hinges and comfort acetate top bars, all ill.i eyewear models include a laser-engraved will.i.am ‘willpower’ logo and signature line. The inaugural collection’s colour palette combines matte and glossy finishes in gold, black, white, silver, gunmetal and tortoiseshell, whereas lenses come in silver grey, bronze grey, brown, and mirrored gold.

The Style Examiner got exclusive access to the first ill.i models and was impressed by the industrial aeronautics aesthetic that underpinned the sunglasses styles for men, which feature round and angular frames made from metal or acetate; whereas for women, frames vary between oversized cat-eye shapes, round thin spectacles and square translucent styles.

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The store houses Valentino’s womenswear, menswear and accessories lines across three floors where grey marble coexists with black steel, aluminium and brass. Two other Valentino stores (one in Aspen, Colorado, and the other in Miami’s Design Distric) are scheduled to open this year in the USA, a market that accounts for approximately 25% of the label’s global sales.

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A true polymath, Asim graduated from the Bartlett School of Architecture (UCL) and completed postgraduate studies at the London School of Economics and Political Science before undertaking the United Nations Development Program, an avenue he did not wish to pursue once he decided to become a psychoanalyst. During his psychoanalytic training he became fascinated with the roles that clothing and appearance played in relation to mind and body and, after embarking on a number of internships in the London fashion industry that started with Maurice Sedwell of Savile Row and ended at Vivienne Westwood, Asim attended Central Saint Martins, where he specialised in creative pattern cutting. 

In 2011, Omer Asim launched his eponymous label, which has become known for its questioning of aesthetics through modern silhouettes, layered shapes, architectural tailoring penchant for multi-dimensional textures combined with primeval sartorial elements to create a sense of regressive future. Such tropes are noticeable in his Autumn/Winter 2014/15 collection, where laddered cotton (hand-woven in a loom in the Ethiopian highlands that was first used over two thousand years ago) is reworked in elegant combinations with knitted linen and silk with various hand treatments and lacquered finishes across a colour palette of black, cream and copper. 

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In the year it opened, and as part of its cultural outreach programme, the Dragão do Mar centre featured the first ever edition of Dragão Fashion Brasil. Organised every year since then by Claudio Silveira with the financial support from commercial partners and local and national government authorities (including the Federal Government of the region of Ceará and the Brazilian Ministry of Culture), the event serves not only as a platform for new and established fashion designers to show their creations, but also entails a public series of lectures, debates, performances, seminars and practical workshops about the importance of fashion and associated creative industries. Anchored by an eclectic creative curatorial intent that is also practical and educational in its purpose, as it celebrated its 15th anniversary in 2014, Dragão Fashion Brasil confirmed its unique role in the global landscape of fashion events.

Between 23 and 27 April, over 45,000 participants made the most of the 2014 Dragão Fashion Brasil by attending at least one of the 40 runway shows where Brazilian and international designers and fashion graduates showed their latest collections, as well as taking part in dozens of presentations and hands-on activities. In addition, the showcase also involved the region’s buoyant manufacturing industry (which includes some of the largest fabric and clothing factories in the world, responsible for employing 115,000 people, producing 116,000 tonnes of fabric, and making 600 million garments a year) in the form of sponsorships and collaborations with emerging designers.

If most fashion creations displayed in the Dragão do Mar complex in the bustling centre of Fortaleza demonstrated interesting treatments of experimental concepts, when it came to their developmental process and direction of execution, proficiency levels unsurprisingly varied. However, a large number of brands stood out for their accomplished results and for demonstrating the benefits of quality and creativity to the betterment of society.
In womenswear, the reinterpretation of a traditional ultra-feminine perspective of fashion could be observed in the collections proposed by Kalil Nepomuceno and Ivanildo Nunes. In their designs, long voluminous evening dresses featured layers of chiffon and lace and the silhouettes were overall accentuated in voluptuous hourglass shapes. Drawing from this principle, but allowing a more dynamic fluidity generated by ornamented fabrics, Lino Villaventura presented a collection with a dramatic colour palette that combined dark earthy tones with off-whites, and print came in the form of ombré gradients, abstract florals and animal skin prints. And, in typical Villaventura fashion, large pleats, bejewelled pins and beaded stitching provided textured contours by manipulating the layering and hanging direction of delicate fabrics such as gauze and silk. 

London-based Italian designer Nico Didonna accepted the invitation made by the organisers of Dragão Fashion Brasil and presented a collection underpinned by the notion of wrapping. Plain off-white, royal blue, red, anthracite or hand-painted dresses made from jersey, viscose, or crepe highlighted the natural curves of the body while adjusting to, rather than shaping, the silhouette. Also playing a key role in this broad category, Mark Greiner and Roberto Dias worked together on a unique contemporary reinterpretation of local folklore that relied on strong original touches such as highly structured shoulders and a good treatment of noble fabrics (including chiffons, soft leathers and jacquards), even if, at stages, the final results were let down by the actual styling of the runway presentation.

However, it was when designers opted for exploring minimal lines and structured silhouettes that womenswear collections were at their most successful during the 2014 edition of Dragão Fashion Brasil. In this sense, Vitorino Campos’s fusion of streetwear tailoring with luxurious fabrics (unveiled just a few weeks earlier during São Paulo Fashion Week), Carol Barreto’s asymmetrically fastened garments and structured cuts (that contrasted with oversized crocheted jewellery pieces), Jefferson Ribeiro’s geometric exercises in an elegant colour palette of white, lemon and crimson, and Gisela Franck’s deconstructed garments made from soft fabrics with applications of collage-like layers all contributed a new vocabulary towards the lexicon of Brazilian women’s fashion.

In menswear, the most accomplished collection was the one that guest designer Nuno Gama presented on the very last day. Well-established in his native Portugal (where he founded his eponymous label in 1991), Gama chose to exhibit and edited version of his Autumn/Winter 2014 collection, where textures and rich materials (including fox fur, snakeskin, astrakhan, leather and thick wools) provided the material frame to extremely fitted cuts.

Currently enrolled in Milan’s Istituto Marangoni, young designer Jonathan Scarpari took a break from his fashion studies to return to his native Brazil and show his latest collection during Dragão Fashion Brasil. Entitled ‘B-24’, the collection drew inspiration from the idea of incorporating the genetic code into the design of unique garments in order to highlight the importance of individuality. This was achieved by working fabrics such as softened leather through hand-woven three-dimensional houndstooth patterns. In addition, Brazilian and Italian cool wool and organic silk were used in fitted tops, tailored shirts, jackets, trousers, and overalls that showed the influence of recent menswear designs by the likes of J.W. Anderson while audaciously and confidently attempting to push forward the boundaries of conventional tailoring.

Rather than focussing on a single collection, like most designers opted to do in Fortaleza, renowned Brazilian menswear designer Mario Queiroz showed 27 looks that he had designed throughout his 18-year-old career, ranging from conventional suiting and casual staples to more confidently daring kaftans, sleeveless jumpsuits, gold shorts, and sequined espadrilles. Pushing the boundaries quite a few steps further, Weider Silveiro and Jadson Raniere displayed the collection that they presented to inaugurate their label 2|Dois in October 2013. Both alumni of the São Paulo-based creative platform Casa de Criadores, Silveiro and Raniere investigated the potential of deconstructed tailoring, androgynous identities, and the influence of 1980s Japanese designers in details such as exposed stitching and frayed fabrics, elongated sleeves balancing cropped waist lines, oversized leather biker jackets, and abstract patterns supposedly inspired by the futuristic graphic artwork created by Peter Saville for Joy Division’s 1979 album ‘Unknown Pleasures’.

When asked to describe 2|Dois to Brazilian followers of fashion, Silveiro and Raniere declared that they hoped it would be ‘a breath of fresh air in a market typified by sameness.’ As their runway show finished and the audience applauded with resounding excitement, there was little doubt that their words would also be most suitable to describe what Dragão Fashion Brasil has achieved over 15 years, and the exciting developments that Brazilian fashion has in store for many more years to come.

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The decision to host a runway show in your own home is a brave and yet challenging one on more levels than one can fathom when first contemplating the idea. Technical imperatives aside (good examples including the light and acoustics of any domestic space, which are, ironically enough, not the most suitable to bring out the best in garments), combining personal and familial life with public and professional realms in the same space is not always a good idea. This is particularly true of events that present the finished work made by an artist or fashion designer that, in such contexts, are often accompanied by a build-up of preconceived considerations about the creative influence and process to an audience of friends, relatives, and complete strangers such as journalists and photographers. However, in the case of the event that unveiled Paula Raia’s Spring/Summer 2014/15 creations, the challenge was accepted, resolved and accomplished with undisputable aplomb at all levels to the benefit of the display of one of the best collections presented during the latest edition of São Paulo Fashion Week.

Designed by celebrated Brazilian architect Isay Weinfeld, Raia’s house is a rare peaceful and green oasis in the centre of a city of towering concrete blocks that house a metropolitan population currently exceeding 20 million people. After taking my seat to watch the show in a room with limestone floors and a wood-panelled central wall surrounded by wide glass sliding windows, I paused to observe the lush garden surrounding the house and the elements that, only after the show, I realised had undoubtedly influenced Paula Raia when developing her collection’s identity: a carefully manicured grass lawn framed a discreet swimming pool designed to look like a natural lake, and a couple of majestic wide and tall trees stood on grounds adjusted across generations around their longstanding existence, in a reverence to nature adroitly illustrated by Raia in her latest fashion range.

Finding inspiration in the universal idea of woman as a resilient tree (and in the indigenous mythological traits that it acquired within Brazilian folklore), Paula Raia resorted to natural fabrics and handicraft techniques to create a collection that is also an empowering celebration of womanhood and motherhood. Hers is a woman stoically and pragmatically grounded to life who, like a tree firmly rooted to the earth, steadfastly battles forces of nature to stand tall and strong for her children (the branches that reach upwards and outwards as physical and metaphorical extended manifestations of body and soul). If the description of woman as a living plant deeply connected to the soil and nature could have resulted in a condescending and commonplace social construction of women, under Raia’s command it managed to straddle the sensitive social line that divides Brazilian women with delicate consideration.

To a soundtrack of African tribal chants (some of which are at the root of Brazil’s folklore music owing to the slave trade during the country’s colonial foundation by the Portuguese in the 16th century), the models descended through a sculptural spiral staircase on the outside of the house and walked in and through two connected large rooms. The result was a parade of 22 looks presented in a gentle cadence through a gradient colour palette of earthy tones ranging from off-white and ecru to straw and ochre in textured natural fabrics such as raffia and straw, as well as in woven silk and cotton organza in some cases meticulously layered to create patterns such as fish scales. 

Elongated silhouettes were prevalent throughout the collection in the form of floor-length column skirts and dresses with sharp angular designs crafted around the shoulder lines. In a number of dresses, stacked layers of contrasting fabrics conjured the geometric designs that were made popular in the fashion and architecture of the 1930s as well as in the bulbous volumetries of Christian Dior’s garments of the late 1940s. Nevertheless, if Raia’s conic structures and pleated details revealed influences of the New Look, they also benefitted from Raia’s own reinterpretation by replacing Dior’s heavy wools with the lightness of cotton lace and of woven or plaited straw. And as the last model exited the house wearing a fitted top made of geometrically layered blocks of ecru and ochre fabrics over a long flowing skirt, and stood in formation with the other models in the garden facing the audience through the glass walls, the sense of communion with nature as the anchoring concept for the collection could not have been reinforced any further.

After the show ended and I began to formulate questions about the collection in my head in case I was able to have a few minutes alone with Paula Raia, I realised how, in spite of all the commotion that always ensues a runway show, the designer remained serenely happy. As I waited my turn to speak to her, I noticed that Raia kept holding her two children’s hands and paid attention to everything they said or did, even when her attention was requested by several people for the most diverse reasons. And when her mother congratulated her by giving her a long, silent embrace with tears running down her face, I quickly came to the conclusion that interviewing her would have been a redundant exercise. Against a hectic and noisy scene, that dignified and unstudied emotional portrait of generational ties and family love had provided all the answers to my questions about the origins of Paula Raia’s confidence, professional reliance, and the foundations for the personal and social awareness of womanhood and motherhood that she so consummately distilled into her sartorial creations.

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