SAO PAULO — As alternative markets become more established, their once highly competitive prices also tend to become more mainstream. And it’s creating some angst for foreign retailers who attended this summer’s São Paulo Fashion Week and Fashion Rio.
International buyers, especially at the more upscale SPFW, voiced the same refrain: that Brazilian fashion has become less price-competitive, and this has reduced their margins. Still, they continued to place orders at both events, noting that SPFW remains a good venue for edgier, innovative labels, as does Fashion Rio for more casual, commercial fare.
The latest editions of these biannual events featured 2007 summer collections and drew record local and foreign crowds. Both are open to the public. The July 12-18 SPFW attracted more than 105,000 visitors, including about 30 foreign buyers, most of them newcomers. Fashion Rio, held June 6-11, drew 95,000 guests, among them 89 foreign buyers.
Among foreign buyers at SPFW were Opening Ceremony and Madame Killer in New York; Fanny and Delphine in Boston; Yeung in Ghent, Belgium; Praias in Dubai; Tendenza in Mexico, and Vertigo, from Venezuela. The Harvey Nichols branch from Riyadh, Saudi Arabia; Etoile, a Dubai-based fashion emporium, and H.P. France, with 70 shops in Japan and three others in Hong Kong, Paris and New York, also attended.
“SPFW’s summer collections, like the ones from summer 2006, were more voluminous and loose-fitting than in past years, when the apparel was more overtly sexy and body-contoured,” said Lilian Pacce, a São Paulo fashion consultant and host of a cable TV fashion program. “But unlike last summer, this season featured much shorter skirts and dresses, creating a young, doll-like style. Fashion Rio’s more commercial collections were also shorter, but without the costly volume.”
SPFW’s main houses were Alexandre Herchcovitch, who shows at 7th on Sixth in New York; Reinaldo Lourenço; Fause Haten; Lino Villaventura; Patachou, whose export line is Tereza Santos, and Forum, Tufi Duek’s signature line. Other brands were Iódice, Osklen, Mario Queiroz, Huis Clos, Zoomp, Ellus, Triton, Ronaldo Fraga, Isabela Capeto, Neon and four designers who recently migrated from Fashion Rio to SPFW: Maria Bonita, Patricia Viera, Zigfreda and Karlla Girotto. Swimwear labels included Cia.Marítima, Agua de Coco, and Pako Pano. Top swimwear label Rosa Chá wasn’t present but plans to show at 7th on Sixth in September in New York.
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Key designers at Fashion Rio included Maria Bonita Extra, the lower-priced sister of Maria Bonita; Colcci; Santa Ephigenia; Mara Mac; TNG, and Walter Rodrigues, a top São Paulo designer who also shows during Paris Fashion Week. Swimwear brands were Lenny, Blue Man and Salinas.
African prints and animal designs like leopard and zebra took over for the florals of last summer. At Fashion Rio, Maria Bonita Extra showed super-short, tricoline, leopard-print jumpsuits. Sommer showed above-the-knee cotton, African-mask-print dresses and zebra-print bloomer jumpsuits, while Salinas had geometric-tribal-print bikinis and one-piece suits with tribal feather headdress prints. At SPFW, the African theme reached its apex in Herchcovitch’s punk-African collection. Its stylized tribal prints — some with double-edged razor blade designs — came in saturated reds, blues, yellows, blacks and whites. Some prints were embroidered with tribal-style beadwork.
SPFW newcomer Xavier Hardy, a buyer for Etoile in Dubai, which has a wealthy Saudi and Kuwaiti tourist base, said, “Herchcovitch’s beaded, punk-African prints are just what my clientele wants: flashy but feminine styles for women who want to stand out at a party.”
Hardy said he was ordering 300 pieces from several others, such as Tereza Santos’ tunic dresses with vibrant, coral reef colors and Maria Bonita’s fuchsia flared silk chiffon dresses. He added that while he couldn’t find similar styles in Europe, “To my surprise, SPFW prices aren’t that much cheaper than they are in Europe, which cuts my margins.”
Other Middle Eastern buyers also came looking for flamboyant party clothes, which they found — but at higher-than-expected prices. Ross Nicolas, buying director for Harvey Nichols in Riyadh, cited Tereza Santos’ tunic dresses; Cori’s black, layered and scalloped cocktail dresses (designed by Herchcovitch), and Marcia Ganem’s short, shimmering dresses.
“SPFW offers fun, ‘joie de vivre’ apparel that’s perfect for the weddings and parties thrown by the elite [at home], among them the big Saudi Royal base, who are among our clients,” said Nicholas, also new to SPFW. “And although the pricing is 10 percent better than in Europe, I thought that, given Brazil’s lesser-known labels, prices would be a lot lower. Because it isn’t, my margins will be lower.”
Eve Kohlman, owner of Fanny and Delphine, also expected to buy Santos’ dresses and wrapped, body-hugging knitwear dresses, along with Lourenço’s tailored suits.
“The labels I found at SPFW are perfect for our fashion-forward day and eveningwear, even though they won’t give me big margins,” said Kohlman, another SPFW newcomer. “I might have bought more, but prices were higher than I had imagined, given my perception that collections here rely on relatively cheap labor and fabrics. [Some labels’ prices] put them in competition with the biggest European houses, even though there is simply not enough in those collections to distinguish them from Europeans.”
Dominique Yeung, owner of the Yeung boutique in Belgium, also liked Lourenço’s black, tailored suitings and corset tops, worn with flesh-colored body netting with tattoo prints covering the arms and shoulders.
“Lourenço’s sexy, Gothic look is popular with my fashion-forward clients,” said Yeung. “And while his prices are only a bit cheaper than European designers I carry, his original pieces give my clients much-needed choices.”
Lillian Harari, a buyer for Tendenza, a chain of six Mexican boutiques, said it was the innovative fabrics, like stretch silk jersey used in sheath dresses from Iódice and Huis Clos, that differentiated those labels from the American eveningwear she usually buys.
“I found stretch silk jersey dresses that were softer, more comfortable and better styled than those I buy in the U.S.,” she said.
Jacqueline Roussin of Velvet Lounge in Cannes and Nadas Sleiman of Piaff in Beirut also bought Clos stretch silk jersey gowns. “They are perfect for Cannes parties,” said Roussin, “and although they were more expensive than I expected, they’re still a bit cheaper than European ones.”
While most of the foreign buyers at the SPFW scouted out formal wear, some hunted for casual apparel. Marty Gonzalez, who owns seven Vertigo franchised boutiques in Venezuela, and Debbie Bryan, who owns two XOXO and Gant franchised shops in Panama City, both plan to open Ellus franchised stores in their respective countries next March, stocking the entire 3,000-piece Ellus line of casual wear. They cited the sexy, contoured fit; cuts, like the low-rise front and high-rise back, and washes of Ellus denim.
At Fashion Rio, some foreign buyers also complained about prices.
Guido Melo, a Melbourne-based importer-distributor, planned to buy 2,500 pieces from Totem, including floral-print bikinis, dresses and cotton kaftans, “which we got at good prices, but only because we’re buying bulk. Without the prices we got, the 32 percent taxes and 15 percent shipping costs would not have made them competitive.”
Jean Claude Chiroutte, a Paris-based fashion consultant for European boutiques, however, found some affordable labels. “Drosófila had some mixed-print, polyester gypsy dresses, wholesaling at $70, which I can sell to European retailers at a nice margin,” he said.
Michael Ryan, with the Blue Agency, a New York-based distributor to 350 North American retailers, agreed. “Drosófila has very contemporary styling and very good prices,” said Ryan, who voiced similar praise for Redley and Salinas.
Despite a flat but stable local economy (less than 2 percent GDP growth is expected this year), both events registered increased business. Fashion Rio’s 80 on-site showrooms generated $190 million worth of domestic orders and $12.5 million in foreign orders, up from $144 million domestic and $10 million from foreigners placed at last June’s shows.
Meanwhile, at SPFW’s 73 on-site showrooms, orders nearly quintupled from what had been placed at the 51 showrooms at the January 2006 edition.
SPFW organizer Graça Cabral said, “Business was brisk at SPFW showrooms because, despite a sluggish [Brazilian] economy, domestic buyers are hopeful business will pick up in the second half of the year.”