Colonial Fashion

So far my posts on Brazilian fashion have focused on the mid-20th century. Obviously the roots of today’s styles go back much farther than that. A Febratex* post from April 2020 summarizes the very earliest period:

Brazilian fashion’s creation is directly related to the colonial period, because that was the beginning of immigrant life in the country, bringing their customs and traditions with them. …

In a land where the natives walked around naked, the European immigrants brought with them a culture in which their clothing had the objective of classifying and identify social classes, indirectly demarcating the origins of each one and contributing to the formation of a complex social dynamic. …

The majority of the more privileged in society started to adopt attire as a way of highlighting their distance from poorer social groups, including slaves.

The State and the moralists from the Church, who joined for the purposes of seeking the ‘public good,’ condemned vanity, ostentation, and luxury.

*Febratex is the Brazilian Textile Industry Fair, the largest exhibition for the textile industry in the Americas.