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Vinicius Piccoli @ 40 Graus photographed by Lucas Bori Vol II | April 2011 | No. 88 Dudu Bertholini Ed Andrade Marco Van Rijt Igi Ayedun Pablo Saborido Alexander Bisdon Rownland Frida Kahlo Adriano Damas Marina Franco Marcio Banfi Brisa Issa Daniel Malva Herbert Loureiro Cristopher Bush Kristiina Wilson Andy Warhol Joseph Beuys Daniel Pinheiro Bulletree Film Jack Kerouac +

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contents}88{ art f i le; jacqueline deboni style f i le; lia serge by chr

all the by marcio ipanema 351 b with _vinicius the suburbs by frida by adriano by kristiina goodbye stranger | the life (of) style in mot no editions by lui gi t interview : m a_brava-nation by special a/w 2011 sea like a prayer by lia serge by modern family by london by alexander 2

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ristopher bushâ€? chapter one { the way we live} >

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The abravanistas are coming. It has been established the birth of the neo-tropicalistas, modernity in tradition, the original blood of ours. It has started. We are coming back to the woods, only this time with neon lights. We are not the same. We are living the crowning of a new identity. For what is a country that speaks all the languages plus the tupi-guarani? What is a country where nobody is a foreigner, because nobody knows what comes from the inside or the outside? More than half-breds, we are multidimensional. We take things to ourselves. The Brazil that has been ignited in 1922 will never be the same. It was then that we renovated, for the first time, our language. It hasn’t been over 100 years ago. The Modern Art Week of 1922 was our reaction to the vanguard that was being produced in Europe. Artists and thinkers such as Anita Malfatti, Lasar Segall, Tarsila do Amaral, Di Cavalcanti, Mario de Andrade, Oswald de Andrade – who wrote the Anthropophagic Manifest – and other people who made up the modernist group in Brazil, digested and created the artistic independence in our country. Through words and images. They showed our colors and our way of saying things. Our landscapes, our speed. The core event took place in February, 1922, in São Paulo. And the Anthropophagic Manifest, released in 1928, summarizes our need for freedom: it affirms we had already been human beings long before someone (how peevish!) “found” us. We had been surrealists long before surrealism. We had been libertarians long before liberty. We lacked the grammar, but we had nature on our side. One has to be in our shoes to understand all this. One has to get rid of clichés that haunt our true image. We aren’t bothered at studying European philosophy, for we are also Europeans. Hence we take quote “da cosa nasce cosa” to ourselves, from Italian designer Bruno Munari: from our 1922 modernists were born the 1960s tropicalistas and the 2000s neo-tropicalistas. The neo-tropicalistas are the abravanistas. The tropicalismo is in our songs, our arts, our poetry, our everything.Caetano Veloso, Mutantes, Secos e Molhados. How can we deny the abravanistas are the children of Ney Matogrosso, all painted like wild animals? How can we deny the abravanistas are the children of sculptor Hélio Oiticica, with his fabric sculptures that only exist if someone dances within them? What about the electrical-analogical mix of the Mutantes? It all makes a lot of sense now, they dressed up in African tunics full of geometries, young creatures in a hype-carnival. If someone today wants to know what a Brazilian is, we should say we are, also, abravanistas.

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The move ment Abra vana was created when Rick Castro fell in love with a public appearance by Patrícia Abravanel, daughter to multi-millionaire Brazilian TV host/entrepreneur Silvio Santos. She had just been victim of a kidnap and came out of her whereabouts in ecstasy. Something changed her, it was more than just Stockholm syndrome. Patrícia seemed to have succumbed to an alien and delicious epiphany. She forgave her kidnappers, set her instincts free. Abravanou. The abravanação was already something in the air, it only lacked a proper word. The vanguard made up of Rick Castro (performer), Eli Sudbrack (artist from AVAF), Dudu Bertholini and Rita Comparato (fashion designers and performers), Kleber Matheus (art director) and others came from parallel routes, but were connected via this new neo-tropical aesthetics. An ocean of colors, energy, pop symbols, folklore, graphic elements, irony. A neo-tropical attitude. It is only available to Brazilian people, but it can be seen all around the world. On the runways and outside, in art galleries and outside, in streets and outside, in installations or parties, or even party-installations. It is everywhere. If you have never been to an abravanista party, then make your own. That’s how it works. The creative contemporaneity here fulfills what history demands: the abravanismo is not subject to any category. The psy-carnival-esque installations by Eli Sudbrack can be, at the same time, at the Moma in NYC or in any given archeological site in Rome. Dudu Bertholini can be, at the same time, on the runway or in any dirty street or garden in São Paulo. That’s why the fashion created by Neon, the brand of Dudu, comes from manners, styles, gestures and behavior. His fashion is beyond fashion. His clothes demand attitude, such as Hélio Oiticica’s sculptures. Oiticica has taught us that art must be worn and danced. Dudu Bertholini creates clothes that require performance. The abravanistas, just by existing, are creating a style that is a patrimony. They motivate performances, a samba-fashion that stimulates our pride and our hedonist and pure roots. The contemporary concept of Brazil, in the abravanação, is purely aesthetic. Our post-colonialism reactions have never been aggressive such as Kendel Geers’ or Sarah Walker’s. It was urgently needed that we created a genuine aesthetic, and the abravanistas responded to this mixing up pop, national and global. Nature and electronics, plastic and skin, panthers and dolls, black magic and geometries, tree folks and aliens. With so much love. We love to love. We love toabravanar. *Juliana Lopes is a journalist who studies at the Belas Artes of Milan.

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Cannibal Manifesto (also known as the Brazilwood Manifesto) was written in 1928 by Oswald de Andrade, a member of the Brazilian art movement known as Modernist, which began in 1923.

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Celebrating the end of the Paris Fashion Week with some friends over a few drinks, there was some talking about how heavy this season felt. Just take a quick look at collections such as Chanel, Marc Jacobs, Louis Vuitton, Givenchy, Viktor&Rolf and Miu Miu, to name a few. Of course there was the Galliano thing, and there was also some talking about the ever-increasing pressure upon designers, saying it culminates in the recurrent drug abuses between members of the industry, drinking problems and some even say it was one of the causes of Balmain’s designer Christopher Decarin nervous breakdown. It is tempting to relate fashion to what goes on in the world. And although there might be some coincidences, fashion over all _and especially in high-speed times such as ours_ is just about opposing what was

presented in the previous seasons. If the length in skirts were longer this time, it isn’t because society felt the need to “hide” anything _it is just because they were too short the previous season. But one can’t deny that some designers have the sensibility to catch on going moods and translate them into their works. Who would disagree to Karl Lagerfeld when he said, in order to explain the rusty boyish dark clothes he presented for the Chanel AW11 show, that “the world is a dark place”? Who didn’t think about all the conservatism going on in politics, economics and even in social behavior when Marc Jacobs showed 30s and 40s inspired looks with something of a streamlined discipline attached to them? At Louis Vuitton, beyond fetishism, who didn’t feel the authority _something extremely military_ that those hyper sexualized clothes exhaled? And, above all, who actually thinks 2010 was a great year?

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Fashion is in no easy place right now. And perhaps that’s why this has been a rather peculiar show season. As if something was about to change, but yet it hasn’t really changed. That might help explain why we saw a trend towards the influence of Balenciaga in the late 50s and beginning of the 60s. Those clean lines structured coats, working as armors or cocoon shells where one can hide and protect itself from all the uncertainty and unstableness of the world. Think about Marni, Burberry, Fendi. But in order to make it relevant you can’t simply tap into the past and bring it all back to now. It takes a bit more than that, it must feel at least fresh and mostly, it must relate to the way we live now. That’s why Raf Simons collection for Jil Sander looks so intriguing. Taking the couture shapes he worked in amazing simplicity, he infused it with a great sense of sportswear, making it just as dynamic as life in the digital generation. A collection filled with traditional techniques, but adapted to the present time. _____________________________________________

Tradition was a word that kept popping up as the fashion mob migrated from NY to London and then to Milan and Paris. Something to do with the conservative style of the late 30s and 40s, two of the major trends of the season. As if trying to grab on some restraint of tradition, designers jumped into that streamlined austerity, maybe for some security in unstable times or just as a critical reflection of the latest decisions in politics, economics and even social behavior. With a great sense irony and criticism running subtly in the backdrop of his show _the polka dots, the hats with stripes tied to the head, the soundtrack (Marilyn Masons’ “Beautiful People”) and the venue decoration (mirrored floor and padded white columns)_ Marc Jacobs offered one of the best interpretations on the matter. Peter Pilotto and his partner Chritopher de Vos also went down the path. For their AW11 collection the quest for a tougher silhouette ended evoking some revolutionary spirits, making it impossible not to think about all the protest going on in the Middle East, and also the ones that took place way before them, like in Paris in may of 1968, and the Bolshevik revolution of 1917, which was in fact one of the designers inspirations. In Paris it wasn’t exactly old fashion, but there was something of a comeback to traditional Parisian manners. As if some designers were feeling nostalgic about those days prior to May 1968, bringing back some kind of elitist sense of dressing up (although fashion didn’t ever give that up). So when you seea designer in one of the most traditional maisons giving new meanings to sophisticated sportswear, one can’t help but receive it like a breath of fresh air. 206

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Riccardo Tisci’s latest collection for Givenchy featured sweaters and baseball jackets with such a sophisticated touch that it was hard to call them simply sportswear. One even had satin sleeves and shear organza bodices, making almost fetish-like black bustiers visible. A jacket consisted of printed fabric and there was also angora sweaters with a pin-up girl printed inside an arrow of flowers and one embellished with dark-gold embroideries And then there’s the Galliano scandal. Revealing one of fashion’s dirty little secret and disgracing not only the former Dior designer, but also the whole industry. An industry which was managing quite well to hide its ghost of discrimination, prejudice and elitism in the closet with the so proclaimed fashion democracy. Was this a fashion reality check? Since then the whole industry has been acting not only as politically correct as possible, but also trying to show how professional they can get. Although the AW11 collections had been conceived months before all this, one cannot deny a connection. On one hand there was Prada revealing all the typical female obsessions: the animal prints, the Mary Jane’s turned into boots, the pastel hues, the furry pieces… And on the other hand were those other designer more eager to stay as realistic as possible. Phoebe Philo at Céline showed her best collection for the brand so far. Never mind the wood prints, nor the leather appliqués inspired by the interior design of cars. What seemed so striking about this collection was how she managed to convey the most simple and practical minimalist looks to contemporary women. This time it was all about a simple combination of a coat (cut in bold clean lines), straight pants and high neck t-shirts. And all with a great color palette, together with incredible textures responsible for taking the cold out of the minimalist aesthetic.

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all_ + we_ need is_ l.o. v.e <3 210

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