Fashion Postcard from Rio

From: Godfrey Deeny

1. Cantao's Ludmila Bruscky! Even designers are beautiful in Brazil

2. Our favorite flirty fashion moment in Rio in January was a morning show by Cantao, who exhibited the brand’s abstract expressionist haute boheme style with great gusto in a marvelous subtropical garden.
   
   In probably the week’s best casting, the show featured lots of top catwalkers, topped by that fashion saint of model Daiane Conterato, who finished the show in a Joan of Arc meets Siouxsie and the Banshees silver tunic and leggings.
   
   Cantao have a well-deserved standing for staging cool shows, and this display will burnish their reputation. Inspired by the sensual imagery of American artist Maya Hayuk, the collection was edgy yet nonetheless feminine.
   
   The whole rockin’ show was also a triumph for Ludmila Bruscky – yes, her grandfather did come from Russia – a poised and pretty graduate of Parson’s Paris, who combined a sense of adventure with innovative finishing and bold shapes. Mark the 28-year-old Bruscky down in your style diaries as very much a fashion designer to watch.
   
   If Fashion Rio has one obvious weakness it’s their designer’s lack of international training and exposure. So, the Rio season, rather like recent Berlin catwalk week, tends to showcase too many formulaic high street brands and swimsuit companies, while not heralding enough savvy new talent. Apart from happening players like Alexandre Herchcovitch, Osklen and Reinaldo Lourenco there has been a real dearth of Brazilian talent. Which is what helps Ludmila with her European schooling and global grasp of trends, stand out.
   
   Models descended out from a fine castellated neo-classical building and down a cobbled path before an audience of local style victims and the international press – Michael Roberts in his preferred Rio attire – T-shirt and striped cotton pajama ants – and UK fashion critic Colin McDowell, who even in the tropics always dons a jacket and tie.
   
   Parque Lage is tucked underneath Corcovado, near to an area known as Christ’s Armpit – I kid you not. Built by industrialist Enrique Lage, and remodeled in the 1920s by Italian architect Mario Vodrel, the garden and villa has been featured in music videos for Pharrell Williams, Snoop Dogg, and the Black Eyed Peas.
   
   The mansion now houses an art school, the Escola de Artes Visuals do Parque Lage (School of Visual Arts), galleries for student visitors and a delightful courtyard cafe.
   
   We caught up with Ludmila post show for a chat about this gutsy collection, an abstract street style take on tropical attitude made in twill, printed sequins, glazed leather, felt and resin glass and staged under giant trees, among whose branches monkeys chattered.
   

3. Wild prints in a magical garden

4. Achtung: Tell us about your inspiration and ideas for this collection?
   
   Bruscky: It’s about constant movement. So we’ve invited Maya Hayuk to do a print for us, a Latin American artist from New York. She’s really great and we find everything we’ve been looking in her work, everything. She’s a multimedia artist, so it’s a comfortable collection. It’s a little bit boho, a little bit grunge and arty.
   
   Achtung: A little bit boho?
   
   Bruscky: Okay, yes, a lot of boho. Haha!
   
   Achtung: Tell me a bit about two things: the crazy boots and the beautiful glasses?
   
   Bruscky: Yes. The boots are rain boots, utilitarian boots, but not in rubber. Ours are in leather, either flower print or a Maya Hayuk print.
   
   Achtung: What about the glasses?
   
   Bruscky: The glasses we did ourselves, we designed the shapes and played with the colors. How to obtain two colors in the same glasses, not bad as it’s the first time we have done sun glasses.
   
   Achtung: Why did you choose the garden?
   
   Bruscky: We chose Parque Large, because of the Art College here. So Cantao and the college are in a collaboration together. We’re going to sell T-shirts in stores with prints and paintings from the students. And all the money that we get from selling it goes back to the college.
   
   Achtung: Okay. Last things: tell me about yourself? Where were you born?
   
   Bruscky: I’m born in Rio.
   
   Achtung: And your grandfather was Polish? No, Russian?
   
   Bruscky: My grandfather was Russian, yes. That’s where I got my name. And my grandmother is from the north of Brazil.
   
   Achtung: Bruscky, or brewsky is slang, you know, in American colleges for a beer….
   
   Bruscky: It is? Wow I did not know that!
   
   Achtung: And did you study fashion?
   
   Bruscky: Yes, I’ve studied fashion here in Brazil, in Rio, and then, after that, I went to Parsons School in Paris. And I did a textile design course.
   
   
   Achtung: When?
   Bruscky: Parson, when? Four years ago. Because when I came back I started right away with Cantao.
   
   Achtung: What does Cantao represent, what does it mean in five words?
   
   Bruscky: Cantao? As a word, I don’t know, really, what the word means. But as a brand it’s meant to represent freshness, lightness, not pretentious, something that is like having your feet on the floor.
   
   
   
   
   

5. Cantao's Boho silhouette