Brasil Eco Fashion Week: sustainable fashion week features 20 fashion shows in São Paulo, Brazil
In the last in-person edition, the event brought together more than 7,000 visitors. In December, the edition occupies two educational and cultural facilities in the west of the capital.
Co-creating the future — this is the theme of the 6th Brasil Eco Fashion Week (BEFW), a sustainable fashion week that opens on November 30th at Unibes Cultural. From December 1st to December 3rd, activities should occupy Senac Lapa Faustolo and, from December 4th to 6th, with workshops held at Unibes Cultural.
“BEFW’s purpose is to nurture the ecosystem by presenting productive and creative processes, connecting the fashion business to an innovative and sustainable supply chain and bringing brands closer to consumers”, explains Rafael Morais, executive director of the Brasil Eco Fashion (BEF) platform.
Therefore, Co-creating the future is a call to foster collaboration between small and large players in sustainable fashion, debating strategies for product innovation and for more interactions and dialogue with customers. It’s about adapting to be more competitive in an industry that is expected to grow by $9.81 billion in 2025 and reach $15 billion in 2030, according to The Business Research Company’s Global Ethical Fashion Market report.
In this 6th edition, the event brings together 20 fashion shows, 18 panels and 30 workshops, in addition to thematic installations. The pillars of sustainable fashion are on the agenda, such as environmental preservation, and social and economic development. Among the topics are textile innovation, science and knowledge, cultural rescue, circularity, certifications, upcycling, recycling and waste disposal. The consumer and culture market are addressed with topics such as digital innovations that include e-commerce, tracking, NFTs and metaverse, among others.
A fashion event with representations from all regions of Brazil
In its journey, the BEFW has gathered around 150 sustainability-oriented brands. Among the brands selected for the edition, 20 will be featured on the catwalk, among them:
- Alme (Rio Grande do Sul)
- Demodê (Maranhão)
- Ludimila Heringer (Pará)
- collab Rani + Comas (São Paulo)
- Woolmay Mayden (São Paulo)
- Sau Swin (Ceará)
- VB Atelier (Rio de Janeiro)
Regarding the brands that have already paraded at BEFW Milan, Italy, and are joining the 6th BEFW, we can mention:
- Libertees (Minas Gerais)
- Rico Bracco (Rio Grande do Sul)
- Vestô (Rio de Janeiro)
In the spotlight, there is the first thrift store parade at the event. The Repassa brand (São Paulo) exhibits its looks with some of the 600,000 pieces in stock and emphasizes that the second-hand market is the fastest growing among Generation Z and Millennials (GlobalData, 2022). Also on the catwalk, Pantys (São Paulo) presents its absorbent, washable and reusable panties. This is the first Brazilian brand to launch an NFTs collection, entering the non-fungible token market, with the idea of building content in the female universe and also in the metaverse.
The event features the opening of the futurist Lala Deheinzelin, a pioneer of the Creative Economy in the country, addressing the theme “Co-Creating the Future”. In the panels, Luciana Duarte, from Ethical Fashion Brazil, is highlighted, who moderated the debate on the theme “Sustainable Fashion in Brazil” at the 27th UN Conference on Climate Change (COP27) in Egypt.
The international highlight is from Peru. A performance lecture “Enqakunaq Kunpi P’achan – The Royal Costumes of the Incas”, an immersion in the palatial fashion of 15th century Cusco, where the people dressed are the descendants of the Incas themselves. The minister is Adrian Llave Inca Yachachiq, a researcher of Andean history. The historian leads the workshop for designers who want to coherently use their cultural legacy to recreate new product forms in contemporary fashion. On trends, Giovana Cornacchia and Mariah Cidral, from Clémente Paris, hold a workshop “Cool Hunting and Sustainability” to highlight Europe’s perspectives and efforts to be increasingly sustainable in the environmental, social and economic fields.
During this edition, the results of the 1st BEFW Circular Fashion and Innovation Program will be presented, a project curated by the team of specialists in circularity and sustainability of the Senai Institute of Textile and Apparel Technology of SENAI CETIQT.
The event is masterly sponsored by Renner and Mercado Livre, and sponsored by the Brazilian Support Service for Micro and Small Enterprises – National Sebrae and supported by the National Service for Commercial Learning – Senac. It is worth noting that since the first edition, BEFW – sustainable fashion week – has received support from the Brazilian Textile and Apparel Industry Association – ABIT in different actions as an invitation from buyers and the international press. It also has partnerships with the Texbrasil program of the Brazilian Trade and Investment Promotion Agency – ApexBrasil, for the internationalisation of national brands and products, in addition to the Brazilian Association of Fashion Designers – Abest.
Brasil Eco Fashion Week
The first Latin American fashion week was dedicated exclusively to the fashion industry with sustainable attributes. Held by Brasil Eco Fashion — a fashion, innovation and sustainability platform that has been boosting and fostering the ecosystem of good socio-environmental practices in the Brazilian textile and apparel sector.
Brazil Eco Fashion Week – 6th. edition
Opening November 30 – 2:30 pm
Cultural Unibes – Rua Oscar Freire, 2500
1st to 3rd of december 2022 – 11 am to 8pm
Senac Lapa Faustolo, R. Faustolo, 1347
December 4-6, 2022 – 10 am to 7pm
Cultural Unibes, Rua Oscar Freire, 2500
Alme
The brand was born in 2018 responding to a demand for comfort and versatility. It presents shoes and backpacks to the sustainable fashion market with raw materials from renewable and/or recycled sources. They are products with low environmental impact, combining material and process technologies with refined design. Among the materials, there are natural fibres such as cotton and wool, but the pieces are also composed of industrial waste such as EVA from sugarcane and shoelaces produced with yarn from PET bottles. Alme is a carbon-neutral brand of the Arezzo & Co group and is produced in Rio Grande do Sul, the birthplace of Brazilian footwear culture.
collab RANI + COMAS
Agustina Comas, designer and founder of the brand Comas, created in 2015, met Luanna Cicolo, creator of the brand new fitness fashion brand Rani, and together, the brands from São Paulo conceived a clothing line in classic and conceptual models. , made to be versatile and adapt to all occasions. Made in upcycling processes with a selection of fabrics that would be discarded. The products translate the intelligent reuse of materials in order to reduce the generation of waste and collaborate with a culture of fashion production with less waste.
Demodê
Founded in Maranhão in 2018, the brand led by Maria Zeferina, produces underwear among other pieces renowned as comfort fashion. With its own modelling, the proposal for a minimalist fashion is based on organic coloured cotton from Paraíba, certified by Ecocert. Cotton grown in the family farming system is born naturally coloured. As it is not irrigated and does not require dyeing, it generates savings of 87.5% compared to conventional industrial production processes. The brand promotes the local economy by concentrating on the purchase of inputs in the Northeast. In addition, handcrafted lace and crochet finishes are produced in local communities. Adept at zero waste, it reuses manufacturing waste to create other products.
Ludimila Heringer
The brand that works with certified sustainable fabrics was founded in 2018 in Pará by the designer, stylist and artisan Ludimila. Producing on demand, they have used manual and ancestral techniques of the natural dyeing process, in addition to crochet and embroidery. With the technique of botanical stamping (eco print) it uses elements of nature such as leaves, bark, seeds and roots. In her fashion show, she will present eco print pieces waterproofed with latex from rubber trees from Acre and local, national and imported raw materials. Since May 2022, she has been carrying out voluntary crochet training work for women deprived of their liberty at the Women’s Correction Centre in her state.
Pantys
This is the first brand of absorbent, washable and reusable panties in Latin America and the only one clinically tested in the world. The brand founded in São Paulo by Emily Ewell and Maria Eduarda Camargo, produces panties made of biodegradable fabric for menstrual periods and urinary incontinence. With a shelf life of 100 washes, the product serves a market of 86% of women in Brazil who use external absorbent pads and 72% of women in the world who use disposable diapers, reducing the mountains of waste generated with the disposal. Pantys also has an absorbent bra for breastfeeding women, men’s underwear and a beach line in its catalogue. Pantys is the first Brazilian brand to launch an NFTs collection, entering the non-fungible token market, with the idea of building content in the female universe also in the metaverse.
Repassa
Considered the main reference in the circular fashion market in Brazil, it is an online thrift store created in São Paulo that, since 2015, has been generating a positive socio-environmental impact by increasing the life cycle of clothes. Among the 600 thousand pieces in stock, for each sale completed, the seller receives 60% of the value. The balance is made available on the platform itself, generating the Saldo Repassa, a type of digital wallet, and can be transferred to a checking account or used on the company’s website for new purchases. The values can also be donated to social organizations, as well as products that fail the quality control process. With national operations, Repassa was acquired by Lojas Renner S.A. in 2021.
Sau Swin
The Ceará brand is the result of the meeting of Yasmim Nobre and Marina Bitu who serve the beachwear, sportswear and resort wear segments. The brand stands out for its use of biodegradable lycra and cotton fabric with creative modelling that respects the plurality of bodies. In the design, he inserts traditional craft techniques with the use of lace, embroidery, and pottery, in addition to the use of wood and straw. The brand created in 2021 has strengthened the local economy by empowering women from Ceará whose embroidery and lace are produced by collectives of artisans located in cities in the interior, from the coast to the hinterland of the state.
VB Atelier
Founded in 2012 in Rio de Janeiro by stylist Andrea Villas Boas, the brand develops tailoring pieces with elements that refer to the ancestry of African culture and indigenous knowledge. The brand highlights Creole clothing in its collection because Creole comes from this term being something Brazilian black, not African. Therefore, the current Afrocentric Fashion proposes to decentralize the colonized look and bring new narratives.
Woolmay Mayden
The brand was founded in São Paulo in 2019 by Jean Woolmay Denson Pierre, a Haitian based in Brazil since 2015. Before launching his own collection, he worked as an athlete, model and digital influencer, occupying spaces of representation and collabs with collections inspired by the Black Lives is Matter movement. It invests heavily in sustainable fabrics. Thus, it works with recycled fabrics and a design inspired by streetwear fashion. In this edition of BEFW the brand should present pieces with resignified jeans.
