If you have more than one-name in Brazil something isn’t working. In a country of 192 million, getting lumbered with two, three or four names simply isn’t cool. The country’s footballers opt for one early on in their careers and hope that it will one day rank alongside the greats – Pele, Zico, Ronaldo and Romario. The country’s richest man is known simply as Eike and even the president has ditched his family name for Lula, or squid.
Those able to carry off a mono-moniker after throwing away a heavyweight surname like Niemeyer, are clearly doing something right, hey Lenny?
After wisely opting to ditch a glittering career as a designer trying to make sense of the Sao Paulo landscape, Lenny Niemeyer, chose to become the undisputed queen of Brazilian beach fashion. Where else but the world capital of body beautiful, Rio de Janeiro?
In 1993, she joined the Brazilian world of one-name wonders with the launch of her exclusive brand of designer bikinis, swimsuits and beachwear, Lenny. Since she has added a store every year and established herself as the bikini guru for Brazil’s (read the world’s) most exquisite figures.
Famed as much for her parties as her sleek designs, Lenny put the style back into Rio de Janeiro and is one of the pillars holding up the contemporary ascent of Brazilian fashion.
As the world’s fifth largest country looks increasingly beyond its own extensive boundaries, Brazil’s growing confidence can be seen clearly on the runways of Sao Paulo Fashion Week and Fashion Rio.
“I think that every year Brazil has more and more its own identity,” says Lenny.
“Brazilian fashion is becoming much more professional with a lot more personality. When I began as a stylist 20 years ago Brazil did not have this sense of identity and many of the ideas were imported from abroad. Today I think Brazilian fashion is very strong and it has its own personality, a personality which reflects Brazil which is more light and cheerful, more relaxed.”
Top-notch labour, high quality textile producers and a deep pool of artisans yet to be harnessed points to a bright future for the Brazilian fashion business, she says.
Lenny points to designers like Andrea Marques of A Mais Bonita, Oskar Metsavaht of Osklen, André Lima and Alexandre Herchcovitch who have opened up the possibility of moving beyond a ‘sub-mundo’ (underworld) of beach fashion to standout shows in Paris, Milan and New York.
“SPFW and Fashion Rio have contributed a lot to this,” she says. “To do a show in Miami, New York or Europe was expensive but these shows, the promoters, the journalists, the Brazilian models working abroad have given a lot of force to Brazilian fashion and the country has started to sell itself beyond beach fashion,” she says.
Teenage prodigy, Pedro Lourenço, the 19-year old son of SPFW stalwarts, Reinaldo Lourenço and Glória Coelho stormed Paris earlier this year with his bold blend of ‘Diana the Huntress and Brazilian architect Oscar Niemeyer’. Lourenço, says Lenny, offers a glimpse of the future of Brazilian fashion – ‘confident and highly accomplished’.
She herself has got caught up in the 50th birthday of her uncle’s most famous work, the Brazilian capital, Brasilia.
Her last two collections were inspired largely in Brazil’s indigenous roots with organic patterns and earthy tones but Brasilia’s birthday has put her and the rest of the country in a more modernist frame of mind.
“I am preparing a collection that looks at modernist architecture with forms that are very clean. I am at the experimental stages but I like to do this. My life is to create, innovate, to surprise, and to take risks,” she says.
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