Casa de Criadores returns to the Cultural Center of São Paulo, starting this Wednesday (3), proposing more than just a week of parades. The new edition promotes the transformation of the event into a platform for training and discussion on fashion by Brazilian authors – a movement that its founder, André Hidalgo, claims is a necessary shift in the face of a sector characterized by environmental exclusions and imperatives.
In this context, the question that guides the edition arises: “What fashion, for what world?” This phrase, coined by multi-artist Carla Girotto, gives a title to the course of free lectures, curated by professor and researcher Carol Barreto, and to the exhibition that makes up the event.
For Girotto, shifting the gaze from the catwalk to other forms expands the meaning of creativity. He says: “Display is a language that generates accelerated images that stick to the retina and stimulate rapid and voracious enjoyment.” “The exhibition establishes another time between action and opinion. This changes the perception of narrative and the artist’s way of doing things. Re-establishing independence between time and audience can be a way to cross colonial patterns and establish new relationships. Fashion is a powerful language, which can be organized in many ways.”
Pareto emphasizes that the educational proposal of this edition is to deepen this critical perspective, with an emphasis on intersectionality. “We want to think about the role of social markers of difference – gender, race, emotional and sexual orientation – in creative practice,” he says. “The tables bring together people from different locations to expand and deepen the discussion about authorial fashion, where imagination and worlds are actually built.”
In addition to the exhibition signed by Girotto, the program includes a training workshop for transgender, genderqueer and non-binary people, held in partnership with Sebrae-SP. Over the course of five days, participants learn sewing, modelling, textile conversion and creative techniques from reused materials – a practice popular among designers due to its economic feasibility and low environmental impact. The workshop ends with the graduation parade, which this time officially incorporates the lineup.
Hidalgo explains that the House wants to expand its scope of work through public partnerships and training programmes. Among them are the Ministry of Microenterprise and Micro-Entrepreneurship (MEMP) and Apex-Brasil, which provides training for beginners in exporting. “It is essential for our designers to grow commercially to keep their brands alive,” he says. The Casa de Creadores Institute, the educational arm of the platform, also offers courses and workshops aimed at professional qualification.
The course, which continues until the tenth of this month, focuses on the relationship between fashion and other languages. The event begins with a presentation of Cisne Negro Cia. de Dança, with costumes designed by designer Lê Benitez, whose set is based specifically on observing the dancers’ movements. The choice is in line with the spontaneous occupation of dance groups in the cultural center, especially fans of K-pop, a habit that inspired Hidalgo to combine the two scenes.
The gallery’s management still focuses on auteur works, but brands of different sizes coexist in the programming. This season, 39 brands are on display, with five newcomers: CreationsLIL, Trama Afetiva, Vítor Cunha, Ateliê Flúor + Avini and Paula Fávaro.
“For many of them, home is the only possible display space,” says Hidalgo. He says the platform also plays a social role by raising standards of beauty and inclusivity, historically problematic topics in the market. “Fashion depicts a world that doesn’t exist. Our role is to change that.”
With a wide-ranging agenda – lectures, exhibitions, workshops and reviews – the biggest difficulty, the founder admits, is structural: financing and making the operation viable. “It’s an expensive event, and it offers everything to designers,” he says. But he believes that longevity is guaranteed as long as there are new creators looking for space and urgent narratives to present. “Casa de Criadores is ultimately about opening paths. About the new.”