international news _ Jonty Skrufff _ 4th April 2005
Brazil- Casa de Criadores Rocks (The Cradle)
Over 2,000 fashion students, clubbers and journalists packed into an abandoned hospital in Sao Paulo last weekend, to attend the 17th edition of Casa de Criadores, Brazil's acclaimed alternative fashion week.
The unusual location added an intimate element to the atmosphere of the 3 day event, particularly for many of the participants, festival organiser Francisco Navarette told Skrufff.
"On the one hand you had the old hospital structure where life and death struggled in the past but on the other side, we used the maternity ward area where some of the designers and members of he press were born 20 years ago," he saifd.
"As I am an engineer I believe the life and death forces cancelled each other out," he laughed.
The hospital backdrop also prompted radical changes in the show's structure, with catwalk shows taking place throughout the abandoned structure.
The hospital was great because, as it's such a large, unconventional space, we were able to use every designer's imagination for how they presented their collections. Though production-wise it was a real nightmare because for the first time we switched from using one runway to seven different locations for the shows, which all still required facilities for lighting, photographers, music and the audience," he continued.
"Overall, we were very pleased with the show, we wanted to present both the event and the collections with a certain underground ambience, and I think we achieved that," Francisco concluded.
"We are certainly not a mainstream event but at the same time we do want to have a media profile that allows the designers to be recognized, which is a thin line to walk these days where mainstream bullshit rules in so many aspects of music and fashion," he added.
Designers at the event included Moshe, Laundry, Fabiana Bauman and Marcel Juppy, with Joao Pimenta stealing the shoe with a punk inspired heavily tartan collection.
(Jonty Skrufff/Skrufff.com)
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