“Fashion Rio” Returns With a New Look

By Gabriela Godoi, Contributing Reporter

RIO DE JANEIRO – The 2009/2010 Spring-Summer edition of Fashion Rio begins next Friday, June 5th and is set to bring more than just the new looks for the upcoming season.

The Fashion Rio operation has been sold to the Inbrands company, and the leadership of the city’s main fashion event will now be headed by Paulo Borges, mastermind of Sâo Paulo Fashion Week.

After several editions on the lawns of the Modern Art Museum in Flamengo, Borges is taking the fashion event to Praça Mauá, next to the docks and run down warehouses. Another huge change is a significant reduction of the number of fashion brands, from 75 to 29 participants.

Buyers from all over the world are already booked to come to Rio and participate in the new, streamlined, Fashion Business event, taking the best of Brazilian creativity in clothes and style to shops around the world.

According to the festival´s organizers, the edition earlier this year closed with R$376 million (around US$190 million) in sales, and 93 buyers from 22 countries concluded export deals worth around US$15 million.

The event will also see the participation of groups of clothing producers (cooperatives) located all over Rio de Janeiro state. Incorporating 11 regions, 3,000 companies and 51,000 employees, their participation this year is of great interest to the global market. The most well known of these cooperatives is the underwear and beach fashion co-op of 900 small to medium companies in Nova Friburgo, which provides jobs to 22,000 people and producing 125 million products annually.

For this new edition, 30 international buyers have been invited by the organizers and the State Federation of Industries, Firjan, one of the main sponsors of Fashion Business. The Confederação Nacional da Indústria – CNI (a group that gathers different sectors of industry in Brazil), is focused this year on the European market, and will also bring 15 buyers from the European Union on an all expenses paid trip.

However Independent buyers can still apply to join the meetings, and take advantage of the event’s business opportunities, and can enroll on the organization’s web site: http://www.fashionbusiness.com.br.