Sampa's Passion for Fashion

Where does sexy end and vulgarity start? That’s a fuzzy border familiar to Brazilian girls, especially the ones here in Sao Paulo. There are three places on this planet you can see women dressed as walking, talking living dolls apparently dressed by (lecherous male) artistic directors for Maxim or GQ or one of those men’s magazines which make you think “women just don’t look like that in real life.” Well, in Beirut, in Moscow and, dear reader, here in Sao Paulo, they most certainly do look like that. Fashion and fetish, sexiness and spectacular overstatement are rife – with the bonus that they are so many incarnations of samba swinging so cool and swaying so gentle.

There is an odd dimension to male-female relations here that I am only slowly becoming aware of, one of Latin femininity mixed with the urban sophistication of great capitals. In Europe or the United States, the political movements to empower women have created a justifiably laudable even playing field in many areas, notably in the workplace. But in the social arenas where flirting or the simple superficial physical appreciation of those around you is an option, that we’re-all-the-same mentality has come up distressingly short. Brazil’s softer sex has much to teach its sisters in many other countries. Sure, the women here may take the plastic surgery and the weekly (daily?) trips to the hairdresser’s to extremes. And that obsession with high heels obviously demands a certain sacrifice. But the injection of a bit of aesthetic fantasy into the humdrum of everyday of life works a treat here. It’s a joy merely to go to the supermarket, given the catwalk parades along the dairy aisle.

Genetically speaking, the Brazilian men obviously come from the same pool as the women. Beauty here is not as segregated as it is in Moscow, for instance. But it’s the women who dress up (a lot of the men probably want to become clotheshorses, too, but obviously bow to the greater wisdom of not making themselves ostentatious targets for the ever-present armed robbers; thus t-shirts and jeans pretty much make up their casual attire). And when the women – OK, the wealthier women – trot out their party threads, it’s as if a Jay-Z music video clip has come to life. They’ve obviously been doing it since they were little girls, because there’s no self-conscious pulling of dresses or tottering on the heels that you see when girls in other countries try for a glam party look. Here, they glide like goddesses through the room.

Naturally enough, there’s a fashion industry commensurate with the obsession for short, shiny clothes. Brazil is teeming with labels, a few of which are starting to become known, mainly in NYC. And this week was the week when the top 40 of them got to show off their winter collections, in the Sao Paulo Fashion Week.

Now, fashion shows are hardly representative of what the woman in the street wears. At least that’s the maxim in Paris and NYC and London (Milan being a slight exception, at times). But in Sao Paulo, what you see up on the catwalk is not that far off the mark. For the women. (The men’s wear is purely an imaginary jaunt, I’m guessing – unless the numerous gay clubs here have a door policy that encourages some pretty bizarre choices of outfit.)

On that note, here’s a sample of what was showing at this year’s Fashion Show.

For the record: yes, the women on the catwalk do look like the “average” women in the clubs around town. Only being models they’re not allowed to smile at work.

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Otimo

Portuguese is a delightful language.

When I close my eyes, slip my sandals off and hoist my ears to the conversations going on around me I imagine being in a comfy barrel surrounded by drunk mosquitoes. It’s all jjjjj and zzzz and waves rolling into each other of vowels that couldn’t care less where one word stops and another begins, a melty-cheese of a language that belongs in a cartoon world of languorous ducks swimming backstroke while blowing kisses. I don’t understand a word, but it soothes.

Speaking Spanish does not help. Or at least that’s what I’ve come to believe from my not-so-unique vantage point of not really speaking Spanish. Sure, you can muddle your way through a page of text while remembering those Berlitz tape conjugations used for a trip to that Mexican Club Med sometime in the late 1990s. But literate functionality is of little help when you need to order a drink, get cable TV installed -- or insinuate to a pushy driver that it would be redeemable on his part if he took his self-regarding ways to a parthonegenic state impossible for all animals except earthworms and, it appears, sharks. You simply cannot ask a Brazilian to wait while the conversation is scribbled out on whatever parchment is at hand. Even preparing yourself – Pillow Book-style – won’t cover all eventualities.

And throwing Spanish around can be risky. Just try reciting the alphabet and watch the Brazilians sidle away when you hit Q. And the incompatibility of Portuguese using ‘no’ to mean ‘in the’ whereas Spanish-speakers instinctively take it to mean, well, ‘no’ (one wonders why?), creates all sorts of opportunities for misapprehension. Particularly if you’re on a date.

Naõ, there are too many pitfalls in relying on Portuñol. The only way forward is immersion into the language. Dive straight on in and join those punchdrunk mosquitoes and wacky ducks.

It was in that spirit I bought a ticket to the movie “Elite Squad”. Sorry: “Tropa de Elite” (pronounced TRO-pah jay Ee-Lychee – if you don’t speak Portuguese and someone’s recommended the film to you, you could be forgiven for figuring it’s a mystical tale about eating way too many Asian fruits. It’s not, trust me.) The film is apparently a riveting exposé of community relations as employed by those civil servants beloved the world over: police officers. Acts of kindness are legion in the script. And the warmth of human natures just kind of shines through, sparking up the screen. Er, or maybe those illuminations were from the canon explosions of the arsenal of high-calibre weapons wielded by the flak-jacketed cops.

In any case, that celluloid assault did wonders for my grasp of the language of Brazil. I didn’t catch all of it, or even most of it. But I now feel much better qualified to engage in conversation with law enforcement officers or proponents of the country’s unofficial economy. Bring ‘em on. It would be kinda like Quentin Tarantino addressing the UN. Only with even more cocaine influence.

Of course, the path to language mastery is long, and I’m not even at the first petrol station. In the meantime, my tactic is to repeat the four magic words that make it sound, simultaneously, that I am both fluent and hip:

“Otimo.” “Legal.” “Belleza.” "Bacana."

With those four words, doors have opened, taxi drivers have launched into soliloquies about their families and barmen have been prompt with my order. I’ve participated in whole conversations where my sole contributions have been repeated offerings of "otimo" and "legal". I’m not sure, but I think I even navigated my way through the opening of a bank account by smiling and effusively offering that the manager was "belleza". Which he certainly wasn't.

Once I get to the stage of stringing sentences together, I'm sure I'll be able to find some creative ways to get myself into trouble (with the escape policy of blaming any offence on my poor grasp of the lingo).

In the meantime though, it's drunken mosquitoes in my ear and an otimo smile on my lips.