Fashion and globalization in contemporary Brazil

Abstract

This article tries to comprehend how the Brazilian produced fashion is placed on the global market, in which the idea of diversity acquires a positive character, valuing the Brazilian national character as a distinctive mark. However, this national character, assumed in a view over the “brazility”, is surrounded by symbolical conformation processes in which world actors take part. “Brazility” is not tailored within the national frontiers anymore, but on a wider context, on which the disputing forces, if they are global, they are unfairly distributed. Brazilian fashion industry, therefore, must work with a symbol turned into a distinctive mark – the “brazility” – whose
tailoring this industry has no monopoly, undertaking a series of negotiation processes
for legitimacy.