clarissa gusmão

I am a brazilian fashion designer, born and raised in Rio de Janeiro. Among other passions, I enjoy the Carnival the most. Since I was a kid I have been dressing up as a Baiana. I knew that my outfit would
be a Baiana. Since this costume represents my unique joyful personality and also represent my country tradition.

 

However I knew the baiana would only represent myself completely as a designer if it explored some issues as environmental and social sustainability.

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I started the project in my studio, where I work on my brand. There, I noticed that I had a lot of useless scraps of fabric, I had been keeping in order to reuse it eventually.

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This project showed to be the right opportunity to into something new and beautiful, respecting
the environment. I had a lot of colors of silk, but I only wanted to use the shades of beige. Since beige would bring a contemporary timeless clean look to my design. I had some patterned silk inside that color chart, and my challenge was to transform that patterned fabric into something that could not be identified in a certain time of the fashion industry.

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As a tradition, women in my family do craftworks, as crochet, a technique frequently used in Brazil. Knowing that it is possible to do crochet with is any malleable strip, I wanted to use the silk that way. So my mother and I did it toghether.

My goal was make a dress that is 100% reused silk and handmade. A couture outfit without buying new

materials or using any machine.

 

Buying more material was not an option, even if I needed to. I had to work with extra atention and managing where each colors would be placed.