São Paulo – Players in the textile industry, companies in the sector know that fashion is a primordial factor to guarantee that their products quickly leave the shelves of shops. Aware of that, they do not measure efforts to research tendencies, seek new fabrics and models and offer novelties to consumers at a faster and faster rhythm. It does not matter if the item in question is a pair of socks: they will be fashionable socks, in the colours of the season, why not?
"Apart from international trips for research, by the Style Department, we must learn that the main colours to be used in the season, what will be the tendency in fashion,” explained Lupo stylist Patrícia Janoni. "We study whether in winter people will be wearing miniskirts or longer models, for example. And we adapt Lupo products to what consumers want at that moment,” she says. The company, known mainly for its production of socks, has 15 style professionals in its team.
Each year, the producer releases two collections of stockings, four collections of socks and two of other products, like garments. Apart from Brasil, the company sells its articles to another 37 countries. "Foreign sales answer to 4% of our revenues,” explained the exports supervisor at Lupo, Marcos Crepaldi. In the Arab world, the main buyers are Saudi Arabia, Lebanon and Qatar.
Also a producer of fashionable socks, among other items, like clothes, Scala is another company that grew in Brazil and abroad due to investment in fashion. “We visit international fairs, we eye tendencies and produce always according to the colour portfolio that is in use at the moment,” said the national sales manager at Scala, Mauro Gonçalo.
Next summer, for example, the brand is betting on more citric tones for articles like socks and jerseys. "We will have many things in salmon, green, lilac and so on,” said Gonçalo.
With 20% of revenues connected to exports, Scala sells, in the Arab world, to markets like Kuwait. “The Middle East is fundamental for our business,” explained Gonçalo. "They are consumer countries that make technological products and innovation,” he said.
At the service of creativity
Also an exporter of Brazilian fashion to the world, stylist Márcia Ganem, from Bahia, owns her eponymous brand, and says that apart from care with style, Brazilian garment producers are renowned for the creativity of their items. "We managed to present differentiated articles,” she said. "In our case, we work with exclusive material, developed by us,” she said.
Márcia refers to lace made from recycled polyamide fibre. The result of this development is production of sophisticated articles, but with a chic rustic touch in name of the sustainability that clients here and abroad love. "Our research is always connected to the tradition of arts, fashion and Brazilian culture,” said Márcia.
The brand’s last collection, which has in exports 60% of revenues, was called "Tramando Moda". In the Arab world, the embroidered dresses that leave the company’s factory in Salvador, Bahia, are sold to Saudi Arabia, Bahrain, Kuwait and Lebanon, among others. This shows that Brazilian fashion, carefully developed from arms to feet, already has a prominent place in the most varied of markets.
Read tomorrow, in the third article in the series: the Arabs and Brazilian fashion.
*Translated by Mark Ament
