Gabriela Braga and Livia Campos win finals of BtoBe contest
The evening of October 30 was unforgettable for Rio de Janeiro designer Livia Campos and fashion student Gabriela Braga. They both won the BtoBe (Brazilians to Be) contest, organized by Casa de Criadores (House of Creators) and Texbrasil (Brazilian Fashion Industry Internationalization Program, maintained by Abit and Apex-Brasil), with this edition being sponsored by SEBRAE (Brazilian Micro and Small Business Support Service) and Lectra.
Livia Campos worked over a year and a half to develop her project and was awarded for her Beira menswear brand in the Fashion Entrepreneur category. “Beira is perhaps a reflection of the man interested in diversifying his wardrobe”, explains the designer, who emphasizes apparel construction. In the Fashion Student category, first place went to 21 year old Gabriela Braga, who is in her last year at the Faculdade Santa Marcelina (SP) school. In her first collection, she was inspired by a sermon given by Padre Antonio Vieira in 1654 to develop the fish prints that won the jury over. “I learned so much during the course of the project that it would have been worth it even if I hadn’t won; I was confident and now I’m very happy.”
The work of the six finalists in each category (fashion student and fashion entrepreneur) was assessed by a specialized jury: Maria Rita Alonso (editor of the Moda & Beleza channel, for Estadao newspaper), Jackson Araujo (coolhunter), Eduardo Viveiros (senior editor for the Chic website), Marcela Duarte (reporter for the FFW website), Aurea Calcavecchia (editor of the Lilian Pacce website), designers Joao Pimenta and Fernanda Yamamoto, Vivi Haydu (Textil magazine), Yuko Suzuki (World Fashion magazine), Colombian journalist Janeth Charris, Rosangela Espinossi (Terra website), Alba Ferrari (foreign trade consultant and owner of Facex Trade), Leonardo Gomes (innovation management consultant at Fundacao Vanzolini), Udison Cunha (curator/buyer for Loja Choix) and Alexandra Farah (journalist for Band News).
The contest’s main objective is to discover, train and promote new designers. The winners will receive assistance during a series of training and trade promotion activities abroad, in addition to being entered in the project’s talent incubator. In addition, Lectra will give the winner in each category BRL 10,000, which should be used to produce a collection that will be presented at the next Casa de Criadores, in 2015. They will also have access to corporate creation and modeling solutions.