Gabriela Sakate and Der Metropol premiere at SPFW in 2014

The latest for the upcoming seasons at Sao Paulo Fashion Week are already starting to be shown. For this edition, Minas Gerais-based designer Patricia Motta, a specialist in leather, will be making her debut, with Gabriela Sakate and Der Metropol making their premiere in the next edition. The young designers are backed by a talent incubator developed by Texbrasil (Brazilian Fashion Industry Internationalization Program) called BtoBe (Brazilians to Be), which recently took these and another six talented designers to London and Paris, where they showed at Who’s Next Pret-a-Porter Paris – 2014, at The Laundry and at the Brazilian embassy.

For Sakate, making it to SPFW is confirmation of her work, which she started in 2009 by creating her eponymous brand: “Even though I have few resources and my company is still small, my work and efforts have given me a place among the top names,” she says. She believes that her participation in the project was essential: “Btobe complements all of this; it was extremely important during my brand’s entire maturing process.” The young designer was also highlighted by Marie Claire UK magazine as one of the world’s five hot new designers to watch and she also just won the Young Brazilian Award in the Fashion category.

Menswear label Der Metropol was created in 2009 by designer Mario Francisco. The label does sophisticated work with garment construction, creative silhouettes and exclusive and high-impact prints. In 2011, the brand began to capture the international media’s attention and was invited to show its F/W 2012 collection at 080 Barcelona Fashion.