This image has many significant layers of information embedded in it. It speaks about empowerment whilst making the links with past, present and future. The bananas worn as a hat in the image, transport the observer to about a hundred years ago when Carmen Miranda brought Brazilian culture to evidence to the world with the iconic outfit with a fruit headpiece. Carnivalesque, detrimental of sorts. However, it soon became popular and synonymous with Brazil. The model in this image, Camille Reis, is wearing an ensemble made by her mother in the Favela where they live. The background is in fact a small shop in their neighbourhood. In Favela, they are overcoming poverty by developing their community, practising crafts and sewing clothes. Fashion becomes something political here. Here, she proudly wears her local cultural identity whilst looking at the global market.
Remexe Favelinha is a community project from the “Aglomerado da Serra” which is an agglomeration of eight ‘favelas’ in the city of Belo Horizonte, Brazil. In June 2020, Alessandro visited them to do a photo-documentary for his master’s research at London College of Fashion. The images were shot around their sewing workshop and surrounding streets having the seamstresses and their daughters models.