The Case of the ‘Coffee Collection’ in Paris

In 1960, an article in Brazil’s O Cruzeiro magazine deemed it ‘time for Brazil to create a new line and send it to Paris.’ A collection was conceived for the 1961 fashion season, a “Coffee Line” that could act as an ‘expression’ of Brazil. It would be based on ‘typical coffee plantation clothes’ that were ‘transformed’ by some of the bestknown national couturiers and designers. Many of the garments would have prints, also inspired by the coffee theme. These would be conceived by Brazilian artists ‘capable of creating high-class patterns’ of a standard ‘to invade world markets’.1

This ‘WORLDWIDE PROMOTION’ would be undertaken with the ‘ALBENE, RHODIA AND RHODIANYL SELECTIONS’, an early iteration of the ‘Rhodia’ company’s fibre marketing campaign. Included in these selections would be ‘the best fabrics of 400 national weaving mills’, as the material for each piece would be supplied by the direct customers for Rhodia’s fibres. In order that this extremely Brazilian “Coffee Line” was best placed ‘to influence international fashion’, the promotion proposed a ‘daring but straightforward solution’; it would be presented in the very city ‘that dictates fashion’, with a show that would unite ‘the world of haute couture, high society, Parisian cinema and art’.2

An update on the progress of the project was supplied two weeks later, informing the reader that a group of ‘beautiful Brazilian mannequins’ had gone to Paris, and anticipating the presentation of more than one hundred exclusive promotional pieces ‘on the runway - in the fashion capital’.3 The publication with images from the Paris fashion show appeared the following month, accompanied by editorial from ‘the "boulevards" and picturesque corners of the city’. The four Rhodia ‘mannequins’ had been photographed in pieces from the collection, ‘which the Parisian press widely publicised’. This section of the text culminates with a breathless declaration:

All this created an expectation around the show similar to that of the great releases of the French haute couture houses. And no wonder that the parade was so successful and attracted so many personalities.4 Whether the

1 Alceu Penna, O Cruzeiro, 10 September 1960, pp.132-136, p.133, p.135.

2 Ibid, p.133, p.136 event appeared in the French press is cast in doubt by the testimony of the professional then charged with international public relations for Rhodia.5 The degree to which the list of attendees in O Cruzeiro represented ‘personalities’ is debatable. However the attendance of the directors of French Rhodiaceta, M.Pranal and M.Lombard would imply a mention in one form of French press. The Rhodiaceta in-house magazine published other reports of their attendance at this kind of event in France. All four editions of the Revue Rhodiaceta for 1960 were surveyed, and no mention was found of the Paris debut of Brazil’s “Coffee Collection”.6

3 O Cruzeiro, 24 September 1960, pp.104-105, p.105.

4 Helder Martins, O Cruzeiro, 29 October 1960, pp.110-116, p.110-111; O Cruzeiro, 29 October 1960, pp.82-89.

5 Maria Claudia Bonadio, ‘O fio sintético é um show! Moda, política e publicidade: Rhodia S. A. 1960-1970’ [Synthetic yarn is a show! Fashion, politics and advertising], (unpublished doctoral thesis in History, IFCH, Unicamp, Campinas, São Paulo, 2005): Testimony of Rodolfo Volk, 2002, p.160. Volk stated that the only time a Rhodia collection was the subject of a report in an overseas newspaper was with the 1966 ‘Brazilian Fashion Team’ collection, which was toured to London to tie-in with the capital’s hosting of that year’s World Cup, and was the subject of an article in The Times.

6 Rhodiaceta, n.1-4, 1960, Box BH2375, Archive of the Rhône-Poulenc Company, hosted by AGS Record Management, Besançon.

Fig.(iii) ‘In the shadow of the 7,000 tons of iron from the Eiffel Tower, a sport set by ALCEU PENA, jumpsuit in HELANCA RHODIANYL, with a poncho cover and parasol in satin RHODIANYL, print by Heitor dos Prazeres, telling the story of coffee.’ Bonadio reads this as representing Brazil’s position ‘in the shadow’ of Paris fashion (p.91).

O Cruzeiro, 29 October 1960

O Cruzeiro, 29 October 1960

Introduction

Nylon was the first fully viable synthetic fibre, meaning that it was chemically synthesised from coal, air and water. Synthetic fibres differed from their precursors, known as ‘artificial’ fibres, which had an organic constituent, cellulose. Nylon was developed in 1935 by the US DuPont chemical company, although the greatest association of synthetic fibres’ success was with the fashions and consumer-habits of the 1960s. By this point polyester had been introduced into several world markets and had leap-frogged even nylon in popularity. The latter continued to see strong sales however, while artificial fibres remained in production, even as new variations of synthetic materials were successfully brought to market. The impact of synthetics on the fashioncycle of the global north forms the core of fashion-oriented literature written in the English language on this subject, which tends to privilege Anglocentric case-studies of synthetic fibre producers.

The main French producer of synthetic fibres was Rhodiaceta, a subsidiary of the Rhône-Poulenc chemical company that produced artificial fibres from 1922.7 Between the French operation and its European subsidiaries, Rhodiaceta became the dominant manufacturer of synthetics on the European continent during the 1960s. In comparison to DuPont, little has been written about this producer. The French company had close links with the US firm, but unlike the latter it failed to weather a market maelstrom in the late 1960s, which saw the shutdown of many synthetic fibre producers. After being absorbed into the Rhône-Poulenc parent company8 in 1970, the textile unit ceased production altogether in 1980.

In 1929, Rhodiaceta had set up a Brazilian subsidiary and ‘Rhodia’9, in Brazil, now owned by the Solvay company, still produces synthetic fibres today.10 The existence of a French textiles company within Brazil at this period is set within the context of a long history of European fashion circulation in the country; this may have influenced the swift growth of synthetic fibres in Brazil from their introduction in 1955. The rapid increase in their consumption is numerically substantiated by Bonadio (2005) who shows Rhodia to be its main generator and beneficiary, by dint of a market dominance that was maintained until 1968. Within two years of that virtual monopoly ending, a change in corporate strategy saw the company cease investment in promotional campaigns for textiles; Bonadio analyses relevant market position rankings before and after that change, to use Rhodia’s high ranking at the time of its advertising campaigns as proof of their success.11

7 At this point the companies were operating under a variation of these names.

8 As ‘Rhône Poulenc Textil’.

9 Although containing ‘Rhodiaceta’ in its official title when it was set up, the subsidiary became generally known as ‘Rhodia’.

10 https://www.rhodia.com.br/rhodia-no-brasil/100-anos/anos-2010 [accessed 23 March 2023]. What existed of the Rhone-Poulenc holdings after a partial sale to Sanofi, were purchased by Solvay in 2011. Brazil was the only country where the ‘Rhodia’ name was kept, attributed on the corporate site to ‘the strength of the Rhodia brand our country, built over all these decades. Since 2014 Rhodi Brazil has produced the world’s first biodegradable polyamide yarn.

Bonadio cites Rhodia’s status in Brazil as that of the ‘greatest and the most important French company in the country for most of the 20th century.’12 Although not the core of her study on Rhodia, the company’s French origin is considered in the context of foreign capital as a source for industrial growth in 1960s Brazil. Bonadio’s thesis opens by citing Evans (1979) on this:

Nylon was the centerpiece of DuPont’s corporate growth in the 1950s, but they decided that Brazil was not one of the places they would develop nylon manufacture. By the 1970s that decision looked lamentable from DuPont’s point of view. Rhône Poulenc, starting with a licence from Dupont, developed the nylon business in Brazil into something approaching $100 million dollars a year.13

Evans proposes that without investment of this type, then ‘Brazilian industrialization would have suffered and not just DuPont's profits.’ He also states that to Brazil, which particular company instigated synthetic fibre manufacture wasn’t important; it would have been problematic ‘if DuPont, Rhône Poulenc, Hoescht and ICI had all decided not to make nylon in Brazil’.14

Following its success with nylon, Rhodia had profited from purchasing the licence to make polyester in Brazil from the British firm, ICI15, adding this production in 1961. Considering only a ‘capital supply’ angle, Evans judges as negligible the national origin of the company instigating synthetics production in Brazil. Consideration of the historic importance of French fashion in Brazil elicited my research question, as to whether the playing field was as level as Evans suggests. Might the French company, in fact, have enjoyed a subtle advantage with the new textile products?

11 Bonadio, p.25.

12 Alain Zantman, 1987, in Bonadio, p.25, footnote 49.

13 Evans, 1979, in Bonadio, p.10.

14 Ibid.

15 ICI had previously been the source of Rhodiaceta’s polyester licence for France.

This prompted a consideration of the degree of ‘Frenchness’ in the marketing strategy of Rhodia Brazil, predominantly in the 1960s. DuPont’s trickle-down model of direct consumer marketing of synthetics through the endorsement of Paris couturiers, has been well documented. A prime objective for my study would be to establish whether French Rhodiaceta pursued the same course. Subsequently, the degree to which Rhodiaceta may have ‘exported’ their strategy to Rhodia in Brazil would need to be determined.

Chapter One provides a wide-ranging background to the establishment of artificial, and then synthetic fibres, globally, pinpointing key drivers behind their production. It relates the historic international influence of French fashion to the consumption of these fibres, and triangulates this with the USA and Brazil, with particular reference to the couture industry of the mid-century. It concludes by considering the specific context of the introduction of synthetic fibres in Brazil and Rhodia’s first ‘modern’ synthetic fibre promotions, from 1959.

For an understanding of Rhodia’s strategy throughout the subsequent decade, a collection of garments used in Rhodia’s promotions, housed at São Paolo’s Museum of Art (MASP), provides valuable material context. Through visiting the physical exhibition of these pieces, ‘Art in Fashion: MASP’s Rhodia Collection’, in 2016, I was aware of a transcultural aspect and a ‘Brazilian’ character to the company’s marketing strategy.16 The exhibition now exists in an online format. Its introductory text outlines the history:

The French chemical manufacturer promoted its synthetic fabrics in Brazil through fashion spectacles, collections and press articles, according to a strategy devised by Lívio Rangan (1933–1984), the company’s visionary publicity manager.17

16 ‘Arte Na Moda : Coleção Masp Rhodia : (exposição São Paulo Museu De Arte De São Paulo - Assis Chateaubriand) 23.10.2015-14.02.2016’ ['Art in Fashion: MASP's Rhodia Collection].

17 'Art in Fashion: MASP's Rhodia Collection' Google Arts & Culture (2016) <https://artsandculture.google.com/story/art-in-fashion-masp-s-rhodia-collection-masp/> [accessed 23 March 2023].

‘Each garment’, MASP explains of its 79-piece collection, ‘is a custom-made, unique piece made solely for promoting the brand’. These items, donated by Rhodia in 1972, are the only group apparently remaining from the promotions. The text expands on the scenario:

The fashion shows presented between 1960 and 1970…brought together professionals from the fields of theatre, dance, music and the arts. Held at the Feira Nacional da Indústria Têxtil [National Textile Industry Fair] (Fenit), Brazil’s largest fashion event at the time, each show featured up to 150 designs, with two collections per year travelling throughout Brazil and internationally.18

This exposition would require further investigation to clarify that Rhodia’s promotional collections did not consist solely of the one-off show-pieces described. There were several facets to the marketing plan initiated in 1959 under the title of the ‘Rhodia Selections’; these included the advertising of commercially available readyto-wear pieces by Rhodia’s clients in the garment manufacturing sector.

On the exhibition website, there is no mention of a French aspect beyond the initial reference to the company‘s national origin. The closest connection is that Italian national, Livio Rangan, is described as ‘a source of information regarding international trends’. This information was ‘reprocessed through the combined effort of artists and fashion designers’, proposing a transcultural scenario. Although the exhibition text goes on to refer only to the involvement of Brazilian creatives, further research would show that French couturiers also contributed to the ‘Rhodia Selections’.

Chapter Two assesses ‘Frenchness’ as part of Rhodia’s strategy, and considers the potentially divergent aims of those involved with the brand. It also considers the evolution of the French ready-to-wear market in the 1960s and its influence on Rhodia’s output, as mediated to the young, middle-class ‘modern’ metropolitan female profile of consumers to whom the ‘Rhodia Selection’ promotional campaigns were targeted.

Returning to ‘MASP’s Rhodia Collection’, this transpires to represent a subset of the ‘Selections’, collected and displayed precisely for its representation of the ‘Brazilian’ character to the strategy; it consists of some of the ‘show-piece’ items that were printed with the works of prominent artists who were creating in Brazil at that time, then constructed into dress-forms by high-end Brazilian designers. This culturally specific aspect explains the prevalence of the concept of a ‘Brazilian’ or ‘national’ fashion, in discussion of Rhodia’s evidently transcultural proposal. Bonadio states that Rhodia’s advertising policy ‘brought together elements of the national culture in order to associate the corporation’s product with the creation of a "Brazilian fashion”.19

Sant’Anna (2010) identifies ‘the theme of national characteristics, regionalisms, local colour’ as ‘pertinent to Rhodia's project of founding a “national fashion.”20

Chapter 3 will look at the importance of ‘national fashion’ as a representation of national production as well as a mode of expressiveness of Brazilian identity during the 1960s. This will be considered through four main poles that characterise this aspect of Rhodia’s campaigns: art, fashion design, place/people and fashion ‘spectacles’.

Discussion of a ‘Brazilian’ or ‘national’ fashion derives from public debate in Brazil, historically located with the evolution of Brazil’s textile and fashion industry. More recently it has been a preoccupation of academic discourse in Brazil, in relation to both historic and current fashion themes. On the latter point, Andrade and Root (2016) propose that recent Brazilian designers have gained global recognition through an approach involving interpretations of the region’s ‘cultural diversity, and a so-called and unabashedly stereotypical “way of life”. A concern of these fashion academics is that the angle of focus on current successes, encourages a view-point of Brazilian fashion as a ‘new’ concept. There is particular disbelief that fashion-week host city, São Palo, ‘the second largest city in the Americas’ is cast as ‘a newcomer to the global story of fashion.’ In response, they encourage ‘archival research’ and ‘object-based analysis’ of ‘trends impacting dress over time’ in order to foreground ‘the significance of fashion vis-à-vis socio-historical events’.21

Within this call for a renewed methodology the authors note that the foundational literature of Brazilian fashion studies has tended to privilege a ‘European fashion heritage associated with the country’s middle and affluent classes’. While this is indisputably the context of the Rhodia history, and my study necessarily remains rooted within its elitist parameters I hope to yet add value to the existing literature on this subject by examining the transcultural aspect of the Rhodia project not previously treated directly. In considering the producer’s French corporate origin as a focus of my study, in respect of Andrade and Root’s exhortation, I endeavour to avoid simply reproducing ‘dominant ideologies that position concepts such as Brazilian fashion as an additional chapter of a larger global fashion story’.22 In view of this, I have foregrounded a ‘centre-periphery’ proposal within the context of its critique in recent fashion scholarship, such as Neira (2008), Guimarães (2013), and Ling et al (2019), among others. To some extent the assumptions related to this model are discernible within the English-language literature on synthetic fibres. In Handley (1999), ‘The Story of a Fashion Revolution’, does not extend far beyond the global north. As with O’Connor (2005) and Blaszczyk (2006) the chief focus is DuPont, a company that notably has an extensive, accessible archive. DuPont provides a useful comparator, particularly for French Rhodiaceta, about which less is written than on Rhodia in Brazil. Romano (2012) and Hill (2017) provide much-needed nuance to the prevailing narrative of ready-to-wear’s renouncement within French fashion circles.

19 Bonadio, p.19.

20 Patrizia Sant’Anna, Coleção Rhodia - Arte e Design de Moda nos anos sessenta no Brasil',[Art and Design in Fashion in the sixties in Brazil] (unpublished doctoral thesis in Art History, Universidade Estadual de Campinas, Campinhas, São Paulo, 2010), p.156.

21 Andrade, Rita M. and Root, Regina A., ‘Letter from the Editors’, Fashion Theory, 20 (2016), 117-125, p.118.

Rainho and Volpi (2018) highlight ‘the French tradition for thinking about clothing’ as the most established influence within fashion history in Brazil. Bonadio (2005), however, ‘avoids a descriptive perspective’ in her vanguard study on Rhodia’s role within the field of advertising. Mediation of the brand, through its fashion shows, in particular, provides her primary focus but her emphasis on ‘a wide range of sources’ means that the production-side garners thorough consideration.23 O’Connor (2005) warns of ‘advertising-centred literature’ in which conclusions on the producer’s intentions contain little more than ‘assumption of speculation’.24 Bonadio’s extensive oral history survey of professionals connected to Rhodia acts in lieu of an official ‘corporate archive’, and counters such concerns.

Sant’Anna (2010) contextualises Rhodia’s artist-printed show-pieces within a history of exchange between art and fashion. Citing Appadurai (1986) and Kopytoff (1986), she suggests that, key to an analysis of Rhodia’s output, ‘is to trace the biography of the objects’25. This is a useful proposal, but necessarily limited within her study, through its reliance on the MASP collection - a small proportion of one-off pieces from within a far wider, commercial offer. As with Bonadio, Sant’Anna’s study predates the MASP exhibition, although it overlapped with its preparation, such that her research contributed to the exhibition catalogue. Important to note is the context of both her and Bonadio’s research in a pre-online era in terms of magazine access.26 Guedes (2019), whose study is conducted post the MASP exhibition, considers the accession of the Rhodia pieces to this collection, and provides a highly useful conduit to a museum archive that was out of scope for me to access directly.

22 Ibid., p.119.

23Maria do Carmo Teixeira Rainho and Maria Cristina Volpi, ‘Looking at Brazilian fashion studies: Fifty years of research and teaching’, International Journal of Fashion Studies, 5 (2018) 211–226, p.218.

24 Kaori O’Connor, ‘The Other Half: The Material Culture of New Fibres’ in Clothing as Material Culture ed. by Susanne Küchler and Daniel Miller (eds), (Oxford: Berg, 2005), p.5.

Although useful as a visual basis for understanding many design aspects, the MASP collection is a limited, decontextualized source of the brand’s output. An understanding of the wider mediation strategies of the brand required an overview of the magazines in which Rhodia advertised. Through the online resource of Brazil’s National Library, it was possible to access copies of three of the four most relevant publications for the time period considered. These were O Cruzeiro, Manchete, and Jóia. 27

The archive of the Rhône-Poulenc company is one that has not previously been approached from a fashion history perspective. Following the company’s exit from the textile market, much archival information in this area no longer exists. Offering the most insight into the ‘producer’s intentions’ was the series of in-house magazines for the Rhodiaceta company from 1957 to 1967. With the addition of a fortunate find of one set of meeting notes, it was possible to understand the fundamental strategy for marketing synthetic fibres at French Rhodiaceta, including its initial couture-endorsement approach. Some 1960s images among uncategorised fashion photographs were also useful, particularly within the context of a separate brief survey of 1960s editions of French Elle magazine, consulted at a Paris library.28 In terms of the relationship between French Rhodiaceta and Rhodia in Brazil, corporate archival information was limited, and much was discerned precisely through this absence.

25 Sant’Anna, p. 220.

26 Bonadio, in particular, was researching in an era when some resources were only available on microfiche. Bonadio, personal correspondence, 8 March 2023.

27 A fourth magazine, Claudia, is still extant and as such its archives are not accessible in the same way, and this source is necessarily excluded from any quantitative consideration, and any qualitative contribution is derived from the secondary literature.

28 This was limited to tracing, where available, the magazine content cited by Romano (2012) as portraying synthetics.

Chapter One

1.1 Rhodiaceta and the Development of Man-Made Fibres in the Global North, pre1960

‘There is nothing anecdotal or romantic…about clothing; it is a veritable social system.’1

Considering the initial development arc of man-made fibres, provides a context in which to situate the ‘national fashion’ story at the heart of this study. The wider history externalises national imperatives behind the drive towards man-made fibres, subject to the influence of global geopolitical events. The steps towards full synthetic fibre production took place in the global north and involved numerous countries. France, as arguably the origin country of artificial fibres, as well as of the Rhodiaceta company, is the focus here. Also treated are the US and Britain, as each were originators of a ‘revolutionary’ synthetic fibre, and the sources of the licences under which the French company carried out both its domestic and international synthetics production.

Examination of this history also helps to show the non-linear way that products evolve on the market place. Synthetic fibres gradually superseded artificial ones, however, just because nylon’s qualities represented improvements on rayon, did not render it rayon’s instant replacement. Artificial and synthetic fibres were marketed synchronously throughout most of the period in question. This is particularly relevant when considering the marketplace of 1960s Brazil, and for avoiding any assumption that polyester simply ‘popped up’ there at an appropriate moment of social and economic ‘readiness’. The actual trajectory of man-made fibres in Brazil will be considered in the subsequent section.

Discoveries and refinements of processes towards the first, man-made fibres – those with an organic cellulose base - criss-crossed various countries over nearly a century, as did sales of the patents accompanying them. The transnational pattern would continue with the advent of fully synthetic fibres. The earliest discoveries, as is common in the history of chemistry, were often the by-products of indirectly related experimentation, such as within the similarly cellulose based activity of paper-making. While artificial filaments had been achieved before 1885, the patent gained that year by the French scientist, Chardonnet (Fig.1.1), was the first for such a fibre firmly intended as a textile, ‘“soie artificielle”.2

The Lyon silk industry gave France a near-unrivalled status as the leading European producer of luxury fabrics. Organic crops like silk were subject to vulnerabilities of climate and disease, and Chardonnet’s efforts to create an artificial alternative were galvanised by his time studying ‘Pebrine’ - a silk-worm disease - under Louis Pasteur.3 Chardonnet set up a factory in the forested area of Besançon, a notable paper-making area and cellulose source. Although the French chemist turned his 1885 patent to profit within ten years, his nitrate silk was dangerously explosive, and the Chardonnet process gradually gave way to further cellulose fibre processes developed through the same decade.4

By the time the S.C.U.R.,5 forerunner of the Rhône-Poulenc chemical company, started on the path towards artificial textiles in 1911, experiments in paper-making in Britain had led to the patenting of key cellulose-based processes for viscose (1892) and acetate (1894).6 Capitalising on this were the Courtaulds textile company who by 1914, had the patent-based monopoly on viscose yarn production

2 Susannah Handley, Nylon: The Story of a Fashion Revolution (Baltimore: The Johns Hopkins University Press, 1999), p.15.

3 Handley, p.18.

4 Ibid., p.18-19 domestically and in the United States.7 S.C.U.R.’s focus was on the acetate process, as a means of leveraging their existing acetic anhydride production. Initial applications were in plastics and varnishthe latter requisitioned in the First World War for use on military aeroplane fuselages. In pursuit of new products for their post-war excess acetate capacity, S.C.U.R. began industrial production of acetate fibres by 1924.8

5 Société Chimique des Usines du Rhône.

6 Handley, p.19-20.

This was under the auspices of ‘Rhodiaseta’, a joint venture recently formed with the C.T.A.9 The latter was a giant grouping of factories that had adopted the alternative viscose process, some of whom had been in production for twenty years already. Partly owned by a family whose dyeing firm put them at the heart of the Lyon textile establishment, the C.T.A. connection brought vital knowledge of the artificial silk market.10 They had also sold a patent for their viscose to the US DuPont company in 1920 forming a relationship that would lead to a further such transaction, DuPont acquiring the US rights to the acetate process from Rhodiaseta in 1928.11 The latter’s other parent company, following a recent merger, was now known as the S.U.C.R.P.12

The development of artificial textiles in the United States was deeply tied up with global conflict. The First World War had prompted the rapid establishment of the US chemical industry, in response to an import-dependency for chemical products that their wartime restriction had flagged.13 DuPont was one of the more established players in the country’s chemical sector, and had been its source of domestic

7 Ibid., p.20-21.

8 Irène Millon-Durieux, ‘Entreprise et territoire : la restructuration de Rhône-Poulenc-Textile. Un exemple de désindustrialisation dans l’agglomération lyonnaise : 1975-2005’ [Industry and territory: the restructuring of Rhône-Poulenc-Textile. An example of de-industrialisation in the Lyon conurbation: 1975-2005],(unpublished doctoral thesis in Geography, Université Jean Moulin, Lyon, 2013), p.20.

9 Comptoir des Textiles Artificiels.

10 Millon-Durieux, p.27.

11 Ibid., p.25; p.38.

12 La Société des Usines Chimiques Rhône-Poulenc munitions manufacture. As such, it experienced a public backlash against what was seen as its warprofiteering. Seeking a more domesticated image, the explosives manufacturer diversified into artificial fibres. As seen with the volatility of Chardonnet’s nitrate silk, the production process for this was remarkably similar to that for gunpowder.14

13 Jacqueline Field, ‘Dyes, Chemistry and Clothing: The Influence of World War I on Fabrics, Fashions and Silk’, Dress, 28 (2001) 77–91, p.78.

In the interwar years the artificial textile market went through significant expansion, particularly in the United States, where the price-point of viscose and acetate as a silk-substitute held appeal for the growing manufacturing sector for ready-to-wear clothing.15 Incidences of artificial fibres substituting unsuccessfully for silk - such as in stockings, which it caused to sag - had negatively affected consumer perception of these fibres. This was improved by a move away from overt comparison with their organic forebears. ‘Artificial silk’ became ‘rayon’, endorsed by the industry as the new blanket name for viscose and acetate in the 1920s.16 Rhodiaseta would undergo a change in a similar vein, becoming Rhodiaceta in 1934, to remove any reference to silk (‘seta’) in its name.17

DuPont manifested early ambitions to imbue its fibres with a French fashion image. In 1927 a plan was conceived which involved persuading Parisian couturiers to produce creations in fabrics made from its fibres. The company would then ‘induce’ the designers to issue a signed statement expressing their approval of these artificially derived fabrics as suitable for high fashion.18 Whether the plan came to fruition is not known but in this period few couturiers were interested in the possibilities of the new artificially-derived fabrics. Handley cites Nina Ricci, and Schiaparelli (Fig.1.2) as exceptions rather than the norm in Paris in this era.19

14 Handley, p.34.

15 Field, p.86-87.

16 Handley, p.24-25. The name was adopted by the US Federal Trade Commission in 1925, but sanctioned by Courtaulds only in 1929.

17 However this was an enforced move, following government lobbying by the silk industry, in MillonDurieux, p.33.

18 Handley, p.78.

Handley posits that in the story of artificial fibres, ‘The fashion designer had little visible role’. Despite DuPont’s efforts, rayon appeared to resist disassociation from its chemical origins, and from a core use of the product as underwear. The advertising imagery of the period up to the Second World War is characterised by its ‘incongruous juxtaposition of the polymer chemist and the lingerie department’.20

Whatever acceptance rayon gained through its increasingly mass use in outerwear, was offset by the image-damaging downward expansion of its market, particularly in the United States during the Great Depression. This was counter to DuPont’s vision of rayon as bringing luxury to ever-more consumers.21

Ultimately, it was global conflict that once again influenced outcomes for man-made fibres. With natural fibres directed to military purposes in most countries during the Second World War, nations turned to fibres they could make. This ranged from Fascist governments seeking a textile autarky through rayon, to Rhodiaceta’s high output of the fibre within occupied France, it having become a common constituent of civilian clothing.22 The more significant development in ‘substitution’, however, was nylon. The United States, having enjoyed a brief moment of patriotic satisfaction in the independence from Japan’s volatile silk market that use of DuPont’s new product had enabled, turned to its requisition for parachutes and military uniforms during the war.23

The pattern of requisition was repeated in Britain before nylon had even arrived on the consumer market. The chemical company, ICI had purchased the licence for Britain and the Commonwealth from

19 Ibid., p.27

20 Ibid., p.28

21 Ibid., p.24-25.

22 Jane Schneider, ‘In and Out of Polyester: Desire, Disdain and Global Fibre Competitions’, Anthropology Today, 10 (1994) 2-10, p.6; Millon-Durieux, p.73.

23 Handley, p.35-36. In 1938, America’s raw silk imports were worth $100 million, with Japan the source for 90% of these, 75% of which were used for hosiery.

DuPont in 1939, although to access the expertise in spinning the fibre, they were required to form a joint venture with Courtaulds.24 By this point Rhodiaceta were already in possession of a licence for France, that also gave effective rights to the rest of Europe. DuPont retained rights to the Americas. This beneficial transaction was appreciated within the French company as a ‘quid pro quo’, for Rhodiaceta’s generous knowledge-transfer during their sale of the acetate process to the US company a decade earlier.25The German occupation of France saw Rhodiaceta subtly set up new equipment for nylon production and by 1944 ‘the nylon factory discreetly produced 50 tons of yarn’.26

Wartime secrecy also affected the next significant advance in synthetics, with polyester first produced in Britain in 1941, but only offered for licensing in 1946.27 The rights for America went to DuPont, with those for the rest of the world remaining in British hands, specifically those of ICI. By the mid-1950s, large-scale manufacture of polyester fibres was underway for both companies, under the brand name ‘Dacron’ for DuPont, and ‘Terylene’ for ICI.28

For Rhodiaceta, this time, the transaction was necessarily with ICI, and in 1953 the company concluded a first agreement to produce Terylene under the brand name ‘Tergal’. A new site outside Lyon was added for this purpose, the old Chardonnet factory in Besançon.29 Another significant synthetic development was the wool-like fibre acrylic, announced as ‘Orlon’ by DuPont in 1949, and termed ‘Crylor’, when Rhodiaceta took up its production.

The blending of synthetics, including with artificial fibres – one way that the latter endured on the market - led to a wealth of further brands. Polyester, though, would become ‘the most important fibre in terms of volume and garment production’ aided by significant changes in consumer lifestyle that

24 Ibid., p.54-55. This was ‘British Nylon Spinners’.

25 Millon-Durieux, p. 58-59 took root in a gradually more affluent peacetime - but also through redoubled marketing efforts on the part of the fibre producers to associate their product with fashion.30

26 Ibid., p.78.

27 Handley, p.54-55.

28 Ibid., p. 55.

29 Millon-Durieux, p.94.

1.2 The Rhône-Poulenc Company - and Artificial Fibres - in Brazil, pre-1950

In the case of French Rhodiaseta’s Brazilian subsidiary, international conflict and a nationalist imperative again affected the trajectory of man-made fibres, albeit indirectly. Rhône-Poulenc (as S.C.U.R.) would establish a Brazilian subsidiary for reasons unrelated to artificial fibres production. In the late 1890s, the company’s interest in Brazil stemmed from the chemical industry imperative to seek new uses from existing products. The result of this was the ‘perfume launcher’, containing the company’s base product for chloroform mixed with synthetic violet to produce a scent. This was housed in a glass bottle that would ‘squeeze’ the perfume out, usually towards a handkerchief (Fig.1.4). The ‘lance-parfum’ met with limited success in Europe in the early years of the new century, but S.C.U.R. found that exports of its product were well received in Brazil.31

In 1909, 630,000 units of the product were imported into the country for the Brazilian carnival period. During the following four years, sales of the ‘lança perfume’ were consistently one of the highest value generators of the four divisions of S.C.U.R.32 In 1914, however, the Brazilian government imposed heavy customs duties on the imports, a reaction to its own drop-off in income from duties on core exports that had stalled within the international wartime economy. This was enough for the French company to pivot to direct investment, and their Santo André plot was acquired that same year (Fig.1.5).33

Inaugurated after the war in 1919, the C.Q.R.B.34 soon began domestic production of the perfume launcher. This was rapidly followed by the addition of certain pharmaceutical products, and the new factory was profitable by 1925. With this chemical plant up and running, there was a logic, from the production side, that the parent company should also introduce its acetate rayon in Brazil. In 1929, the

31 Maria Claudia Bonadio, ‘O fio sintético é um show! Moda, política e publicidade: Rhodia S. A. 19601970’ [Synthetic yarn is a show! Fashion, politics and advertising], (unpublished doctoral thesis in History, IFCH, Unicamp, Campinas, São Paulo, 2005), p.30.

32 Ibid., p.32

33 Ibid., p.30.

34 Companhia Química Rhodia Brasileira

C.R.B.35, or Brazilian ‘Rhodiaseta’ was formed. The board of this new textile division was represented equally between the C.Q.R.B. and French Rhodiaseta.36 But for the particularities of the perfume launcher, it is questionable whether S.C.U.R. would have invested in a full foreign subsidiary at such an early stage. That leaves it as uncertain whether France would have been the first overseas country with capital investment in artificial fibre production in Brazil. Thus, global events appear to have nudged transnational fibre production in this direction.

Forming a subsidiary for the new venture meant that, again, the French company avoided duties designed to protect domestic production from overseas imports. Thus, Brazilian Rhodiaseta was competing on a level playing-field with the Matarazzo textile company, a huge national producer of natural-fibre textiles that had begun rayon production in 1926. 37 A further national rayon producer, ‘Nitro-Chemistry’, joined the others in 1937, the three companies in a position of ‘dictating the price and quantity supplied to the weavers.’38 Citing Luis Seraphico, the Brazilian company’s marketing director during the 1970s, Bonadio notes that, oligopolistic position notwithstanding, ‘the growth of sales of Brazilian Rhodiaceta was very discreet in its first years of operation’.39

The logic of the proposition is less obvious from the consumption side. The main organic fibre grown and used in Brazil was cotton, for which the country was climatically well suited.40 The country didn’t have a silk industry with its concomitant vulnerabilities, and it is uncertain whether imported silk consumption by a small elite would have counted enough to prioritise self-sufficient supply through a substitute fibre. However, as in Europe, the underwear market offered potential for rayon, to which

35 Companhia Brasileira de Sedas “Rhodiaseta”.

36 Millon-Durieux p.23. At the point the Brazilian ‘Rhodiaseta’ subsidiary is formed it is spelled with an ‘s’ as per its French parent company; the spelling changes in 1934 in line with the change in France.

37 Bonadio, p.12-13.

38 Bonadio, p.14. As a consortium between US and Brazilian groups, Nitro-Chemistry also involved overseas capital investment.

39 Bonadio, p.19.

40 Millon-Durieux p.28. Valisère was already a customer for the viscose rayon of the C.T.A end, a strategic move was made that was unusual within the history of Rhone-Poulenc’s textile holdings. A venture was set up with French lingerie producer, Valisère, that meant uniquely in Brazil, a textile unit made an end-product with its fibres41. From 1935, Valisère manufactured items from artificial fibres, supplied by Brazilian Rhodiaceta ‘with the aim of convincing the country’s consumers towards the man-made material.42

Although Rhodiaceta in France had produced nylon from 1944, artificial fibres – acetate being joined by viscose in 1948 - would remain the only Brazilian output for a decade after the Second World war.43 Nevertheless, the establishment of the C.R.B. meant that it wasn’t strictly an overseas company, rather it was in line to be a national producer of synthetic fibres – and thus a producer of a ‘national fashion’.

41 Bonadio, p.14.

42 Bonadio, p.14.

43 Millon-Durieux p.33. A separate unit was formed for this, called ‘Rhodosa’.

1.3 The ‘Civilizing’ Influence of French Fashion; the Call for a ‘Brazilian Fashion’, pre-1950

There is a distinct point referenced in Brazilian fashion historiography as the moment when European fashion took root in the country. It is attributed to the 1808 establishment of the exiled Portuguese royal court in Rio de Janeiro44 Following a model that puts a geopolitically ‘peripheral’ Brazil, as the receptor of commodities from a Western ‘centre’ - this is equated with the arrival of ‘fashion’ itself. Cyclical fashion replaces what existed previously, namely ‘clothing’ or ‘costume’, static and unchanging. Although the latter viewpoint is now critiqued as a ‘simplistic modernity paradigm’, it is useful for understanding why, from nineteenth-century developments, a French company might have had confidence in introducing a fashion product in Brazil in the subsequent century.45

The requirements of the fashionable French-speaking court-in-exile could only be serviced by an increase in imports and immigration into the country. Guimaraes describes a corresponding ‘opening of ports’ positioning Brazil within the international marketplace. This aided the growth of a commercial sector to include ‘numerous tradespeople associated with fashion who arrived in the wake of the Royal court’, many of whom came from France.’ 46 The presence of these French fashion artisans in Brazil was a tangible result from a court influence that meant, ‘new standards of courtesy and different ways of presenting oneself socially were imposed’47

For the Brazilian landowning classes, dress was turned into a strategy for delineating position within a hierarchy of class - as in Europe – and of race, as in other colonies shaped through Trans-Atlantic

44 Maria do Carmo Teixeira Rainho and Maria Cristina Volpi, ‘Looking at Brazilian fashion studies: Fifty years of research and teaching’, International Journal of Fashion Studies, 5 (2018) 211–226, p.217 The authors attribute to various academics the development of this frequently cited tenet of fashion history in Brazil.

45 O’Connor, p.1.

46 Maria Eduarda Araujo Guimarães, ‘From periphery to centre: Fashion and popular culture in Brazil’, Film, Fashion and Consumption, 2 (2013), 299-311, p.300.

47 Rainho and Volpi, p.216.

Slavery. Traceable in the imposition of these social codes on the ‘periphery’, is the subtext of ‘a European cultural superiority.’48 Through fashion, the ‘centre’ also – apparently – brought ‘civilization’.

In terms of specific European models of emulation, for elite women in Brazil, as elsewhere, French fashion was the primary pattern49; the establishment of haute couture in the mid-nineteenth century solidified the template of the modern ‘Parisienne’ within both ‘centre’ and ‘periphery’(Fig.1.6). 50 This icon had a male counterpart in the form of the ‘bespoke British gentleman’51; Needell has evidenced late nineteenth-century Brazilian male reproduction of ‘London Businessman’ attire, during peak daytime temperatures.52 Guimarães uses the latter example to highlight ‘the degree of discomfort Brazilians were prepared to undergo in order to achieve a civilised appearance.’ 53

However, she also cites Needell’s example of Francisco Pereira Pasos (1836-1913), the engineer who would become the Mayor of Rio, chafing against the dressing rules. Already ‘sweating’ in the intense heat of his study, he states that, despite the calls of Court business, ‘I do not go out because I cannot summon up the energy to put on my overcoat’. It’s reasonable to suppose that Brazilian female consumers would also have felt some antagonism towards ‘fashions intended for a much cooler, European climate’, not least perhaps in terms of complex underwear constructions. 54

According to Guimarães, nevertheless, ‘The relationship of fashion from Paris and London with fashion in Brazil would change little until the second half of the twentieth century.’55 One hint of an earlier shift was a subtle displacement of a French influence for an American one. Diminished production and circulation of Paris collections and their press coverage during the First World War, saw attention focus

48 Wessie Ling; Mariella Lorusso; Simona Segre Reinach, ‘Critical Studies in Global Fashion’, ZoneModa Journal, 9 (2019), pp. V- XI, p. VI.

49 Guimarães, p.300.

50 Ling et al, p. VII.

51 Ibid.

52 J. Needell, 1987, in Guimarães, p.300.

53 Guimarães, p.300.

54 J. Needell, 1987, in Guimarães, p.300.

55 Guimarães, p.301 on an alternative ‘centre’. Tracing the evolution of this within the Brazilian consumer press, Barbosa notes announcements for the latest American fashions appearing towards the end of the war.56 During World War Two a continued circulation of French fashion and the press articles that glorified it has been evidenced by Oliveira 57 Part of what enabled this was the ability of Brazilian buyers, such as the team from São Paolo’s Casa Canadá, to access Paris fashions in American department stores. When Barbosa cites references to Paris as for example, ceding the ‘sceptre of fashion’ to the United States, it is within this complexly layered context.58 Because some French houses authorised stores to make copies of their designs, the wartime couture accessed in New York by Brazilian buyers may not have been originals.59 From the 1930s Casa Canadá (Fig.1.7) itself as well as importing couture, had ‘brought women’s clothes directly from Paris, and reproduced two or three versions of each model’.60

A drive to create an alternative ‘Brazilian fashion’ was in part prompted by a perceived wartime scarcity of Parisian products. Barbosa references a series of comic strips treating this precise subject that appeared in a 1916 periodical 61 Neira concurs with the approximate time frame for the establishment of this public discussion, noting it as dating ‘at a minimum, since the 1920s’. This was the period when the Brazilian textile industry achieved sufficient parity with those of Europe and America, to produce ‘equivalent goods at competitive prices’. With the development of the sector through the next two domestically to the high technical standard of the originals. The issue of the seasonal unsuitability of

56 Everton Vieira Barbosa, ‘Costuras em papel : a moda parisiense e suas relações com o Rio de Janeiro e São Paulo’ [Seams on paper: Parisian fashion and its relations with Rio de Janeiro and São Paulo], (unpublished doctoral thesis in History, Universidade Federal Fluminense, Niterói, 2021), p.141. https://www.historia.uff.br/academico/media/aluno/2252/projeto/Tese_Everton_Vieira.pdf the overseas fashions were addressed to some extent with the ‘climatically adapted copy’ described by Neira as ‘the aesthetic destiny of practically all the pret-a-porter houses that appeared in the period’.62

57 Cláudia de Oliveira, ‘The diffusion, reception and use of Paris style information in Brazil and its couture salons: 1939-1946’ in Paris Fashion and World War Two: Global Diffusion and Nazi Control ed. by Lou Taylor and Marie McLoughlin (London: Bloomsbury, 2020), pp.203-224, p.205.

58 Barbosa, p.179; p.191.

59 Oliveira, p.207.

60 Neira, Luz García, ‘A invenção da moda brasileira’ [The invention of Brazilian fashion], Caligrama (São Paulo. Online) 4 (2008), https://doi.org/10.11606/issn.1808-0820.cali.2008.68123.

61 Barbosa, p.144.

However, with the intensification of the ‘Brazilian fashion’ debate during the 1940s, a desire was expressed in the press for pieces that were authentically ‘national’, with an inherent suitability for local conditions: we, who…still depend on other nations, given our lack of creative dressmakers, will limit ourselves to copying the models that come from there, until the day we can impose Brazilian fashion, in conformity with our climate.63

62 Neira, https://doi.org/10.11606/issn.1808-0820.cali.2008.68123.

1.4 France Still Holds the ‘Centre’? Couture, Ready-To-Wear and Synthetic Fibres, c.1950

This section considers the continued role of Paris as a global ‘fashion centre’, including how that hegemony, more fragile since the Second World War, was at risk of further threat during the 1950s through the growth of two closely associated markets – ready-to-wear and synthetic fibres. It considers the strategies undertaken to market synthetic fibres in the global north, that maintained the status quo of French couture, ostensibly benefitting all parties. An examination of these strategies will provide relevant context and comparison in considering the direction taken by the Brazilian Rhodiaceta company.

When DuPont launched nylon, in women’s stockings it was effectively substituting for silk. Rayon had been an ineffective substitute and dogged by its reception as such. Aware of this, DuPont was not prepared to accept consumer perception of nylon as simply a premium ‘substitute’ product, and embarked on a campaign to create an identity for this - and its other fibres -which would involve presenting synthetics as the fashion fabrics of choice.64 The marketing of nylon in stockings had been targeted so that it ‘reached the consumer and the press directly with the promise of a small but luxurious product that was a fashion fixation at the time’. Key to maintaining this momentum was to track a rapid course for nylon out of the confinements of intimate apparel, and into a wider range of items, including dresses. Achieving this was aided through judicious use of the fibre in blends. Nylon’s swift evolution from an underwear fibre set the scene for the adoption of acrylic and polyester in outerwear from the moment those fibres were introduced.65

Since the 1920s, and DuPont’s original conception of a couturier-endorsed strategy, changes in the fashion marketplace had optimised conditions for marketing fibres this way. Following its wartime

64 Handley, p.39.

65 Ibid., p.45 precarity, Paris couture had been apparently revitalised through the output of a new generation of designers, most notably, Christian Dior. However, there was a reality of rising production costs, not matched by the spending of a wealthy client-base, diminished since the war. In particular ‘the lavish affectations of the couture industry were becoming old-fashioned’, especially once set against the fresh and dynamic marketing of ‘ready-to-wear’. 66

Through an association with synthetics, the Paris maisons could offset this old-fashioned image by showing that ‘haute couture was attuned to the newest textile technology’.67 Several commentators have detailed the mutually beneficial relationship that DuPont established, in the early 1950s, with the Chambre Syndicale.68 Couturiers within the exclusive group would introduce designs featuring French textiles made from DuPont synthetics into their collections; the fibre producer was financially responsible for publicity, which took the form of fashion shows and photographs for press use. The ensuing coverage benefitted both parties, and for DuPont, additional to transmitting prestige, the couture creations proved that ‘American synthetics met the exacting standards of the world's most discriminating dress designers.’69

Noting that other fibre producers also hosted fashion shows with French couturiers, Handley posits that the corporate strategy was essentially the same for all synthetic fibre manufacturers.70 Following capital investment in research and development were ‘information and promotional campaigns to fabric and apparel manufacturers’ but also to end consumers. In competing with natural fibres, it was

66 Colleen Hill, Paris Refashioned 1957-1968 (New York: Yale University Press, 2017), p.12.

67 Regina Lee Blaszczyk, ‘Styling Synthetics: DuPont's Marketing of Fabrics and Fashions in Postwar America’, The Business History Review, 80 (2006) 485-528, p.508.

68 The organisation founded in 1868 to represent the French couture industry.

69 Blaszczyk, p.508.

70 Handley, p.72. She cites the example of the fashion shows of ‘British Nylon Spinners’ necessary for the synthetic fibre producers to reach right along the chain to the consumer market, where ‘product branding was the main weapon’.71

Whether the same kind of consumer-facing endorsement strategy was undertaken in France does not appear to have been publicly documented. The proximity of haute couture as a potential resource is suggestive of this, and internal corporate evidence indicates it to have been the case for Rhodiaceta. DuPont began monitoring Paris couturier’s use of their fabrics, celebrating success with Givenchy in 1954.72 A set of meeting notes for the French company, from the same year, demonstrates the same activity. Noted was ‘a certain success for NYLON this year in Haute Couture’. This was specifically in the uptake of a blend named “Velvenyl” in several outfits. These are listed as one model each produced by Balmain, Fath, Gres, LeComte, Patou and M. De Rauch. Dior used it in three models.73 (Fig.1.8)

The monitoring activity was preceded by pro-active pursuit of couturiers. Shortly prior to the referenced meeting, Rhodiaceta had instigated a promotion to target ‘Haute Couture through the wholesalers of couture fabrics’. Management was expecting that the planned nylon blends with ‘highclass dress prints’ would be taken up by certain couturiers.74 That specific blends, like “Velvenyl”, are mentioned must relate in part to the unusual context of the competition between fibre producers for these endorsements. There was no competition for direct sales - the licensing model meant that at this point each company’s fibres would only be available in their home market. In promotional terms though, as each manufacturer sought to see its product chosen for the couturiers’ collections, it was necessary to offer more than a generic nylon. (Fig.1.9)

71 Handley, p.75.

72 Handley, p.82.

73 “Rapport De La Reunion “Fil & Fibre” Des Mercredi 29 & Jeudi 30 Septembre 1954, p.44, Box BH2375, Archive of the Rhône-Poulenc Company, Besançon. ‘Velvenyl’ is described as a mix of nylon pile velvet, with rayon or cotton base and "velours de Lyon" nylon pile on a natural silk base.

74 Romano, Alexis, ‘Elle and the Development of Stylisme in 1960s Paris’ Costume, 46 (2012) 75-91, p.77

There is a question over the long-term benefit to those couturiers who promoted synthetic fibres. After all, the best outcome for fibre producers in terms of volume sales, would be the flourishing of readyto-wear, a sector that had the potential to eclipse couture. However, certain couturiers engaged with ready-to-wear as they did with synthetic fibres, its adoption not purely ‘a panicked attempt by Paris couture, so long revered as the epitome of fashion, to remain relevant.’ Hill points out that ‘the concept of couturier-designed ready-to-wear had already existed – in a smaller and slightly different way –for decades’ before the pivotal mid-century.75

The dissemination of couture output through authorised copies was accelerated with synthetic fibres, DuPont actually taking on a brokerage role between designers and the US department stores that would sell the reproductions.76 However there was a problem of unauthorised copying, which in France had contributed to a negative perception of scaled-up clothing manufacture, termed ‘confection’. The impression wasn’t helped by poor quality production within the sector.77

This began to change in the 1950s and the phrase ‘couture en gros’ (‘wholesale couture’) was one of several terms with which producers began to differentiate the rapidly growing ‘prêt-à-porter’ from the maligned ‘confection’.78 A close relationship with industrial scale manufacturers is also seen at Rhodiaceta. Their 1954 trade promotion contained a second strand; this was to work directly to promote nylon with producers of ‘Couture en Gros’, citing specifically the ‘Groupement des Trois Hirondelles’.79 The latter was a grouping of manufacturers who strove to promote their ready-to-wear items as a luxury product, marketed under one label.80

75 Hill, p.12.

76 Blaszczyk, p.507.

77 Romano, p. 77.

78 Ibid.

79 “Rapport De La Reunion “Fil & Fibre” Des Mercredi 29 & Jeudi 30 Septembre 1954, p.44, Box BH2375, Archive of the Rhône-Poulenc Company, Besançon.

80 Romano, p. 77.

Romano notes the deployment of couture-like terminology, as a recurrent reassuring motif of readyto-wear in this era. This could be seen within Elle, considered the biggest endorser of the sector among French consumer fashion magazines in the mid-century.81 Elle had launched a ‘Prêt-à-Porter’ section in 1953, and in 1958 it contained a spread subsequently identified as the first time a ready-to-wear collection was presented to the whole of France. This meant the items being available in two hundred provincial cities. The ‘ultra-practical collection’ was made up of twenty-five outfits, and thus named because the fabrics were wrinkle-free, washable, and light’. They were all made from synthetic fabrics.82

1.5 Nylon Arrives in Brazil; Context to the Introduction of Synthetic Fibres, c.1950s

According to Neira, the 1950s saw the discourse of Brazilian fashion become even more widespread, which she presents as coinciding with the growth of the mass media This expansion offered Brazil the opportunity of ‘presenting to the world our creative capacity based on local culture’.83 In terms of a significant national debate, this was the environment into which synthetic fibres were introduced to Brazil, representing an offer that was neither obviously climate suitable, nor intrinsically ‘Brazilian’. However, its French origin notwithstanding, Brazilian Rhodiaceta was a national textile producer, with the potential for ‘creative capacity’, drawn from ‘local culture’.

Only towards the end of the decade could this start to be realised. Where, for many years, as testified by Luis Seraphico, textiles had ‘remained a smaller sector’ within the C.Q.R.B., with the introduction of the first synthetic fibre:

…the opposite will happen, the growth is enormous, especially because DuPont was in Brazil and decided not to launch nylon in Brazil because it considered the Brazilian market negligible. And Rhodia, (Rhodiaceta) and Matarazzo will stay with the possibility of exploring this product here. And only those who have lived (maybe you can ask your grandmother) what nylon stockings were, what nylon was in Brazil can know what the textile industry revolution was.84

In considering the frenzied success of nylon stockings upon their peacetime relaunch in the USA in 1946, Handley conjectures as to the degree that wartime scarcity of nylon lent it mystique and value’.85 In the decade since nylon’s postwar success in the United States, DuPont hadn’t taken the product to the Brazilian market, perhaps less assured of the market conditions aligning in the way they had at home. Plausibly, they had witnessed Rhodiaceta’s plodding journey with rayon, and presumed it better to let

83 Neira, https://doi.org/10.11606/issn.1808-0820.cali.2008.68123.

84 Ibid.

85 Handley, p.50 the incumbent make what they would out of transitioning to nylon production. The US company chose a low-risk strategy, and signed their licensing rights in this part of the Americas over to Rhodiaceta.

The value of that advance presence with rayon is confirmed by Rhodia’s Head Textile Engineer:

It was not as difficult as cellulose acetate, because cellulose acetate was new to Brazil, accustomed to using cotton for everything textile…When we arrived with nylon, the market was ready, there was already the technology to use this type of yarn, so nylon entered much more easily.

This does not mean that existing operators in Brazil’s artificial fibre market felt wholly assured of nylon’s market future. An article from a 1959 edition of French Rhodiaceta’s in-house magazine (Fig.1.10) suggests that four years in, the parent company was still guarded in its enthusiasm for the venture; its author, a visiting French engineer, notes of the nylon factory that:

The production…is sufficient for the Brazilian market whose possibilities are still very limited. For example, we count that out of the 60 million inhabitants, there are certainly no more than 20 million who wear socks.86

Besides flagging a market reality, this comment also reads as a value- judgement on those not wearing socks. It seems that still, over a century after the establishment of Eurocentric fashion values in Brazil, this small item deemed practically and socially necessary for the global north, assumed a symbolic ‘civilising’ role for the global south.

The author offers an example of a demographic more apparently compliant in their role as peripheral consumers of goods from the centre. Certain Indigenous women encountered in the developed central area of the capital of neighbouring Peru were found to be ‘dressed in the European fashion’. As

Rhodiaceta had a sales office in Argentina supplying the Spanish-speaking countries of the global south, it was plausible that the company’s fibres formed part of this female attire.87 Although the author was not able to gauge whether the women he admired were wearing synthetic fabrics, he noted that ‘in the lingerie shops, nylon is king, as in France.’ He also gave a description of indigenous women from the less developed south of the city, who wore local dress such as ‘wide-brimmed llama wool hats’. In comparison, he found the metropolitan demographic to offer a favourable contrast as ‘the folkloric character has disappeared, to the advantage of the Peruvian women, who are frequently very beautiful’ 88

If the imposition of Eurocentric fashion and beauty ideals on the indigenous body had worked to embed the fashion system of the ‘centre’ within the global south, it was now helping to sell nylon fibres. Despite the dissonance, not least in climate terms, feminine undergarments in nylon saw a rapid development in sales in Brazil. Bonadio notes that in 1959, the first editions of the new female-oriented Manequim magazine displayed nylon ‘only in advertisements and articles about lingerie, but not yet indicated for making everyday clothes or party dresses.’89 This implies that in Brazil the particular challenge for the coming decade would be to overcome a perception of synthetic fibres as designed for underwear or accessories.90 Nylon’s progress in this area in the global north, compared with that of rayon, boded well for Brazil; optimal would be the instigation of a similarly successful consumer-facing campaign.

87 Millon-Durieux. p.67.

88 P.Bund, ‘Je Reviens Du Brésil’, Revue Rhodiaceta, no. 4, Winter, 1959, non-paginated, Box BH2375, Archive of the Rhône-Poulenc Company, Besançon.

89 Bonadio, p.47.

90 Patricia Carta, p.19 in Adriano Pedrosa , Patricia Carta and Tomás Toledo Arte Na Moda : Coleção Masp Rhodia : [exposição São Paulo Museu De Arte De São Paulo - Assis Chateaubriand] 23.10.201514.02.2016. (São Paulo: Museu de Arte de São Paulo - Assis Chateaubriand, 2015).

Although Bonadio has evidenced that pre-1960 the majority of the Brazilian company’s advertisements ‘were aimed at industry and clothes companies’91, that doesn’t preclude the existence of any direct consumer advertising. Editions of Manchete from 1953 to 1954 contained advertisements for Rhodiaceta’s rayons, ‘Rhodia’ and ‘Albène’92. Mid-way through 1955, the logos of these two fibre brands were joined by a first iteration of an identity for the company’s nylon - ‘Rhodianyl’. In the advertisements from this year, it is clear that the target-market is not the lingerie-consumer (Figs.1.111.13). The fabric bolts in the first set are a visual reference to custom dressmaking; the message could be aimed at both the home sewer and the consumer of professional custom sewing. In all cases, an association is made between consumption of clothing made up in fabrics from Rhodiaceta fibres, and the ‘elegance’ of French fashion.

In the same period - indeed, at the same time as both DuPont and Rhodiaceta in France- the Brazilian company was also promoting the use of its fibres by Parisian designers. In 1954, while the companies based in the global north were encouraging couture uptake of nylon, at a Brazilian Rhodiaceta fashion show in Rio, ‘six beautiful “mannequins” would parade ‘Balmain creations made from the Brazilian fabrics, “Albène” and “Rhodia” (Figs 1.14-1.15). Entitled ‘Jolie Madame du Brèsil’ this collection was, ‘destined exclusively for elegant Brazilians’. In the period from 1959, when the company would start to also market its first synthetic fibres through this couture-endorsed strategy, the ‘exclusive’ aspect continued to constitute the formula in Brazil. This was one area of divergence from the comparator strategies, which involved encouragement of synthetic fibre-based fabrics within couturiers’ own commercial collections.

91 Bonadio, p.11.

92 Manchete was launched in 1952, and according to Bonadio, was modelled on the pagination of France’s Paris Match, Bonadio, p.153.

The description in Manchete heralding the show, at the Copacabana Palace hotel, suggests a classic mannequin parade in the style of Casa Canadá. Neira proposes that the system of French couture promotion in Brazil also engendered its ‘scenographic environment (fashion shows, contests, advertising campaigns, etc.)’ which was self-perpetuating, ‘very similar to the European model’. She posits that ‘European aesthetics’ were embedded at the point that the country’s textile technology had evolved to import-level standards, because ‘there was no cultural trajectory to fertilise creation’.93

It can be contended that during the coming decade, Brazilian Rhodiaceta - or ‘Rhodia’ would situate itself within a ‘cultural trajectory’ that ‘fertilised’ creativity in Brazilian fashion. The promotional campaign which offered this potential first appeared in Manchete in October and December of 1959 (Figs1.16-1.17). This was the ‘Rhodia Selections’, which began as the ‘Selections of Rhodia, Albène and Rhodianyl’, and would become the ‘Rhodia Textile Selections’ in 1961 and the ‘Rhodia Fashion Selections’ in 1965.94 To avoid confusion, they will be referred to as the ‘Rhodia Selections’ and the company as ‘Rhodia’ - unless otherwise quoted - although the official company name remained the C.R.B.

The two early campaign iterations can be considered as precursors to the 1960s output, containing identifying elements that would be magnified during the later promotions. The most obvious differentiator from the previous illustrated advertisements is the photographic form of these 1959 fashion editorials. This was significant within Brazil which until this point had depended on editorial bought in from international press agencies.95 Patricia Carta claims of Rhodia’s advertising manager, that ‘Rangan introduced the first fashion campaigns in Brazil, photographed by Otto Stupakoff…since

93 Neira, https://doi.org/10.11606/issn.1808-0820.cali.2008.68123.

94 The 'Rhodia Textile Selections' logo first appears in Manchete, 29 April, 1961, pp.52-74; The 'Rhodia Fashion Selections' logo first appears in Jóia, 01 April, 1965, pp.53-60 until then only illustrations were used in advertising.’96 It is known that Stupakoff started work during this timeframe for Standard Propaganda, the advertising agency for Rhodia’s account throughout the period studied.97 Although the literature associates Livio Rangan with the campaigns of the 1960s, there is evidence that his employment started in 1959.98

95 Bonadio, p.188.

Of those aspects that would be reconstituted in later campaign iterations, the first is apparent in the choice of Brasilia as a location for the October shoot - a city so new that at that point it was still under construction. There was clearly a symbolic driver in associating Rhodia with the icon of modern nationhood represented by the soon-to-be inaugurated capital. The editorial presents a number of pieces by Paris couturiers, but given the previous Balmain connection, this is not the newest feature here – any more than the definitive pivot to outerwear, already present in the dressmaking advertisements. What does represent an innovation, is the presence of ready-to-wear models alongside the couture pieces. Another feature is the inclusion of items by a Brazilian designer; these were by Dener, the name most synonymous with Brazilian high fashion at the time.

In December, there would be an entire Dener collection for Rhodia, a ‘Colonial Line’ (‘Linha Colonial’), shot in Ouro Preto and referencing an older, historic Brazil. The connection with Paris would be maintained, with Dener compared to both Pierre Cardin and Yves Saint Laurent.99 A final device of Rangan’s seen here, was the formation of a group of in-house models for Rhodia, who would become well-known to consumers of the fashion press.100 It is the Brazilian location and the Brazilian couture presentation, though, that are the core identifiers with the ‘national’ soon to be reformulated and enhanced in the first full campaign, 1960’s ‘Coffee Collection’. The following two chapters will look at the way that during the next decade Rhodia traversed - to its advantage - both the continuing international hold of Paris fashion, and a drive for a Brazilian creative identity displayed within a recognizably ‘national fashion’.

96 Carta, p.19.

97‘Otto Stupakoff and Fashion Photography: The Early Days’,Instituto Moreira Salles, Google Arts & Culture (2017) https://artsandculture.google.com/story/otto-stupakoff-and-fashion-photographythe-early-days-instituto-moreira-salles/ > [accessed 23 March 2023].

98 Bonadio (2005), Carta (2015), for example. Dória, 1998, in Sant’Anna, p.17, footnote 5, refers to Rangan as starting at Rhodia in 1959 .

99 Manchete, 05 December 1959, pp.20-24, p.20.

100 Bonadio, p.120.

Chapter Two

2.1 Strategies of the ‘Rhodia Selections’ - Interpreting ‘Frenchness’, Asserting Brazilianess’?

The line-up of the Standard/Rhodia team at the start of the new decade consisted of, ‘prestigious professionals from the advertising, journalistic and artistic circles’ within Brazil. Stupakoff would stay as Rhodia’s photographer for the first few years, while other team members accompanied Livio Rangan for the duration of the Rhodia project. Licínio de Almeida was the art director and Alceu Penna covered various creative aspects, bringing his extensive experience as an illustrator, costume designer and former fashion correspondent The Rhodia account occupied an entire floor of the advertising agency’s building in downtown São Paulo.1

The ‘Rhodia Selections’ started in earnest in 1960, with the promotion of the ‘Coffee Collection’ (‘Coleçao Café’), in partnership with O Cruzeiro Magazine. One of its key premises was to show the collection in the world’s fashion capital, before taking it on to Hamburg, apparently a key city for consumption of Brazilian coffee within Europe. Notably the collection was sponsored by the Brazilian Coffee Institute. As well as the Brazilian ‘Coffee Collection’, there would also be a set of pieces from Parisian ateliers using ‘national fabrics, sent to Paris, for this purpose, in advance’. These would be created for the Rhodia mannequins ‘under the influence of the “Coffee Line”.2

The promotion would include two tranches of editorial from Paris, showing both Brazilian and French pieces. This editorial would in turn generate advertisements, to then also be used in other publications (See Figs.2.92.13). For the trip, rather than Stupakoff, a prestigious French fashion photographer, George Dambier, was commissioned to shoot the editorial.3 The tour was the first of three such arrangements with the magazine, with the format repeated in 1961 and 1962. The magazine used a play on words on its own title to name these promotions, the first one being ‘O Cruzeiro da Moda’- ‘The Fashion Cruise’- to be followed by ‘Cruise’ II and III.

1 Alceu Penna worked as a fashion correspondent in both Paris and New York. In Patrizia Sant’Anna, Coleção Rhodia - Arte e Design de Moda nos anos sessenta no Brasil',[Art and Design in Fashion in the sixties in Brazil] (unpublished doctoral thesis in Art History, Universidade Estadual de Campinas, Campinhas, São Paulo, 2010), p.99.

2 Alceu Penna, O Cruzeiro, 10 September 1960, pp.136. Alternately called ‘Coffee Collection’ or ‘Coffee Line’ depending on the article.

3 Maria Claudia Bonadio, ‘Synthetic fibres and the “clothing revolution”: art, high fashion and popular culture in fashion advertising in Brazil in the 1960s’, (unpublished conference paper, Business History Conference, Milan, 2009), p. 9, footnote 13.

The campaign for the ‘Coffee Collection’ was rolled out in very clear distinct stages (Fig.2.1) The inclusion of some additional identifying elements - beyond a significant location, use of in-house models and couture pieces in Rhodia fabrics by French and Brazilian designers - mean that it can be considered the first full campaign of the ‘Rhodia Selections’ (Fig.2.2-2.13). That is, a whole formula to be repeated over the course of the decade, subject to gradual variation, the new innovations being: (i) the artists’ prints (ii) the trips abroad (iii) the fashion shows, both on tour and in Brazil.

The editorial text around the ‘Coffee Collection’ is useful in explaining the aims of this French-Brazilian hybrid project. The campaign was trialled in a September article of the magazine that introduced the reader to the first ‘Cruzeiro da Moda’. Accompanying the article was a shoot in the Coffee Museum in Ribeirao Preto, posed as a ‘research trip’ by team members from both the magazine and Rhodia (Fig.2.2). The author of the article, Alceu Penna, offers a nominal-sounding reason for the choice of ‘coffee’ as the theme – it being ‘up-to-date and at the same time adaptable to the newest fashion trends. Coffee, here, is an appropriately obvious symbol for a ‘Brazilian-inspired’ fashion line. The text asks whether this line can ‘influence International Fashion’, on the basis that ‘Fashion’ notably takes inspiration from a varied range of countries. Towards the end of the article, it is asserted that follow-up reports would gauge the success of that proposition. They would constitute the answer to a question in a specific instance:

What are the details of the fusion of the new French lines of 1961 and the Brazilian elements of coffee? What is the influence of Brazilian inspiration in French fashion?4

Figs.2.2 The third image is the only piece of campaign materials surveyed, to depict one of the artists apparently at work towards a collection; Heitor dos Prazeres, ‘designing patterns’, bottom left. The others male figures featured are from the design team, Darcy Penteado, and Alceu Penna, O Cruzeiro, 10 September 1960.

Example Campaign Stages, ‘Coffee Collection’ - ‘The Aeroplane Shot’

Fig 2.3 This image, and other examples featuring the airlines that sponsor the tours, represent inversions of similar shots depicting French designers and ‘their’ in-house mannequins, posed in front of the aeroplanes that will take them to Brazil, such as the Balmain example (Fig.1.14), O Cruzeiro, 24 September 1960.

Example Campaign Stages, ‘Coffee Collection’ - Fashion Editorial, location-based

They would also answer in terms of Brazil’s wider, long-term international influence, ‘French Fashion’ being a proxy for ‘fashion’ generally. However, achieving this external fashion influence for Brazil, is only the stated aim. When questions are posed as to whether ‘coffee leaves and beans, mills, sieves, harvest baskets’ will serve as, ‘motifs for prints, in International Fashion?’5 – the text’s author knows that’s neither likely, nor the primary aspiration for this project. The question is actually about Brazil’s ‘national’ fashion. The heart of the issue becomes clearer with the fifth and final article on the ‘Coffee Collection’, a further editorial piece, the focus of which is the issue of seasonal suitability:

Paris dictates the great lines of fashion around the world and Paris has just launched the new lines for 1961. These basic lines will be the encyclopaedia of world elegance in the coming seasons. But Paris launches lines for a rigorously European winter fashion and we expect a summer, a very tropical Brazilian summer. There will therefore be a shock: either the elegant Brazilians will adopt the French fashion of last summer (passed in Europe, to come in Brazil) or a NEW FORMULA must be found.6

In the parts of Brazil with temperature changes sufficiently noticeable to delineate a Eurocentric understanding of a ‘season’, Spring starts in September and this was the pivotal moment for fashion shows for the coming Summer season. At this point, the latest fashion that Parisians would be wearing were from that year’s Winter collections. The design houses would be readying to show the collections for France’s Spring and Summer of the following year, the items becoming available several months later. The text offered two solutions for ‘elegant Brazilians’ to avoid the fate of wearing last season’s fashions. The first is a new variation on the standard ‘climate adapted copy’. Going further than this proposal’s superficial variations, Rhodia suggested that the French designers fuse the trends of the current Parisian Winter season with a Summery lightness truly suitable for Brazil, including in colour-terms.7

The light-weight aspect of Rhodia’s artificial and synthetic fabrics would take care of the first concern. As to the second aspect, a colour palette related to ‘coffee’ was now revealed as a clever choice. With a French Winter

5 Ibid., p.134 range likely tending to dark colours, a brown tone might lighten to become a ‘café-com-leité’.8 Such ‘fusion’ is indicated in the Balmain piece in one of the advertisements, which is described as coffee-coloured. (Fig.2.10).

6 Afranio Brasil Soares, O Cruzeiro, 03 December 1960, p.87.

7 Ibid. The French designers listed as participating were: ‘Heim, Balmain, Rouff, Carven, Laroche, Ricci, De Rauch, Lanvin’.

The next article in the O Cruzeiro set actually retrospectively attributed the choice of ‘coffee’ inspiration to the French maisons:

It all started when the different shades of green in the coffee beans and leaves, when the brown and brown tones of roasted coffees, the red ranges of its ripe fruit and the pure blue of the skies of the coffee plantations in Brazil, were chosen as the colours of fashion, by the popes of feminine elegance in Paris.9

The second and most pertinent proposition for the elegant Brazilians was to start wearing nationally produced fashion. As Bonadio surmised from this promotion, it is the Brazilian reader, more than the Paris fashion industry that is the target of this campaign, although the Parisian ‘popes’ are still highly instrumental here.10 Just as DuPont sought the endorsement of hegemonic French authority for its American-produced fibres, so too did Rhodia Brazil. The text continues with an explanation of the contribution by the Brazilian artists, ‘who created within this line, the most beautiful patterns for the exceptional quality of fabrics produced in Brazil.’11

Brazil is offering the ‘fabulous imagination’ of its artists but the main onus on the Brazilian couturiers is not really to provide national inspiration. For all that the text makes a nod to the designers’ use of Brazilian details like Ceará lace, more key was to demonstrate couture skills to a European standard. It was enough for the time being that Dener and the others were represented alongside the Parisian designers, their ‘quality’ endorsed - like that of the synthetic fabric - through the association with French couture.12 The more firmly this association was established, the easier it would be to promote synthetics only with the Brazilian couturiers. The sooner this was achieved, the sooner synthetics would no longer need such endorsement.

8 ‘Coffee with milk’, the nickname for the period of Brazilian constitutional democracy of 1889–1930. In fact, this collection had a forerunner in the form of a 1941 special collection by the couture-houses Worth and Hermès, titled ‘Brazilian Beige’ in reference to precisely this concept/coffee drink. In Oliveira, p.209.

9 O Cruzeiro, 24 September 1960, p.105.

10 Maria Claudia Bonadio, ‘Synthetic fibres and the “clothing revolution”: art, high fashion and popular culture in fashion advertising in Brazil in the 1960s’, (unpublished conference paper, Business History Conference, Milan, 2009), p.7.

11 O Cruzeiro, 24 September 1960, p.105.

12 O Cruzeiro, 29 October 1960, p.82. The Brazilian designers listed as participating were: ‘Alceu Penna, Darcy Penteado, Dener, Irene Perkal, Jacques Heim, Brazil and Casa Vogue’. Regarding the presence of Jacques Heim for both the French and Brazilian design contingent, see Section Four of this Chapter.

On the occasion of this first full campaign, the hegemony of Paris - and of couture - were kept intact in that there was no ready-to-wear included13. The strap-line for the advertisement accompanying the promotion also privileged the ‘French’ aspect, even when displaying Brazilian designs:

New formula for Spring/Summer fashion: French Lines for 1961, interpreted for Brazilian Summer with the theme and details of “COFFEE” and realised in the latest textile launches from the Rhodia, Albéne and Rhodianyl Selections.14

In terms of the campaigns there are also conclusions to be drawn from their format and what that says about the importance of ‘Paris’ and of the ‘International’ and the ‘National’. The template for a following swathe of promotions (Figs.2.14-2.28) was set by the initial campaign rollout - including the way it starts from the centrein the first instance, Paris - and spreads out to the periphery of the ‘20 Brazilian cities’ that are listed as destinations for its concluding fashion shows.15

By 1962’s

‘O Cruzeiro da

Moda III’ the ‘centre’ would be New York spanning out to one hundred Brazilian cities.16 At this point the interspersing of ready-to-wear models among the couture pieces within the collections was well established. This signifies that there were commercially available pieces within the ‘collections’ of Rhodia’s ‘Selections’ - although the artists’ prints did not decorate any ready-to-wear items at this point. Livio Rangan also introduced separate campaigns that were purely for ready-to-wear, particularly during Brazil’s winter.17

13 There were some other ‘pure couture’ shoots for Rhodia, such as with the designs of Dener in the ‘Linha Colonial’ example from 1959, cited in Chapter One and in a Brazilian couture shoot for Joia in 1964, cited in Chapter Three.

14 O Cruzeiro, 03 December 1960, p.93.

15 Alceu Penna, O Cruzeiro, 10 September 1960, p.136.

16 O Cruzeiro, 15 September 1962, p.17. ‘O Cruzeiro II’, the 1961 tour to Argentina does not appear to have followed quite the same trajectory, O Cruzeiro, 09 December 1961, pp.70-77.

17 The first of these appears to have been a piece in Manchete from 1960, cited in Section Four of this Chapter.

Further changes in the schemes of the campaigns will be discussed in the next section but there are three keys one to address here. Firstly, in the O Cruzeiro promotion, where the second ‘Fashion Cruise’ did not offer an associated collection name, like the ‘Coffee Line’, the third outing was called – in English - ‘Brazilian Nature’.

‘The Aeroplane Shot’

Reportage of Fashion Shows, Location-based

Reportage of Fashion Shows in Brazil

Reportage of fashion shows following

This New York based promotion also included contributions from the US designer, Oleg Cassini, alongside further couturier collaboration with French and Brazilian designers. The new way of naming the collections – always with the prefix ‘Brazilian…’ would continue for a further five years until 1967. Another naming change had already taken place; Tergal’s launch in 1961 moved the branding beyond the initial three fibres, and initiated an identity for the ‘Rhodia Textile Selections’ (See Fig.2.29).

The second change happened the following year with the 1963 collection, ‘Brazilian Look’, in that this was the first campaign with which Rhodia participated in a fashion show at FENIT.18 Also significant with that collection, is that it would involve no French designers. That campaign, with Italy as a key destination, included one Italian and one US designer.19 That was the final campaign to which any overseas designers contributed (Fig.2.30) - the only couture element within the following year’s trip to Japan would be by Brazilian designers (Figs.2.31-2.34).

It also saw a return to Rhodia partnering with Manchete magazine; the evolution of Rhodia’s media partnerships will be elaborated in the next section.

Chapter Three will look more deeply at the way that the “national fashion” elements of the campaigns would evolve, interspersed with other influences, including but not limited to French ones. Mediation of ‘Frenchness’ would continue as a feature of Rhodia campaigns, even beyond the involvement of Paris couture, on which this chapter will offer further analysis.

18 The National Textile Fair.

19 Manchete, 31 August 1963, p.81. Federico Fourquet and Bill Blass were the designers.

2.2 Livio Rangan, International ‘Fashion Intermediary’

That Livio Rangan, ‘chose to market directly to the consumer’, is a key point, often made within histories of the Rhodia collections.20 Magazines were the most consistent vehicle for enacting this, and there is substantial testimony as to how transformative a figure he was within the world of fashion media. It was a field that went through a dramatic change in Brazil in the 1960s. At the end of the previous decade, female-oriented magazines had started to emerge alongside the general interest stalwarts, O Cruzeiro and Manchete. Joia was launched in 1959 by the same publishing house as Manchete 21

After 1962, Rhodia’s relationship with O Cruzeiro ended, with 1963’s ‘Brazilian Look’ being shown in Manchete, accompanied by crossover articles in Jóia. The following year’s ‘Brazilian Style’ campaign was shown simultaneously in Manchete and Joia, after which the campaign hosting swapped over, major pieces appearing in Jóia, with some crossover in Manchete. The publishers of O Cruzeiro, were not left out, as they had launched the female fashion title, Claudia, in 1961, and this also played host to numerous Rhodia editorials.22 Thomas Souto Correa, who became Claudia’s editor in 1963 is one of those who credits Livio Rangan with revolutionising the industry:

The case is that there was no Brazilian fashion (...) the industry was disorganised, retail barely appeared. There was no commercial link with the reader. It was at this time that Livio Rangan appeared. That’s when Brazilian fashion really begins.23

Correa confirms what was clear from the aims of the Coffee Collection - that Rangan furthered the association of fashion in Brazil with a cyclical model, of the type adhered to in Europe. Brazilian Winter was short – and in parts of the country, particularly away from an urban centre like São Paolo – non-existent. Nevertheless, Rangan made sure there was a collection for ‘Winter’. These were always ready-to-wear lines, and were launched in

20 Bonadio (2005), Sant’Anna (2010), 'Art in Fashion: MASP's Rhodia Collection' Google Arts & Culture (2016) <https://artsandculture.google.com/story/art-in-fashion-masp-s-rhodia-collection-masp/> [accessed 23 March 2023].

21 Crossovers between these magazines were frequent, such as with the ‘Linha Colonial’ example from 1959, cited in Chapter One, which was also presented in Joia, 01 December, 1959.

22 Foundational information on the magazine market in Bonadio, p. 5 and p.89, clarified through personal observation of O Cruzeiro, Manchete and Joia Claudia magazine was unavailable for online access.

23 Testimony of Thomas Souto Corrêa, 2002, in Bonadio p.104.

March/April. The main collections were always the Summer ones, launched in September. Their accompanying seasonal descriptor referenced two years, to account for the span of Brazilian Summer.24

The application of this seasonal model was achieved through an informal body, in which Rhodia’s advertising manager succeeded in bringing together rival trade and magazine representatives. Corrêa describes the ambitious way that Rangan ensured trends were disseminated right through the fashion chain: …he went further, he went to talk to the trade. And then we had a fashion committee that discussed trends and so on, what were the trends coming out of Paris and which were the designers from France. When he reached retail he reached the consumer (...) When he reached retail he closed the cycle.25

Sant’Anna places Paris and Milan as the most visited destinations for Rangan to source trends, with London and New York also on his radar.26 The descriptions of Rangan’s process locate him as a ‘fashion intermediary’, a term Blaszczyk uses to describe certain employees of DuPont, who translated trends towards commercial success in a similar way.27 It is interesting that it was an immigrant occupying this role at Rhodia, thus already representative of internationalism; it is not without precedent either, as the first figure DuPont employed to source international fabric trends, had emigrated from Russia.28

The origin story of Livio Rangan’s employment by Rhodia, details how he was involved in putting on ballet shows, and that it was in a quest for sponsorship for these events, that he met with Rhodia’s directors. M. Berthier, the textile department head, was taken with the designs Rangnan showed him, as was the head of advertising, leading to him being offered the role of advertising manager.29 As to whether Rangan was, as usually credited, the originator of Rhodia’s consumer marketing strategy, there are some possibilities to consider. These kinds of decisions within companies are rarely taken by one person and the strategy could have been developed through wider consensus. Equally, the plan could have been conceived by more senior management, with Rangan felt to be the right person to execute it. Alternatively, it could just be that what had impressed the directors about

24 For example, the ‘Brazilian Look’ campaign, first advertised in July 1963, is labelled ‘for Summer 1963/64’, to reflect that Summer would start in 1963 but last until approximately five months into 1964.

25 Testimony of Thomas Souto Corrêa, 2002, in Bonadio p.104.

26 Sant’Anna, p.129.

27 Blaszczyk, p.488.

28 Handley, p. 79-80. This was Alexis Sommaripa, in 1926.

29 Bonadio, p.10.

Rangan gave them confidence in his creativity and he was supported in pursuit of his own plan, as it is so often referred to in testimonies on the subject.30

What can be said with certainty is that the execution of Rhodia’s strategy lay sufficiently firmly with Rangan to confirm his close association with its conception. In terms of Rhodia’s fashion shoots, specifically, photographer Luis Carlos Autuori stated that, ‘We were all Livio's assistants. We did work (...) but it never had the stamp of our creation, if anyone says that, it's not true. He determined everything, for everyone, from scenery to costumes.’31

This is backed up by José Dalóia, one-time assistant to Autuori, and later the photographer for Rhodia/Standard, who confirms, ‘We were practically a pusher of buttons, because Livio directed everything’.32

This propensity towards control, does not mean that Rangan was inflexible in his thinking. Testimony from FENIT’s organiser demonstrates how he came around to participation at that event because he understood the power of the international fashion reputation it was rapidly developing. Initially, ‘Lívio was cold in receptivity, he thought he didn't need it’ but, witnessing the impact of the fair’s growing roster of overseas couturiers, ‘then, Livio got excited.’33 Neither did it mean that he was the only source of ideas. The rest of the team at Standard were well-connected and were the source of suggestions of potential creatives to contribute to the Rhodia project.34

Sant’Anna offers an unsubstantiated but common-sense description of the process of developing the showpieces for the ‘Selections’, starting with their ‘thematic definition.’ The choice of artists was then made ‘from personal knowledge’ and from among those with work that potentially ‘matched the theme developed in the collection.’35 The next stage involved a decision on the designers to work with the prints, which Sant’Anna

30 For example, Corrêa talks of the genius of ‘Livio’s idea’ in relation to the strategy. Testimony of Thomas Souto Corrêa, 2002, in Bonadio p.104.

31 Testimony of Luis Carlos Autuori, 2003, in Bonadio, p.114. Auturoi was first the assistant to Paolo Namorado, the Standard/Rhodia photographer who followed Otto Stupakoff.

32 Testimony of José Dalóia, 2003, in Bonadio, p.114.

33 Testimony of Caio de Alcântara Machado, 2003, in Bonadio, p.114.

34 An example was Licínio de Almeida’s recommendation of Sérgio Mendes to Livio Rangan, the pianist incorporated into 1963’s ‘Brazilian Look’ show, to apparent success for Rangan, for the show’s audience at the Spoleto Music Festival, Italy, and for the previously little-known Mendes. Testimony of Licínio de Almeida, 2003, Bonadio, p.227 suggests was made collectively36 - although as described by one of the contributing couturiers, Ugo Castellana, ‘it was he (Rangan) who decided, because he had a great knowledge’.37

35 Sant’Anna, p.143.

The key point that Sant’Anna makes as to the process, regards Rangan’s skill in enlisting professionals -including a range of sponsors - to enact its many constituent parts. The archive did not yield corporate records articulating the ‘producer’s intentions’ in the case of Livio Rangan and the Rhodia strategy. However, from the successful execution of the campaigns themselves it is apparent that a wide range of contributors worked to a clearly defined plan. Within that plan there was an understanding of the centrality of a version of ‘Frenchness’alongside ‘national’ aims. Both aspects are confirmed by the way they are mediated in the promotional campaigns, thus far considered with a focus on the former, with more analysis of the latter to follow in the next chapter.

Whether Rhodia’s being derived from a French brand played a direct part in the strategy is less clear. The evidence considered so far indicates this not to have been the case, and not to have been a priority of Livio Rangan, whose emphasis was on ‘Rhodia’ as a Brazilian national manufacturer. This is evident in the very act of the move towards ‘Rhodia’ for branding, and the de-emphasis of ‘Rhodiaceta’. The next section will consider whether Rhodia’s French origin was directly emphasised at all, and to what extent that may have been mediated through the advertising, with the possibility of impacting consumer perception.

2.3 French by Birth - Protecting the Pedigree of the Rhodiaceta Brand Family

When it came to advertising the individual Rhodia brands, Livio Rangan was not the sole authority, and an incident described by Rhodia’s Art Director, Licínio de Almeida, encapsulates the tensions between two different styles of presenting a brand’s identity. He refers to a commercial director at Rhodia who wanted him to make a focus of the ‘Rhodianyl’ brand logo (Fig.2.35). Licínio’s distaste is apparent in his description of the logo as ‘a horrible French brand, it looks like a black seal with Rhodianyl written in gold and a little crown’. For all that ‘it’s horrible’, however, ‘it’s a French brand, worldwide and you can’t mess with it’. These were opposing positions; the director who ‘wanted to publicise the brand through the brand’ while, ‘Livio wanted indirect publicity’.38

It also shows that, internally at least, there was a clear conception of the Rhodia brands as ‘French’. The understanding is confirmed by Livio Rangan’s assistant, Mario Gatti, who says of ‘Tergal’, Rhodiaceta’s polyester, that ‘it was a French brand…launched in Brazil’.39 In fact this was only half-right, as while the ‘black seal’ logo was the same internationally, the brand name for Rhodia’s nylon had been changed from the French version, the very geographically specific ‘Nylfrance’. 40

For the Tergal brand, Bonadio has presumed adaptations because in Brazil, ‘the label was made in green and yellow’.41 This is less clear-cut because the Tergal label does appear in that colour-way in the material of French Rhodiaceta.42 However, colours used with the French version vary while that of Tergal in Brazil appears to be consistently rendered in the national colours throughout the 1960s, confirming the supposition that the logo was oriented to the Brazilian market (Fig.2.36). Evidence from within French Rhodiaceta indicates that, notwithstanding local adaptations, an appreciation of the Tergal brand’s French origin was considered important by its producers, including in its potential to mediate fashionable ‘Frenchness’:

38 Testimony of Licínio de Almeida, 2003, in Bonadio, p.52-53. Revealingly, in this situation, Rangan suggested Almeida find a way of paying lip service to the commercial director’s request, without infringing on the brand’s intangible identity, a strategy that Almeida pulled off creatively, to everyone’s apparent satisfaction.

39 Testimony of Mário Gatti, 2003, in Bonadio, p.50.

40 ‘Méfiez Vous Des Contre-Façons: La Guerre Des Etiquettes’ [Beware Of Counterfeits: The Label War], Rhodiaceta, n.2, Summer, 1966, pp.19-23, Box BH2375, Archive of the Rhône-Poulenc Company, Besançon.

41 Bonadio, p.52.

42 Societé Rhodiaceta, 1960s, Box BH1852, Archive of the Rhône-Poulenc Company, Besançon.

The word Tergal was already well known in Brazil before propaganda campaigns were launched. As soon as a Brazilian on the street wants to talk about a fabric that contains polyester, he says Tergal, which proves that Rhodiaceta France propaganda is effective and that French fashion is appreciated there.43

In the advertisements introducing the Tergal label into Brazil, where the French origin was emphasised, equal stress was placed on the authority endowed on the Brazilian product to call itself ‘true’ Tergal. Mario Gatti describes some qualities of the authentic product, along with the imitation to which it was subject:

…what was Tergal? It was a fabric that you made, it was a pleat, a permanent pleat, it didn't need to be ironed, it had a competitor called Nycron…but Tergal was the original brand, what happened, many pirate confections entered the weaving space and simulated the original Tergal fabric.44

Concerns about counterfeiting, especially in export markets, are a preoccupation within the pages of French Rhodiaceta’s in-house magazine (Figs.2.37-2.38); an example article describes a quality control process that started with the testing of the fibre and ended with the final made-up garment.45 Accredited direct customersthe weaving mills - received woven brand labels for use on their fabric, in proportion to the amount of synthetic thread purchased from the fibre producer. Rhodiaceta then supplied cardboard swing tickets - again, proportionately - to their indirect customers - the clothing manufacturers. The article mentions the C.B.R.’s full subsidiary status as placing quality control within Rhodia’s remit, and a Brazilian source describes its ‘quality brands’ policy in identical terms. The source describes how the final test comes in an article’s ‘constant use’ by the consumer, who ‘benefiting from all the advantages provided by quality’, over time ‘ends up adopting a psychological attitude that translates into trust and loyalty to the brand.’46

43‘Companhia Brasileira Rhodiaceta’, Rhodiaceta, n.3, Autumn, 1962, pp.20-27, Box BH2375, Archive of the Rhône-Poulenc Company, Besançon.

44 Testimony of Mário Gatti, 2003, in Bonadio, p.50.

45 ‘Méfiez Vous Des Contre-Façons: La Guerre Des Etiquettes’ [Beware Of Counterfeits: The Label War], Rhodiaceta, n.2, Summer, 1966, pp.19-23, Box BH2375, Archive of the Rhône-Poulenc Company, Besançon.

46 1919/1969 - Rhodia -50 Anos Crescendo Com O Brasil [1919/1969 -Rhodia- 50 Years Growing As Brazil], Box BH2102, Archive of the Rhône-Poulenc Company, Besançon. A corporate publication celebrating fifty years of the brand in Brazil.

As well as the value that producers like Rhône-Poulenc47 put on the performance of their fibres overall, much faith was placed in the individual qualities of the different fibre types (Fig.2.39). It is oversimplifying to treat ‘synthetics’ as a blanket descriptor when, as O’Connor claims ‘understanding what cloth and clothing can tell us about our society as a whole’ is aided by considering ‘an even more basic form of materiality - the fibre of which cloth and clothes are made.’48 A close material reading of some of the main fibres marketed by Rhodia in Brazil will aid analysis of their consumption in the final section of this chapter.49 In considering the Brazilian target-market, it will be helpful to look also at the influence of developments in the marketing of ready-towear and synthetics in France in the 1960s, particularly as mediated to consumers of young French fashions.

47 This became the name of S.U.C.R.P. in 1961.

48 O’Connor, p.3.

49 Although the acrylic, ‘Crylor’ was introduced in Brazil in 1968, it is so close to the end of the time period of this study that it is not included in this analysis. Bonadio notes that its launch was accompanied by a vast advertising campaign, associating it with ‘softness’. Bonadio, p.55-57.

In article different brands, human figures are displayed as if hanging like the branded labels. There is a tension to the strings and, from the way these reach to the hands and feet of some figures, a sense of the humans in this image as puppets, perhaps reflective of the producer’s assumed ‘control’ of the consumer? If the strings were pulled too tight could that ‘control’ collapse and leave the operation ‘hanging by a thread’?...

‘Les Noms Des Familles De Nos Produits: Les Marques’ [The Family Names of Our Products: The Brands]. Rhodiaceta, Autumn, 1963.

2.4 French Ready-To-Wear and Synthetics in the 1960s - a Model for Mediation?

Notable about the couturiers with pieces in the Rhodia editorials of the early 1960s is how many of the names figure as early adopters of more accessible lines (‘prêt-à-porter des couturiers’). In part these were enabled by the inclusion of synthetics, as providing a lower-price point than fabrics from natural fibres. This was particularly important as through these lines they were engaging with ‘a more youthful audience’.50

Disrupting the linear narrative around ready-to-wear, Jacques Heim was a designer who had presented this within his ‘Actualités’ line of 1950, and was responsible for the ‘Prêt-à-Porter Création’ group in 1957. Heim had also been proactive in extending his geographic reach in the global south, establishing an atelier in Brazil in 1958.51 While much of his motivation for this physical presence was to clamp down on unauthorised copies of his work, he also promoted accessible fashion within Brazil52; use of synthetics within these meant that he was a key figure in Rhodia’s promotions from the start (Fig.2.40).

Pierre Cardin was another figure who worked with ready-to-war and synthetics substantially before he became known for his space age collections, and there is evidence of him collaborating with French Rhodiaceta (Fig.2.41) He was one of the main designers, according to Handley through whom couture found ‘a way of reinventing itself to fit into a rapidly evolving mass culture’.53 Within that evolving culture, particularly in Europe, challengers from outside the couture system were establishing themselves in fashion design. According to Handley, synthetics occupied a unique position in the 1960s, appreciated both by recent entrants into the clothing industry, and established couturiers alike, ‘modernising the image of the one’ while enabling ‘the fun, throwaway clothes of the other.’54

In terms of the latter, Handley is making particular reference to the British boutique movement. A counterpart to this could be found in France in the form of the ‘stylistes’. These were designers who created collections for

50 Hill, p.14 ollection Autumn-Winter 1960, Prét-à-Porter Creations from the great French couturiers, J.Heim, J. Griffe, M. De etc., these advertised in Rhodia fibres, like ‘Rhodianyl’, and in textures by ‘Ban-Lon’ and ‘Helanca’, Manchete, 02 May 1960.

51 Maria do Carmo Teixeira Rainho, ‘La maison Jacques Heim à Rio de Janeiro, 1958-1967: un cas d’internationalisation de la mode française’, translated from the Brazilian Portuguese by Larissa Fontes, Véronique Hébrard, [The House of Jacques Heim in Rio de Janeiro, 1958-1967: A Case of Internationalisation of French Fashion], Histoire, Europe et Relations Internationales, 1 (2022) 75-89, p.76.

52 Ibid., p.80.

53 Handley, p.88. In this, she pairs him with fellow ‘futurists’, Courrèges and Paco Rabanne.

54 Handley, p.78.

French boutiques and manufacturers’ lines but in ‘original styles, without a trace of conformism’, helping to move ready-to-wear away from the couture-copying reputation of ‘confection’. Prominent among the ‘stylistes’ were young female creatives – another commonality with the British scene55 Like the couturiers who embraced ‘futurism’ in the mid-1960s, the ‘stylistes’ were excited by the possibilities of the new synthetic materials (Fig.2.42). However, an embrace of the modern went beyond space-age silver and shiny plastics. Romano describes the ‘stylistes’ as ‘understanding the needs of the growing youth market, particularly in the way that they designed for lifestyles involving activity and action.’56 There were practical qualities in synthetics that made them ideal for incorporation into such designs and thus it is not surprising to find evidence of French Rhodiaceta’s collaboration with these designers during the 1960s (Fig.2.43).

That Livio Rangan was aware and appreciative of dynamic developments within the French commercial clothing industry is shown by the Rhodia editorials relating to this. In the 1964 editorial the Rhodia house-models are ‘jolie mam’zelles from Brazil’, presenting Brazilian ready-to-wear in modern French-influenced styles on the streets of the capital (Fig.2.44). The editorial from 1967 is dedicated to French ready-to-wear brands, including a youthful line from ‘Chloe’, another brand that was also associated with French Rhodiaceta57 (Fig.2.45). Both these shoots are from Joia, whose editor had studied journalism in Paris, and completed an internship there with Elle, ‘a publication he later used as an editorial model’.58 Magazines were essential in mediating Rhodia’s message to consumers, whose general is considered in the next section.

55 Romano, p.87. She gives particular attention to the three female ‘stylistes’, Emmanuelle Khanh, Christiane Bailly, and Michèle Rosier; as a male ‘styliste’ Daniel Hechter is also mentioned, as also in Hill, p.14.

56 Romano, p.85-87.

57 Handley, p.95, photograph of a Chloé dress with associated Tergal branding, from Vogue, mid-1960s.

58 Bonadio, p.167, footnote 367.

Fig. 2.43 Active-wear by Michèle Rosier for ‘V de V’, in Nylfrance dated to pre-1968 by copyright information on reverse. Similar images are found for Daniel Hechter but within childrenswear. Other 1960s fashion photos in this folder include J. Heim, Carven and M. de Rauch, all of whom showed early engagement with ready-to-wear and all of whom are cited as producing pieces alongside 1960s’s ‘Coffeee Collection‘, Photos de la Mode, Applications Textils’ [Fashion Photographs, Textile Usage], 1958-1974.

2.5 Qualities of Synthetic Fibres and the New Brazilian Consumer

The conditions for ready-to-wear clothing - and concomitantly synthetics - to flourish in 1960s Brazil, were born out of rapid changes seen as having started in line with the presidency of Juscelino Kubitschek in 1956. Key among the ‘evolutions in social life’ that commentators describe as altering consumer behaviour, were ‘internal migration and urbanisation’.59 The latter would happen so rapidly it may explain why in 1954 Du Pont still ‘considered the Brazilian market negligible’, enabling Rhodia’s domination of the synthetics market. 60

Transformations in industry at the time saw the clothing sector gain scope for ‘mass production oriented to popular consumption’. This modernization program allowed for more sophisticated products, as new consumption habits evolved at pace. Mila Zieger, whose parents founded the ‘PullSport’ clothing brand - a Rhodia customer - notes that from the business's inception in 1945, it was only in the mid-1950s that sales snowballed, ‘a period in which the clothing industry approached Parisian know-how.’61 In tandem with this type of industrial production, synthetic fibre producers enabled fabrics at appealing price-points, making clothing ‘more accessible to the average person, allowing Brazilians’ wardrobes to expand’ and causing a ‘revolution in clothing’.62

According to Bonadio, the goal of Rhodia’s marketing was to win over the ‘most demanding sector’- the female consumer. This meant competing with both ‘fine imported materials’ and also ‘Brazilian materials made of natural fibres’ 63. However, during the 1960s the natural fibre industry experienced a crisis, as we will see in the next chapter. This precipitated the trade industry magazine, Visão to issue a report in 1966 seeking a policy to overcome the crisis, which had the subtitle ‘In this crisis the dictator is the woman’. The Visão report determined that the desires of the female end-consumer were unpredictable, ‘beyond the limits of reason and logic’.

59 Bonadio, (2009), p. 1, p. 1-2; De Mello and Novais, 2000, in Bonadio 1, p. 1-2

60 Brazil's urbanisation process was one of the fastest in the world: Ridenti, 2005, in Sant’Anna, p.144, footnote 130.

61 Bonadio, p.70.

62 Bonadio, (2009), p. 1, p. 1-2; De Mello and Novais, 2000, in Bonadio 1, p. 1-2

63 José Carlos Durand, 1985, in Bonadio 1, p. 2

One female textile preference the report stated with some certainty was that for ‘national patterns and tonalities 64 This seems to support the route that Livio Rangan had already been taking since 1960’s ‘Coffee Collection’. Proposed solutions included tools like market research, and trend forecasting that already ‘had appeared in France in the 1960s’.65 It was suggested that for these to be effective greater coordination was required between the textile and clothing industry – a competence that, within synthetic textiles, the Rhodia team had long-since established.

Bonadio notes that ‘womens’ entry into the labour market increased family incomes and therefore also helped to boost the market for ready-to-wear clothes.’66 This suggested positive ramifications for female family purchasing power, and Rhodia also produced campaigns for menswear and childrenswear. However, it wasn’t only married women with increased disposable income, with young single women being the most likely to join the work-force.67 Certain jobs would require a ‘professional’ wardrobe, that might previously have been created through home-sewing. As this would create a time cost on top of working hours, a dressmaker was another alternative. If the price differential with the new ready-to-wear wasn’t significant, the convenience of the latter could prove more appealing. The new speed of the purchase process - ‘choosing the fabric, the model, the size and even taking it on the spot’ – is cited by the owner of ‘General Modas’, another Rhodia-supplied clothing company.68

That is not to say that custom sewing ceased to dominate the clothing market overnight. It was not until the 1980s that ‘the number of ready-to-wear clothes exceeded the number of pieces made at home or by dressmakers.’69 It is beyond the scope of this study to establish fully whether dressmaking was a section of the market that Rhodia continued to target in the 1960s, as within the prior decade. If the comparator rationale is applied this seems likely as it was a DuPont strategy.70 Some magazine spreads promoting solely the fabrics are

64 ‘Brazilian Textile Industry. In this crisis the dictator is the woman’, Visão, 1966, in Bonadio, p. 71.

65 Bonadio, p. 36-37 seen (Fig.2.46). However, the fact that such a large proportion of Rhodia’s advertising was placed in Claudia avoided including sewing patterns, suggesting that this was not Livio Rangan’s primary market.71

66 Bonadio 1, p. 1, p.8, footnote 5.

67 ‘Companhia Brasileira Rhodiaceta’, Rhodiaceta, n.3, Autumn, 1962, pp.20-27, p.22, Box BH2375, Archive of the Rhône-Poulenc Company, Besançon.

68 Bonadio, p.70.

69 Alice Rangel de Pavia Abreu, 1986, in Bonadio (2009), p.1-2, footnote 5.

70 Handley, p.122.

While in the early years of the Rhodia ‘Selections’ the brand jointly – and financially -endorsed advertisements for the weaving mills, as soon as Brazil’s ready-to-wear industry had attained scale, the emphasis changed toward manufacturers like ‘Pull-Sport’ and ‘General Modas’. Increasingly the advertising for these brands took on a youthful character, approaching the kind of dynamism that Romano describes as appearing within youthoriented magazines in France (Fig.2.47).

That synthetics allowed for more unrestricted movement was one part of their appeal on a practical level. However, beyond a useful presence in swimwear, there is still a question of their appeal in a tropical climate, nylon in particular being a fibre that ‘seals in perspiration’.72 Two qualities that might be felt to counter this for Rhodianyl consumers, were the fibre’s drying capacity, and its light-weightness. The first offers a benefit in line with the efficient purchase process for ready-to-wear - that of saving time. Nylon could drip-dry quickly, without wrinkling or needing ironing. As to the importance of ‘lightness’ Sant’Anna suggests this as a feature of Rhodia’s appeal:

The collections were clearly for the tropical climate, that is, no overloaded compositions or in fabrics that resembled winter; lightness, fluidity, amplitude, movement and joviality were keynotes of Rhodia's clothing production".73 endorsed Advertisement for the ‘Pull-Sport’ manufacturer, with models posed on a car. In her work on French Elle magazine, Romano notes the frequency of bicycles and cars and that ‘driving served as a paradigm to illustrate the action and freedom that this new ready-to-wear‘(p.84) Manchete, 14 October 1961.

71 Bonadio, p.110.

72 Handley, p.59.

73 Sant’Anna, p. 114.

However, her enquiry is necessarily limited through its relation only to the ‘show-piece’ collections; it benefits analysis to look at what was actually purchasable by the consumer. Rhodia’s ready-to-wear editorial very much showed winter styles and fabrics, although often explaining how the blend or process of a particular weaving mill made these ‘lighter’. Within the more formal style of the early 1960s, there were numerous suits presented, perhaps also related to recent needs for ‘professional’ clothing. (Fig.2.48)

The fibre that became most popular, polyester, was used in knitted fabrics that could be relatively weighty. Its prime selling point in the US was the convenience of its ‘wash and wear’ qualities, its success there synchronous with rising sales of washing machines.74 Polyester’s ascendancy has thus been related to a post-war fading out of domestic service in the global north. However, with the low cost of domestic labour in Brazil, for a proportion of the middle class, hiring a maid to do hand-washing may have remained more economical than buying a machine. The higher strata of this socio-economic group would have been able to afford both a machine and the hired help to operate it. If such middle-class women weren’t doing their own laundry, would the easy-care qualities of synthetics have been the key to their appeal? To address this question with polyester, it is the less tangible qualities of the fibre that will be considered.

A key selling-point of polyester was its permanent-press aspect. In his testimony on Tergal’s appeal to counterfeiters, Mario Gatti goes on to describe the reality of pleated items in a warm temperature:

The only thing is to make a pleated skirt properly, you have, size 42 has to have so much circumference to avoid that when you sit down, the heat of your body, let's say watching a two-hour movie at the cinema , when you get up, if you don't have the volume, the sufficient extension of circumference, you spoil it, and end up making the skirt,...(so that)…standing up is fine, but when you sit down and stand up this part here it was misshapen. But people sold it as Tergal…not true.75

74 Handley, p. 59

75 Testimony of Mário Gatti, 2003, in Bonadio, p.50.

The significance of the permanent pleat (Fig.2.49) is confirmed by Costanza Pascolato, an influential Brazilian entrepreneur and fashion consultant.76 In an interview, while declaring her preference for more climate-suitable natural fibres, during an interview, admitted that in her first collection she used Tergal to create ‘a very short miniskirt, all pleated, it looked like a lampshade, of those Englishmen from the 18th century.’77 Her reference to a previous fashion era in Brazil, provides neat context for consideration of the pleat’s appeal as relating to longstanding centre-periphery dynamics. Described is an example of a feature emanating from the global north - the permanent pleat - deemed ‘fashion’ in Brazil, and thus requiring the heat-vanquishing properties that only true Tergal could provide.

77 Ibid.

An intangible benefit to wearing ‘Rhodia’, then, was the sensation of feeling ‘modern’. Not of feeling ‘French’, per se, rather, of experiencing the fashionability that was associated with France. The contribution of industrially-produced fibres towards their consumers’ perception of being part of a modern Brazil, and a modern generation, is best summed up by Gloria Kalil, another famous figure within Brazilian fashion, recalling the experience of wearing Rhodia-based synthetics:

‘...whoever was dressed, even if impeccably, by the family seamstress, felt inferior in relation to those little Helanca suits, to the Ban-Lon blouses, to the industrial finishing, to the flat buttons, the overlocking’.78

Chapter Three

3.1 Modern Industrial Production and ‘National Fashion’

The association of industrial production with ‘modernity’, is one that Bonadio identifies as a key aspect of Rhodia’s success. In the period building up to the company’s ‘Selections’ project, the country experienced the ‘installation of more technologically advanced sectors’ resulting in the kind of ‘economic transformations’ that consolidated its modern consumer society.1 Juscelino Kubitschek was Brazil’s president through the second half of the 1950s, a period in which there is much historical consensus that the State was an active agent of the structural transformation seen in the country’s economy. The Kubitschek government had a ‘Target Plan’ underpinning these changes. This included the ambition to increase national production through foreign investment, of the kind channelled into the country by multinationals like Rhône Poulenc.2

Acting as a national symbol of this progress was the newly-created capital of Brasilia (Fig.3.1.). Inaugurated in 1960 this beacon of modernity was the result of Kubitschek’s plan to create a more central power-base within the country, generating jobs in the process. Although the presidency of ‘JK’ only lasted till 1961, the cycle of economic expansion continued until 1964 3 With the military coup came a shock of economic contraction, although with the military governments, the same economic path ‘was taken up and deepened as an economic model and ideology of development’. The promotional campaigns of the Rhodia ‘Selections’ continued accordingly. FENIT, the National Textile Fair that had been set up in 1958 was also firmly in line with continued nationalist aims (Fig.3.2).4

Within the textile industry the producers of synthetics were in the best position to weather economic fallout from political turbulence during this era. Theirs represented one of the ‘technologically advanced sectors’, whereas the traditional textile industry, one of the country’s oldest sectors, was hampered by increasingly obsolescent equipment, compounded by a lack of stable capital to invest. From 1955-1970, the production of man-made fibres grew by 211.5% in comparison to the 24.2% for cotton yarn in the same period.5

1 Bonadio, p.19.

2 Ibid., p.19.

3 Ibid., p.20.

4 Ibid., p.104.

5 Ibid., p.83.

Although at the time that FENIT began, the association between natural fibres and the ‘national’ was quite strong, by 1966, 90% of the stands at FENIT would exhibit synthetic fabrics.6

Synthetics were the textile product that was on a confident trajectory. The pattern of naming the Rhodia collections that was introduced in 1963 is analysed by Bonadio in the light of the decision to use English, the ‘official language of capitalism’. She considers the descriptors that are prefixed by the word ‘Brazilian’; these are ‘Nature’, ‘Look’, ‘Style’, ‘Primitive’, ‘Fashion Team’ and ‘Fashion Follies’, respectively until 1967. Her conclusion is that they are all elements – such as football, in ‘Brazilian Fashion Team’, or festivities, in ‘Brazilian Fashion Follies’ – closely linked with national identity, that through use of the English words also ‘give the product the character of export’.7 However, Bonadio views this tactic, as with the tours and the associations with airline companies, as less about actual commercial export, than ‘the propagation of the idea that fashion production would help to make the country become ‘an equal among the group of civilised nations’.8

Neira characterises the earlier calls for a ‘Brazilian fashion’ as having been ‘more an action aimed at the economic protection of the sector than a plea for the right to national expressiveness through clothing.’9 While similar industrial drivers clearly still featured, the 1960s were ‘a time of socio-cultural upheaval’ so intense as to create `an urgent need to reflect on the question of identity’.10 At the heart of this, according to Guedes, ‘the actions promoted by Rhodia in the direction of creating a national fashion built with signs of Brazilianness, had a positive impact on the sphere of fashion, art and culture in Brazil.’11 An examination of this aspect of the Rhodia project will be the subject of the following sections, in the context of a continuing dialogue with France and other countries.

6 Ibid., p.116; p.125.

7 Ibid., p.159.

8 Marilena Chauí, in Bonadio, (2009), p.3.

9 Neira, https://doi.org/10.11606/issn.1808-0820.cali.2008.68123

10 Sant’Anna, p.155.

11 Guedes, p.29.

3.2 ‘National Fashion’? The Art of ‘Brazilianess’

Noteworthy about Rhodia’s output under Rangan, is that beyond the prints on the items, the advertising frequently layered on extra associations with art. In 1960 there was a shoot in the Louvre for the ‘Coffee Collection’ (Fig.3.3). The following year the in-house models were posing amongst the very modern art of the São Paulo Biennale for a Dener shoot (Fig.3.4). From the early 1950s, the São Paulo Biennale had become significant for the artists then working in Brazil – both as a source of information and for engaging in a dialogue with the international art scene.12 A commonality among the diverse artists who created Rhodia prints was that their names ‘figured among the participants of biennials and award winners both on the national and international scene.’13 This is noted by Guedes and Sant’Anna although it must be reiterated that both their studies consider only the artists whose work appears in the Rhodia collection of the MASP.14

Given the increasing dissemination of an understanding of the Rhodia prints as ‘representative of Brazilianness’, Guedes seeks to provide a rationale for the non-Brazilian nationality of several of the artists; she concludes that, ‘all of them developed their work within the artistic context of Brazil at that time’.15 That artistic context in the 1960s was a complex one. The figurative scheme of the modernism of the first half of the twentieth century was in tension with the abstract trends that emerged in the wake of the Second World War.16 In order to analyse the Rhodia collection, Sant’Anna defines three groups from within that complexity into which the prints could be deemed to fit; those of concrete (geometric) abstraction, those of lyrical abstraction, and those that are figurative.

Sant’Anna also points out that the commission of artists to make prints for textiles is far from a new concept, in the history of interaction between fashion and art. She cites the early twentieth-century French example of Raoul Dufy’s work in Poiret’s fashion designs as exemplifying a demand from the textile market to break with ‘the dictates of tradition in textile printing and design’.17

12 Sant’Anna p.143

13 Guedes, p.27; p.50.

14 An analysis of all the artists included in Rhodia’s ‘Selections’ could be a useful line of enquiry for further study.

15 Guedes, p.52.

16 Ibid., p.48.

17 Sant’Anna, p.162; this was for the French textile company Bianchini Férrier in the 1910s.

In the first analysis, while the abstract geometrics of concrete art would seem the best match for new industrial printing techniques, ‘in a superficial interpretation’, they’re the least suited to fit the brief of ‘Brazilianness’.18

After all, line, plane, and colour are what is concrete in a painting, denying the figurative , but internationally legible.19 Sant’Anna’s explanation is that geometric abstraction, as something considered modern, and with industrially-related technical precepts, acts as ‘a metaphor for the attempt to change Brazil from an agrarian country to an industrial one; from an underdeveloped country into a progressive one.’ Resisted initially, from the 1950s onwards, the ‘visual and ideological discourse behind the concrete manifestations came to meet the maxims and aspirations of a significant proportion of Brazilian artists.’20

Through the relationship of geometric art to industrial design, Sant’Anna notes that, indeed, ‘visually and ideologically’, many concrete artists straddled the ‘porous’ border with that activity. Hércules Barsotti and Willys de Castro were artists in 1960s Brazil who had a long graphic design experience behind them, having founded the Graphic Projects Studio, where both worked from 1954 until 1964. Their projects included making designs for fabric patterns. Barsotti was used to the technique of this form, having been making prints for his family’s weaving mill since the 1940s.

Barsotti’s work elicits a further connection with French fashion, this time firmly within the 1960s. Concretism had a close relationship with Op-Art and within the Rhodia collection, his output approached this genre most closely (Figs.3.5-3.10). Sant’Anna notes the ‘invasion’, from 1965, of French fashion magazines with this form of abstraction and its popularity among the group ‘loosely designated as futurist’.21 During the reign of natural fibres in Brazilian fashion, according to Bonadio, fabric prints were heavy and had ‘little dialogue with the standards adopted by Parisian fashion and the arts’.22 However, thanks in part to Rhodia and the introduction of synthetics, fabric printing techniques improved dramatically such that an ‘excess of small flowers is replaced by predominantly geometric patterns, which dialogue directly with the new productions of Parisian fashion’.23

18 Guedes, p.51.

19 Sant’Anna, p.202.

20 Sant’Anna, p.202-203.

21 Ibid., 196.

22 Bonadio, p.43.

23 Bonadio, p.84.

Artist: Hércules Barsotti.

Designer: Unknown

Year: 1966

MASP Collection

Artist: Hércules

Designer: Unknown

Year: 1965

MASP Collection

Source: Guedes

By the end of the 1950s, reflecting a not dissimilar trajectory in fashion, a new art ‘centre’ had joined Paris and London – New York.24 Within a rapidly industrialising Brazil, it wasn’t surprising that forms of concretism had been pervasive to the point of dominance. Less obviously industrially useful was the informal abstract production – or lyrical abstraction – then emanating from North America.25 Sant’Anna notes that the Brazilian art critic Mário Pedrosa ‘criticised informal art production because he did not identify in it a commitment to industrialisation and the development of the country.’26 Despite the discourse on the apparent inappropriateness of this form of painting to the industrial universe, she points out several dresses in the Rhodia collection with prints in this style.27

Often the artists pursuing lyrical abstraction were those from Japan who had settled in Brazil. According to the art critic, Milliet, the gestural style was suited to the Japanese immigrants, ‘who from their ancestral culture take advantage of the subtle discipline of the stroke and formal concision to create works of impact.’28 Manabu

Mabe (Figs.3.11-3.14) was one of the artists with the most prestigious credentials with which, ‘to endorse the quality of the national product’, having won the prize for best Brazilian painter at the 1959’s ‘5th São Paulo

International Biennial’. The association of his name also brought with it international affirmation; he’d been published in Time magazine and received awards at international Biennials.29

Another significant development in Brazil’s art scene in this period, was a break with traditional precepts around artistic mediums, and with ‘the notion of thinking of the manifestation/object of art as painting or sculpture.’30

24 Sant’Anna, p.215.

25 Ibid., p.213.

26 Ibid., p.214.

27 Sant’Anna, p.216, footnote 181.

28 Maria Alice Milliet, 2000, in Guedes, p.52.

29 Sant’Anna, p.216. Mabe’s international awards were at 1st Paris Biennial, 1959, and the 30th Venice Biennial, 1960.

30 Sant’Anna, p.100-101.

Artist:

Designer: Dener

Year: 1966

MASP Collection

Source: Guedes

In the work of Genaro da Carvalho (Figs.3.15-3.23), tapestry became his dedicated medium at a time when there was no tradition of this within art in Brazil. Carvalho elevated this form, ‘consecrating him as a tapestry artist internationally’.31 His work fit naturally with textile printing, a synchronicity that was not noticed only by Rhodia - Sant’Anna cites his prints for the Deodoro textile company.32 (Fig.3.24)

Carvalho came from Salvador, in the Northeast region of Bahia. During the early 1960s, an important aspect of the ‘national valorisation process’ had been the ‘the regionalist valorisation movement’, which had led to ‘a change in the focus of the Rio de Janeiro and São Paulo axis, bringing to light the production of artists from other regions of the country, such as the Northeast’.33 This aspect seems to confirm the direction of Brazil’s art world as in line with the ethos of Livio Rangan and the Rhodia project; it represented a parallel dual process ‘that on the one hand sought the approximation of international artistic trends’, while also ‘not neglecting specifically national languages.’ A vital part of conceptualising the ‘national’ was also to understand it through a ‘regional’ lens, thus ‘the participation of artists from various places in Brazil was fundamental for the success of the endeavour.’34

The artists from the Northeast whose designs appear in the Rhodia collection all practice figurativism. This contrasts with abstraction, particularly concretism, which was ‘international’, even if Sant’ Anna has demonstrated its practice within Brazil to be allied to national aims. A return of the figurative in the face of the dominance of abstraction, was another trend in art in 1960s Brazil. This kind of work – which was often inspired by the mass media - was potentially easier to read as ‘national’. This is attested to by Aldemir Martins, a figurative artist from the Ceará region, and the most frequent contributor to the Rhodia collections: ‘Livio…brought together artists from all over Brazil, from Pernambuco, from Bahia, from Pará, everyone participated in this. I was lucky to be more accessible to reading, because I lived on the street and the street taught me what people like… And Livio used me, Lívio Abramo and Carybé because it is an easier reading’.35

31 Simone Trindade Vicente da Silva, 2003 in Guedes, p. 112.

32 Sant’Anna, p.154.

33 Guedes, p. 50.

34 Ibid, p. 50.

35 Annateresa Fabris, 2001, in Bonadio, p. 208.

Designer: Unknown

Year: 1965

MASP Collection

Artist:

Designer: Unknown

Designer: Unknown

Year: 1965

MASP Collection

Artist:

Designer:

Year: 1965

MASP Collection

Martins’s ‘football’ dresses for 1966’s ‘Brazilian Team’ promotion are some of the most obvious examples of a popular national reference. (See Figs.3.25-3.28). Sant’Anna states that in its evolved form, figurative art often possessed an apparent neutrality. Something may seem ‘obvious’ in the use of a football motif, tied-in with a promotion for a brand associating itself with the euphoria of global sporting event - are these ‘novelty’ prints? aspect. Sant’ Anna herself suggests that the clothing industry’s co-option of artists had, within its long history, been a means of ‘imbuing industrial products with some novelty’.36

However, Sant’Anna claims that figurative work, such as Pop Art, was often critical of the country’s reality.37 Already subject to censorship in the 1960s, artists faced ‘ethical-aesthetic dilemmas’ around entering the system of the cultural industry or producing ‘for and in the marginal system.’ She sees in Pop Art’s aims of reconnecting ‘high culture with mass culture’, the necessity of establishing ‘the outlet for their production’38 . In this way, she finds justification as to why politically engaged artists of the 1960s would have wished to engage with mainstream production, as in the form of the Rhodia ‘Selections’. Aldemir Martins is not defined as a Pop Artist, but did dialogue with the genre, as in the print on this two-piece and the optical play with its guinea fowl design (Figs.3.29-3.31). He was known for representing these typical birds, along with ‘cacti and cangaceiros’, the latter translating approximately as ‘bandit’. 39 Martins is described as unrivalled in ‘being able to interpret Brazilianness’ through his ‘knowledge of the emotional entrails of the country.’ This is achieved through his ‘portrayal of the landscape and the man of the Northeast’40, the latter represented by the ‘bandit’, Lampião. (Figs.3.32-3.35). Fittingly, in seeking examples that reverse the trend from the ‘centre’ to the ‘periphery’ Guimãraes identifies Lampião’s gang as one of those ‘groups from the popular strata of Brazilian society’ that succeeded in ‘creating visual representations through dress and accessories’ which ‘became assimilated as images representing the national identity.’ (Figs.3.36-3.37)

36 Sant’Anna, p.107.

37 Sant’Anna, p.101

38 M.L. Bueno, 1999, in Sant’Anna, p.220

39 Sant’Anna, p.107.

40 Klintowitz, 1989, in Guedes, p.50

Artist:

Designer: Jorge Farré

Year: 1966

MASP Collection

Source:

Artist: Aldemir Martins.

Designer: Alceu Penna.

Year: 1965

MASP Collection

Source: Guedes

Artist: Aldemir Martins

Designer: Unknown

Year: 1964

MASP Collection

3.3 ‘National Fashion’? Designers and Dress Styles

For the prints produced for Rhodia to become ‘wearable art’ or vice versa, the fabrics were transformed into clothing designs ‘by those who were then the great names in Brazilian couture’.41 Given the haute couture orientation of the early collections, with its validating association for synthetic fabrics, it’s unsurprising that many of the Brazilian designers are known to have had training in the style of the French ateliers. José Nunes had worked at Givenchy in Paris, before joining the team of Casa Vogue in Sao Paulo.42 The skills of Dener and José Ronaldo had been honed making authorised copies of French couture, in the vein of Casa Canadá.43 Guilherme Guimaraes had created prêt-à-porter models for Lanvin in Paris.44 In early promotions juxtaposing French and Brazilian couture designs, there is no obvious visual difference between them (See Fig.2.4). What is strategically ‘national’ is the placement of the Brazilian couturiers ‘as equals, collaborating to generate this feeling that Brazil, in terms of fashion, was heading for a similar development’(Fig.3.38).45

Another aspect of this strategy was Rangan’s endorsement of the designers as personalities. In a Rhodia shoot where references surrounding Dener present him as a hybrid of Dior and Saint Laurent (Figs.3.39-3.41), he is one of many well-known individuals from the cultural world appearing in the editorial. The personalities are from a diverse range of backgrounds from sport to the arts, but the designer is as much a ‘national figure’ as the rest.46

The high amount of couture productions in the first five years of Rhodia’s collections can be clearly seen in magazines at the time (Fig.3.42). Analyses of the MASP collection archive have shown that such pieces were not privileged for the museum’s holdings.47 In terms of couture beading, the item with a print by Manabu Mabe, authored by Dener (See Fig.3.13), is probably the only one of this type. The extent to which early Rhodia editorial depicted haute couture items, emphasises how small a proportion of the ‘Rhodia Selections’ is actually represented through the collection of solely artist-printed items at MASP. The orientation of the collection can give the impression of the entirety of the Rhodia output as equally youthfully vibrant.

41 Bonadio, p.138.

42 Guedes, p.136.

43 Sant’Anna, p.95.

44 Adeling Copper, ‘Quando A Moda E Arte’, Jóia, 01 May 1963, p.38.

45 Sant’Anna, p.157.

46 Manchete, 29 April 1961, p.

47 Guedes p. 45, building on research in Bonadio, p.206.

This encourages extrapolation such as Sant’Anna’s statement that, ‘Rhodia’s design strategy was based on ‘bold garments, with aggressive cuts, impactful prints’.48It is easier to state this when the MASP collection is the main basis for supposition. In reality there were many items in plain colours produced for Rhodia by the couturiers and far more items of greater plain-ness produced by the industrial clothing manufacturers. However, following the extrapolation principle and allowing the museum collection to function as a distillation to the essence of Rhodia can also be useful; for Guedes it enabled a detailed analysis of the design of the pieces in terms of their interaction with the prints. Guedes questions the much-feted ‘collaboration’ aspect of the Rhodia collections, referencing the testimony from Ugo Castellana that described the fabrics as already printed when they reached the designers.49 However, she concludes that neither the aesthetic value of the pieces, nor the exercise of creation on the part of those who constructed them is diminished by this.50

Guedes proposes examples of items where the construction has enhanced the print, such as the Aldemir Martins piece signed by Júlio Camarero (Figs.3.43-3.44). She notes that its creator has perfectly positioned the print so that the main compositional elements are in the centre of the piece. In addition, the designer has been able to place the print on the edge of the sleeves, by choosing to create a ‘kimono’ style tunic.51 In the long dress by Alceu Penna with print by Hercules Barsotti, (Figs.3.45-3.47) it is the layered construction on which the print is fitted that creates a sense of continuity and of expansion from the bodice’s centre-point. She recognises that the overlapping of the layers gives Barsotti’s geometric abstract print, ‘a visual aspect of Op-Art’.52

As with Op-Art, the art and fashion context of 1960s Paris allows for another relation to be drawn with the dress designs in the Rhodia collection. Sant’Anna refers to Yves Saint Laurent’s 1965 ‘Mondrian’ prints and how the art was supported by the simple shift dress forms.53 With the Rhodia project, the designers didn’t choose the iconography they worked with, but they were responsible for iterating the form that best advantaged it.54

48 Sant’Anna, p.126.

49 Ref. Chapter Two, Section Two.

50 Guedes, p.63-64.

51 Ibid., p.64.

52 Ibid., p.65.

53 Sant’Anna, p.85.

54 Ibid.

Stylist:

Year: 1966

MASP Collection

This independence in design is far from the slavish copying of French couture pieces, and it is perhaps in assisting the divergence from this mode that the ‘Rhodia Selections’ contributed to Brazilian fashion design. Forms may have remained ‘European’ but influences from the mid-1960s were more varied and less top-down, in line with the international effect of ready-to-wear. Sant’Anna notes the influence of currents from within Italy and England, where ‘trickle-up’ designs were influencing industrially produced fashion, often in synthetics.55 Influences from Paris also came from the non-hegemonic ready-to-wear of designers in the ‘styliste’ mould. Another lodestar was the evolved version of couture that now offered youthful ready-to-wear lines.

In Rhodia’s shoots, a constructed ‘Brazilian’ scenography often clashed with the fashion-focus of the clothing styles in a way that to Bonadio typifies the aims of the project, the role of the pieces being to represent Brazilian engagement with the rapid international fashion cycle.56 In the ‘Brazilian Primitive’ shoot of 1965, the items given the fashion shorthand ‘Courrèges’ stand out from their rustic surroundings (Fig.3.48). More in tune with the editorial themes is the dress with a print by Bahia based artist, Carybé (Figs.3.49-3.50), displaying his ‘simple, almost archaeological lines’.57

The dress is a good example of the evolution in the constituent parts of Rhodia’s main yearly fashion collections. Bonadio points out that at this point the responsibility for design fell to Alceu Penna.58 It would remain predominantly this way, albeit with some external designer contribution in 1966 and 1968. With ‘Brazilian Primitive’, the artists’ prints were finally used in pieces by the ready-to-wear manufacturers. Thus, the Aldemir Martins print two-piece (See Fig.3.31) is presumably designed by Penna, but in Jóia magazine, it reflects the label of the ‘Pull-Sport’ manufacturer.59 The design of the Carybé print dress in the MASP collection is attributed to ‘Sonia Coutinho’. However, this is a brand name that comes up frequently in earlier ready-to-wear editorial that consists only of pieces by manufacturers.60 The design should presumably be ascribed, rather, to Alceu Penna.

55 Sant’Anna, p.74.

56 Bonadio, p.93

57 Guedes, p.57.

58 Bonadio, p.85.

59 Jóia, 01 September 1965, p.03.

60 An example editorial with ‘Sonia Coutinho’ pieces, in Jóia, 01 April 1964, p.02.

Artist: Carybé.

Designer: Sonia Coutinho.

Year: 1965

MASP Collection

The latter is interesting to consider in concluding this section on ‘Brazilian-ness’ in the actual clothing design of the Rhodia ‘Selections’, as he had already been involved with the aim of creating a national fashion iconography, in his costume work with Carmen Miranda. For Rhodia, even Dener, the most European of couturiers had ‘created a dress inspired by Bahian women's clothing and used lace from Ceará’ to compose the pieces of 1962’s ‘Brazilian Nature’ collection.’61 Whether such activities were steps taken on the way to a ‘Brazilian fashion’ or merely the repurposing of stereotypes, remains a subject for debate. However, this reality disputes a characterisation of Dener’s work as ‘having made no reference to Brazilian culture’.62

61 Bonadio, 2016, in Guedes, p.136.

62 Brandini, Valeriana, ‘Fashion Brazil: South American style, culture, and industry’ in The Fabric of Cultures ed. by Eugenia Paulicelli and Hazel Clark (eds), (Routledge, 2009), p.165.

3.4 ‘National Fashion’? Brazil on the Page

The trips abroad and editorial from overseas locations was clearly a lynchpin of the Rhodia strategy for establishing many of its brand values. Paris was significant, and acted as a ‘fashion’ shorthand, although Rangan was interested in conveying ‘internationalism’ generally. The Rhodia tours presented an outwardfacing Brazil, codified in the obligatory ‘aeroplane shot’ of the early campaigns. Bonadio analyses Rhodia’s first such image, (See Fig.2.3) that depicts the models taking firm steps in front of the Air France jet that they will soon board. The image is suggestive to the reader of confident movement towards the future. Bonadio’s reading is that the actual sentiment mediated, characteristic of much advertising in this period, was ‘the feeling of Brazilians (...) that we were missing a few steps to become a modern nation’.63 If requisite confidence for the modern Brazilian consumer proved elusive, a more reassuring experience could be to turn to ‘Brazil on the page’.

In the Rhodia editorials the Brazilian landscape is frequently explored, often the coastal regions but also ‘other natural spaces, such as the sertão, the pampas and the forests.’ In her reference to this, Bonadio notes the association with paradise that ‘permeates Rhodia's advertising campaigns’. She posits this as ‘the most traditional and enduring factor of identification of individuals with the country.’64 This assertion isn’t solely observation, she cites a research article, recent to the time of her writing. ‘The Edenic Motif in the Brazilian Social Imagination’ (1998). The author found that ‘the landscape, the greenery, the waterfalls, the seafront, the mineral riches, are pointed out by Brazilians as the main factor of nationalism’.65

According to Bonadio, Rhodia’s landscape-based editorial in the pages of the first magazines to host their promotions, represents an extension of the publications’ own identities. O Cruzeiro and Manchete, belonged to a ‘second generation of Brazilian magazines’ characterised by the publication of large illustrated reports showing ‘the country's natural riches, the exploration of the Amazon, the large farms’, although also ‘the new industries’.66 Bonadio thus considers these aspects of the magazines – and of the Rhodia shoots containing elements that can be similarly ‘considered indicative of a self-affirmation of national identity’ - as being in line with government aims of ‘developmentalism.’

63 João Manuel Cardoso De Mello and Fernando Novais, in Bonadio, p.156.

64 Bonadio, p.245.

65 José Murilo de Carvalho, 1998, in Bonadio, p.245, footnote 538.

66 André Seguin Des Hons, 1985, in Bonadio, p.152.

In terms of the association with industrial ‘progress’ also favoured by the magazines, Livio Rangan appears to have generally preferred to let this aspect be represented by the clothing itself. The choice of Brasilia as a location seems to have been the main association made with modern construction, and following the first shoot (See Fig.1.16) this was repeated at least twice (Fig.3.51. See Fig.3.1). The image depicting Brasilia’s architect Oscar Niemeyer alongside the Rhodia models is from a Manchete shoot that indicates another way in which Rangan put Brazil – and his brand‘on the page’. This is the same editorial that portrayed the artist Manabu Mabe and the couturier, Dener (See Figs.3.11,3.39) along with other personalities from within diverse areas of Brazilian culture. Including the example of the humourist Millôr Fernandes, and that of the welterweight champion, Éder Jofre, Sant’Anna sees these choices as reflecting what Brazilians in 1961 liked to consume in the media, from architecture, art, and – of course - fashion, to humorous cartoons and boxing.67

People, or ‘personalities’ from the cultural world are also important within many of the Rhodia editorials that emphasise Brazil’s landscape or heritage environment. The land of the Northeast that was important to a large tranche of the artists involved in the Rhodia project is depicted in at least two substantial editorials (Figs.3.523.53). One of these, a shoot for Helanca Rhodianyl in Jóia magazine, incorporates personalities in the form of the area’s musicians, with whom the models interact. Again, it is a conflation of ‘art’ with the Brazilian land.

In terms of representing Rhodia within Brazilian cultural ‘heritage’, the state of Minas Gerais was clearly a preferred location for Livio Rangan. The cities of Minas Gerais are known for their eighteenth-century baroque buildings, and contain works by Aleijadinho, ‘considered the greatest Brazilian artist of the colonial period’.68

The scene of one of 1959’s debut pieces of editorial (See Fig.1.17), Ouro Preto experiences Rhodia’s return in 1964 (Fig.3.54). 67 Sant’Anna.

As previously, this shoot is haute couture, featuring the Brazilian designers contributing to that year’s ‘Brazilian Look’ campaign. In this promotion, the luxury of the couture pieces is reflected in the sumptuousness of the surrounding heritage buildings. As Bonadio expounds, ‘This interaction of the incipient Brazilian fashion with the already established baroque art and national history gives new status to clothing.’ She pinpoints this location as being, culturally, one of the most commonly used constituents of a national visuality, ever since it gained national heritage status in the 1930s.69

This kind of shoot typifies Rangan’s preference for relating the old and the new; the technologically advanced production behind the clothes made from Rhodia fibres is in dialogue with the heritage location. In choosing this option, it is also the very strategy itself that represents something new within Brazilian advertising. As is recounted by Roberto Dualibi, an executive for Rhodia’s account at Standard Propaganda:

We went to do a report once in Ouro Preto and when we got off in Belo Horizonte, the director of Standard in Belo Horizonte, a really nice guy, turned to us and said: 'But why are you going to Ouro Preto, there it's all old!

We have some very modern clubs here!'. He didn’t understand the spirit and we wanted exactly that contrast, to show Brazilian fashion, that wasn’t done in Brazil, nobody had gone to photograph in Ouro Preto.70

Where there was an association between the artistic credentials of the couture pieces and their surroundings, a return to Minas Gerais the following year presents a dramatic version of this frequently iterated contrast of the new with the old. Alongside Ouro Preto, the heritage site of Congonhas do Campo, represents ‘moments of national history’.71 The ‘national fashion’ this editorial depicts is ready-to-wear, in strikingly modern styles and colours. (See Fig.3.55) The attitude of the shoot is youthful and fun, showing the models closely intertwined with Aleijadinho's statues, although as Bonadio points out, the tone is more flirtatious than sexual. While the setting still lends ‘artistic value and tradition to everyday casual fashion’, this is enacted in a gently subversive way. 72

69 Bonadio, p. 261

70 Testimony of Roberto Duailibi, 2002, in Bonadio, p.258.

71 Pierre Nora, 1993, in Bonadio, p.242.

72 Bonadio, p.242.

With Livio Rangan, Bonadio detects a process of exoticising the Brazilian landscape, which is seen from ‘the viewpoint of a foreigner, who highlighted in his photos, corners and landscapes that caught his attention’. However, she credits him ‘intuitively using one of the bases of the national project in his work’ as a factor of identification between the public and product.’73 For the consumer, it is the product, the new synthetic fibres that are exotic, and partly rendered so through the contrast with the ‘timeless’ landscape – but also demystified through the familiar locations.

3.5 ‘National Fashion’? Music and Spectacle

Location-based editorials provided a static context for Rhodia’s presentation of its brand identity, but their fashion shows brought them into direct contact with the potential end-consumer of the fibres. FENIT, held at São Paulo’s Ibirapuera pavilion was not the only live event at which the ‘Rhodia Selections’ was showcased during the 1960s, but it was the setting for some of the brand’s most ambitious and eclectic shows. Although it was conceived as a trade fair, FENIT was actually a key consumer touch-point, as for financial reasons it was open to the public. It was a traditional trade fair in the sense that the public couldn’t buy anything, making it a good fit with a brand that sold only its image.74

Before committing to FENIT, Rhodia had augmented its promotions in Brazil with its regional fashion shows, as well as core events in the two largest cities. The ‘September fashion show’ at Rio’s Copacabana Palace hotel had long been a staple of high-fashion life in the city, and an event at which the brand continued to have a presence.75

Other venues for shows, such as ‘athletic clubs’, were elite social spaces where events likely resembled the formality of Casa Canadá, with its 'L' shape stage for parades, and a salon that ‘was all grey and granite, with beige marble.’76

The FENIT shows opened up this kind of experience to the middle classes, although not, initially with comparable refinement. The parades were watched standing ‘in auditoriums without structure and comfort…leaving much to be desired by the attending public.’ (Fig 3.56)77In a press report on the first fair, in 1958, inhibited visitors were described as having ‘constrainedly examined the windows as if they were in a museum where touching is prohibited.’ Apparently, not even the ‘Miss Cotton’ competition ‘managed to break the ice’.78

74 Ferdinando Reis, 1973, in Bonadio, p.113; Bonadio p.118-119. Making up for an initial lack of exhibitor interest, the fair initially depended on charging a reasonably priced gate fee, turning a profit by 1963.

75 Oliveira, p.209.

76 Queiroz, 1998, in Sant’Anna p.135

77 Bonadio, p.114.

78 Ibid., p.116.

Improved visitor numbers in 1960 were attributed to the musical show mounted that year, confirming FENIT’s dual identity as a business and entertainment space.79 Key to this was the fair remaining open in the evening so the public could attend after work.80 By 1966, Rhodia would have the prime spot for the coveted evening shows, in a space described as a ‘super auditorium’, with more than a thousand seats. FENIT appealed to the right demographic for Rhodia – urban and educated, with increasing numbers of professional women.81

When Rhodia first showed at FENIT with a Dener collection, in 1962, the fair had benefited from more investment in women’s fashion, with international designers invited to showcase Brazilian fabrics in a similar manner to the Rhodia strategy. While these were natural fibres, encouragingly for the brand this was the last year for ‘Miss Cotton’, which made way for the ‘Helanca’-sponsored ‘Miss Universe’ and ‘Miss Brazil’.82

According to the Fair’s catalogue from that year, this was the first event to ‘bring the consumer closer to the producer efficiently.’83 FENIT showed that Brazilian fashion was in a cycle of development and Rhodia came fully aboard the following year, seeking to ‘associate synthetic textiles with the advance and growth of Brazilian fashion’.84

By the following year, the visitor environment had been revamped, with artists and set designers involved in creating the stands and the stages. For Rhodia, Cyro Del Nero produced a futuristic central sculpture, surrounded by its sponsor’s branding (Fig 3.57). The event saw the presentation of Rhodia’s 1963 collection, ‘Brazilian Look’, accompanied by Sérgio Mendes and Bossa Rio. The importance of the sound of Rhodia’s shows is seen in the way that the musical group had already accompanied them on the overseas tour for this collection. For 1964’s ‘Brazilian Style’, Rhodia sponsored the show by Mendes with Nara Leão that drew 600,000 people to the fair’s pavilion. Again, it was the music aspect that did the most to cement FENIT as ‘entertainment’ for São Paulo residents; from 1967 onwards, the shows presented there by Rhodia were advertised in the largest São Paolo newspaper as the main musical attraction in the city.85

79 Ibid., p.118.

80 Ibid., p.113.

81 Ibid., p.127.

82 Ibid., p.119. The event would later be co-sponsored by ‘Rhodianyl’.

83 Ibid.

84 Guedes, p. 26

85 Bonadio, p.125.

The fashion shows that were set to this music, ‘consisted of more than clothes on human hangers’(Fig.3.583.59), and by the 1965 launch of the ‘Brazilian Primitive’ collection, Rhodia had added choreography to their show with input from US professional in this field, Lennie Dale. Sant’Anna views this as representing a seachange from the ‘static corporeality’ of the traditional catwalk shows.86 The following year, a theatrical element would follow, in the show ‘Woman is Superman’; a specially commissioned sketch was interspersed with presentation of the ‘Brazilian Fashion Team’ collection.87In timing terms, these innovations equate Rhodia’s output with changes in show formats in other fashion capitals. Sant’Anna mentions Courrège’s 1964 show in Paris, with what became known as the ‘Space Age’ collection presented against a background of white vinyl. She references the different ethnic backgrounds of the models in the show, as, similarly, Paco Rabanne’s 1966 show featured ‘black models, dancing barefoot’.88 In the script for Rhodia’s ‘Momento ‘68’ Show, poetic reference was made to the different racial identities of the in-house models. Bonadio points out that this was a strategy often adopted in text referring to the models of the Rhodia Selections, the group’s identities as reflective of the racial mix of Brazil having been part of the ‘national fashion’ project from its inception.89

According to Sant’Anna, Rangan’s shows for Rhodia became ‘more than places of exhibition of the latest fashion trend’, they were ‘spaces of spectacle, thus, closely related to the performing arts. She sees this as part of the emergence of distinctive youth fashion, wherein traditional couture precepts were relegated from clothing’s presentation, as from its design and construction; young brands augmented their parades with sound, light and expressive and fun body movements.90 In 1966, youth fashion got its own dedicated FENIT stand, sponsored by Cláudia and Manequim magazines. The attendance of Britain’s ‘Biba’ brand the following year confirmed this youthful orientation. Paris was also part of this, with both Paco Rabanne and Pierre Cardin showing in 1967 and Cardin returning in 1968 parading his famous futuristic collection.91(Fig.3.60)

86 Sant’Anna, p.108.

87 Bonadio, p.138.

88 Sant’Anna, p.122.

89 Bonadio, p.220.

90 Sant’Anna, p.137.

91 Bonadio, p.121-122. The presence of ‘Biba’ was sponsored by Mafisa, an aggressive competitor synthetic fibre brand and recent entrant to the market. The British connection had also been in evidence a year earlier when the launch of a book on style by the model, Jean Shrimpton, was a feature at FENIT.

One of the shows representing the pinnacle of Rhodia’s presentation as ‘performance art’ was ‘Momento ‘68’; the sub-heading was ‘Tropicália’ (Figs.3.61-3.62), and the event saw the launch of the album of the same name. It was described by Visão magazine as ‘a great plastic party’ and considered by Manchete as the highlight of the fair, on a par with the international parades.92 According to Sant’Anna, because the theme of the show was, for Rhodia, unusually close to the ‘political’ -celebrating the youth movement activism of the moment - it was ‘not exactly censored, but it was watched more closely.’93

The other definitive show was 1969’s ‘Stravaganza Fashion Circus’, featuring musical artists like the singer Gal Costa, interspersed with clowns and acrobats.94 (Fig.3.63) The vast dedicated space was described in Claudia magazine as having three revolving stages with kaleidoscopic lighting, and ‘dragons spewing smoke from their mouths, walls with magic mirrors alternating with panels by Bernard Buffet and Picasso.’95 For Sant’Anna, the show typifies Rangan’s Rhodia output, in its synthesis of a range of cultural elements. She explains: ‘Bringing together high culture and popular culture was the fundamental resource for the construction of both the Rhodia costumes and the show-stopping fashion shows.’96

Jean Avril, head of Rhodia’s textile department, evinces a strong sense of the cultural difference between these shows and traditional French ones:

…the taste of the Brazilian likes to show. And it's not so much the French custom, the French do parades, parades with mannequins, but not with a show, so as not to distract attention from the parades, not here, it is necessary to show to support the parade!97

Leaving the last word to Avril, we can see that the objective of the performances as a means to boost consumption was not forgotten. He states that the main reason for the shows was ‘specifically to encourage and make known to Brazilian women the industrial products that were already manufactured in France’.

92 Bonadio, p.126.

93 Sant’Anna, p.137.

94 Bonadio, p.136.

95 Sant’Anna, p.158.

96 Ibid., p.160.

97 Testimony of Jean Avril, 2001, in Bonadio, p.139.

Conclusion

In 1970, Livio Rangan and his team were fired from their roles. One reason appears to be that there was a move away from a fashion-textiles focus, likely reflective of the direction within the struggling French parent company. This was introduced with a new manager, M. Morisot. It has also been suggested that with the latter came a questioning of the volume of advertising spend, ‘and the company’s own lack of control over this capital’.1 Bonadio sees Rangan’s departure as due to there no longer being a job to do; ready-to-wear was everywhere, and substantial supply opportunities had been created for synthetics, no longer viewable as a ‘foreign material’. The Rhodia campaign had been successful.2

Success was achieved through the making of both explicit and implicit connections between synthetic fibres and French fashion, in a moment when that was an impactful association. That Rangan chose not to make an overt connection with the French origin of the company feels clear beyond ‘assumption or speculation’. It was far more important to the strategic aims for Rhodia, that it be considered a Brazilian national brand. Where it was presented as ‘international’, this was also related to its national identity, as suggestive and reflective of the desired internationalism of a modern, outward-facing Brazil. In this way, Bonadio places the Rhodia promotions as in line with the political and economic aims of the period.3

The transcultural elements were mediated through the campaigns, such that they could have been clearly ‘read’ by consumers of synthetic items. The extent to which consumers of synthetics were influenced by the brand’s association with 'Brazilianess', can’t easily be determined. The same is true regarding the impact of its ‘Frenchness'. Whether the company itself was also read as a ‘French brand’, and whether that had any effect on consumer behaviour, is even harder to assess. These uncertainties offer scope for a valuable piece of follow-up work involving oral histories from the relevant demographic. What has been observed is that industrially produced synthetic clothing made its young metropolitan consumers feel ‘modern’.

This feeling may not have been consciously attributed to this fashion offer as being ‘French’, but is reflective of a long-standing association of French fashion with ‘modernity’ in Brazil.

In reaching directly to the consumer in this way, Livio Rangan was a true ‘fashion intermediary’. Before he left in 1970, there was one final ‘Rhodia Selections’ show, named ‘Build Up’, for which he was jointly awarded a prestigious advertising prize.4 However, Livio Rangan need not be mythologised – in fact the qualities of the advertising manager risk being undersold if they’re subsumed into the image of ‘the great white male impresario’.5 While Rangan was indubitably in charge, Sant’Anna points out that a simplifying approach doesn’t take into account the many creators involved with the Rhodia collections and shows, who were not ‘neutral; nor did they simply 'obey' Rangan’, rather ‘they also created from his artistic parameters and programmes.’6 What the bringing together of these creatives represented was ‘the cooperation and creative work together of an entire fashion production chain such as had never been done in Brazil until then.’7

Rangan could apparently be controlling, plausibly to the point of ruthlessness. Bonadio relates several testimonies of professionals left bruised by working with him. One such comes from the director of TV Excelsior’s festival of Brazilian popular music in 1965, when this was sponsored by Rhodia. A disagreement centred on the sponsor’s preference for the festival to be staged in several different Brazilian cities. For Rhodia’s advertising manager, ‘travelling throughout Brazil was a basic, standard strategy for publicising the brand’, so Rangan won out, to the director’s chagrin. As Bonadio concludes, for Rangan the festival ‘was just another promotional piece, which he would probably try to mould as much as possible to the standard of his advertising show productions’.8

4 Bonadio, p. 254. This was the ‘Premio Colunistas’ prize for the best promotional piece.

5 Bonadio appears as admiring but even-handed in her evidence-based treatment of Rangan, where the MASP output tends towards the mythologising approach.

6 Sant’Anna, p. 134.

7 Ibid., p.143.

8 Bonadio, p.229-231.

This reminds us that the ‘Rhodia Selections’ existed to sell fibres. Focusing overly on their capitalist agenda, however, could risk downplaying their cultural impact. At the heart of the transcultural question is whether, in work carried out for the French producer, Rangan proposed a genuine ‘national fashion’ for Brazil, or was simply ‘corroborating the idea of an eternally exotic country.’9 An in-depth answer to this would involve a sensitive examination of issues around race appropriation that is beyond the scope of this study. However, it can be asserted that through inclusion of artist’s work, such as the rendering of Lampião by Aldemir Martins, some of the Rhodia output appears to fall under the statement from Guimarães that ‘Popular culture based on mixing and diversity of identities’ has been ‘responsible for creating images of Brazil represented through dress.’

As to the effect of such images, Guimarães asserts that the activity she describes was not sufficient ‘to create a Brazilian fashion recognized not just externally but primarily by Brazilians themselves’, who ‘saw this as a folkloric representation of little value in terms of fashion culture’.10 Nevertheless the association drawn here for the Rhodia brand of the 1960s, and consideration of the creatives who were involved in its output, allows us to refute Brandini’s assertion that ‘Until the early 1980s Brazil had only clothing production, not a fashion industry. Ready-to-wear was copied directly from European styles, without the intervention of any fashion designer.’11 In this way I hope to have answered the call of Andrade and Root to consider Brazilian fashion through close reference to records, and to have avoided easy ‘assumptions’.

The Rhodia campaigns for the fashion ‘Selections’ of the 1960s, including the ‘fashion spectacles’ were complex and confident ‘cultural happenings’, with ambitions on an international scale. Within the French parent company, as seen through the attendance of its directors at more than one of its events, there would have been some awareness of these sophisticated campaigns.12 That this was never transmitted within the in-house magazine, despite two articles on the Brazilian subsidiary appearing within the time-frame can be explained in a number of ways. A clear first instance is the fact that the articles on the Brazilian operation were focused on the factory site there, and the authors would have had no interaction with the creative team, located at some distance from the industrial base. The orientation is related to the audience for the in-house magazine - the French factory workforce. The magazine was made up of what were presumed to constitute their interests and preoccupations, along with those that management wanted for them.

9 Neira, https://doi.org/10.11606/issn.1808-0820.cali.2008.68123.

10 Guimarães, p.309.

11 Brandini, p.165.

12 Bonadio, p.160. The attendance of the directors at the Spoleto music festival went similarly unreported in the Rhodiaceta in-house magazine.

In line with a magazine for a company marketing a textile product, many fashion-based articles appear through the relevant time period. However, there are also editions which contain no section at all on ‘la mode’.13 The general industrial emphasis of the publication is a factor here, but this appears to go deeper. There is a sense from within the archival material on Rhodiaceta, that the producers were not wholly at ease in the fashion world. On the one hand, being based in the heart of the French textile industry, with its symbiotic relationship with Paris fashion, should have conveyed some advantages. Possibly it did, but potentially this environment was also constraining. A company like DuPont may have been better served by being outside that system, with a certain brashness to their approach that this enabled. On the other hand, Rhodiaceta’s heritage, through Rhône-Poulenc, was also within chemistry more than in textiles. The chemical industry is one of rigid conventions on patenting, where a brand might be viewed as the ‘stamp’ of its logo, more than an authentic, fleshed-out identity.

A final caveat for the attitude conveyed in the Rhodiaceta magazine, comes down, once again to external political events and intra-national imperatives. Rhodiaceta was subject to increased competition over the course of the 1960s, as the result of the opening up of the Common Market. The director’s prefacing ‘editorial’ sections are characterised by anxiety at the state of the market from as early as 1964.14 This was a far more competitive environment than that in which the Brazilian subsidiary was operating in this timeframe. By 1968, as Rhodia Brazil was putting on its most politically influenced show, foregrounding the Tropicalia movement, Rhodiaceta was restructured, and its magazine had closed the previous year, when the Besançon factory saw notorious workers’ strikes in the light of mass lay-offs.15

13 Fashion is a limited topic in copies of Rhodiaceta from 1962-1963, and 1965, while the tenth anniversary edition of the magazine contains no fashion at all; Rhodiaceta n.1, Spring, 1967, Box BH2375, Archive of the Rhône-Poulenc Company, Besançon.

14 ‘Editorial’, Rhodiaceta, n.1, 1964, Box BH2375, Archive of the Rhône-Poulenc Company, Besançon.

Among all the explanations for its apparently distanced approach, however, is perhaps the most logical one, based on a centre-periphery reading. The ‘parent’ company simply couldn’t ‘see’ the transformative - even transcendent -innovations performed by their ‘subsidiary’. In answer to the aspect of the research question that asks about the influence of French Rhodiaseta -beyond the obvious contributions of capital and know-how - a comment from Sant’Anna offers an inadvertent conclusion:

‘Even identifying similar strategies in the history of art and/or fashion, it is interesting to note that Rangan - and consequently Rhodia - ended up not imitating formulas already used, but inventing creative solutions’16

On balance, it appears that Rhodia in Brazil was successful as a consequence of Rangan’s team and their actions, and not as a consequence of its French corporate origin.

15 A documentary was made about these strikes and released in 1968, https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0063854/

16 Sant’Anna, p.161, emphasis mine.

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