SPOTLIGHT

The craft behind the country

Long-form features on the techniques, cooperatives and clusters that make Brazilian fashion materially distinct — and on the people who keep them alive.

A ripe red-and-yellow cashew apple topped by its grey-brown cashew nut, photographed against a split peach and pale-blue background

Culture · Business · Design · Craft · 24 September 2026

20 BRAZILIAN ICONS YOU NEED TO KNOW: BEYOND THE BRAZILCORE CLICHÉ

Forget the football shirt, Havaianas, and Rio de Janeiro. Here are 20 icons, objects, rituals, rebels and references that Brazilians live with, and that any brand hoping to sell to them, make with them or be inspired by them should know first.

14 min read

Craft · People · Sustainability · 23 September 2026

STITCHED DREAMS: THE WOMEN BEHIND PATBO'S EMBROIDERY

Every hand-beaded PatBO piece — including the ones worn by Beyoncé — starts at a free embroidery school in the interior of Minas Gerais, where designer Patrícia Bonaldi has trained more than 500 women since 2015. This is the craft story behind the celebrity headlines: the atelier, the techniques, and why Bonaldi calls handmade work "the foundation" of her business, not a marketing detail.

8 min read

Craft · Heritage · Embroidery · 23 September 2026

BRAZILIAN LACES: A MAP OF BRAZIL'S REGIONAL EMBROIDERY HERITAGE

At the Paris 2024 Olympics, some of Team Brazil's kit carried embroidery hand-stitched in a small town in the interior of Rio Grande do Norte. It's one thread in a much larger, largely uncredited map: at least half a dozen named, centuries-old lace and embroidery traditions, each specific to a Brazilian state, several to a specific town — legally recognized as heritage, still made by hand, and almost never mentioned when the world talks about "Brazilian craft." Here's the atlas.

7 min read

Models presenting PatBO's Spring 2027 Brasil Esplêndido collection in New York

Runway · NYFW · Craft · Business · 15 September 2026

BRASIL ESPLÊNDIDO: INSIDE PATBO'S SPRING 2027 SHOW AT NEW YORK FASHION WEEK

On September 15, 2026, Patrícia Bonaldi closed New York Fashion Week's Spring/Summer 2027 calendar at Domino Square, Brooklyn, with a collection built around the gardens of Roberto Burle Marx — and the brand's first-ever eyewear line. Here's what showed, what it means for PatBO's next category, and how it landed with critics.

9 min read

4 articles tagged “Craft” · page 1 of 1

Production map

Where things are made

Denim & jeanswear

Toritama & Caruaru, PE

One of the highest-volume denim ecosystems in the Americas, built on dense networks of small workshops.

Knitwear & jersey

Blumenau & Brusque, SC

Technically advanced mills with strong finishing capability and growing low-impact dye infrastructure.

Footwear & leather

Franca & Novo Hamburgo

Historic shoe clusters serving both mass and premium markets, with established export logistics.

Cotton & agroecology

Ceará & Paraíba

Organic and naturally coloured cotton grown by family farming cooperatives with certification pathways.