Carlos Miele Spring / Summer 2008 Collection
Singapore Fashion Festival 2008
3 April 2008, 8pm
Tent @ Orchard
Singapore

Carlos Miele Spring / Summer 2008 Collection

One of the main characteristics of Carlos Miele’s work is his creative convergence of cut and design with combinations of craft and luxury. His designs transcend the influences of his Brazilian roots with the application of cutting edge technology and an appreciation of contemporary lifestyles, creating a work that is fresh and unique. Miele also distils a variety of urban environments, drawing inspiration from very distinct groups of women: cosmopolitan, sophisticated and independent. Born in Sao Paulo, Miele has presented his last 12 fashion shows in New York, always receiving a great outcome from the press and trend setters.

The designer’s amazing ability to mesh a strong fashion vision and social conscience has allowed him to create and develop some of the most innovative endeavors with artisan cooperatives from several regions of his native country. Carlos Miele brings Brazil’s beautiful handcraft techniques that were slowly being lost and forgotten, to the international runways and important fashion stores, creating a connection between two worlds that would normally never find each other. Now, Miele is also involved with an international project with the Rainforest Foundation – US, started by Sting and Trudy Styler, in 1989. As a supporter, he had the chance to know more about their work and how he could be involved with conservation and environmental issues. The designer invited celebrities as Scarlett Johansson, Camilla Belle, Carol Tretini and Rachel Zoe to create a special T-shirt that are being sold internationally and will benefit the Foundation’s programs in Brazil, helping the rainforest’s preservation and asserting the rights of indigenous and traditional peoples who call them home and have protected for millennia.

Miele is also a multi-disciplinary creator that has an informal artistic background. Always in constant experimentation, he presents a work that questions the conventions and formalisms, migrating between different frontiers and languages. He creates stage and street art performances, photography series, books, and art video scripts. Carlos Miele´s creations and performances have been presented in museums and art centers as The Metropolitan Museum of Art, The John Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts, both in the US and the Contemporary Art Museum, in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil and as well as in individual and collective exhibitions in several countries such as England, Italy, Nigeria, Holland and Switzerland.

Currently the Carlos Miele collection is carried in 24 countries and worn by celebrities such as Camilla Belle, Jennifer Lopez, Sandra Bullock, Alicia Keys, Brooke Shields, Petra Nemcova, Christina Aguilera, Heidi Klum, Eva Longoria and Iman, among others. In the end of 2006, Carlos Miele launched his contemporary line internationally, “Miele”. The collection is available in department stores in 19 countries.

In June of 2003, Miele opened his first flagship store in the Meatpacking District in Manhattan, New York. The project was created by the architect and visual artist Hani Rashid, from Asymptote. The walls are computer cut into curving seamless surfaces that recall the organic work of great modernist artists from Brazil like Oscar Niemeyer and Roberto Burle-Marx. The space is considered one of NY City’s references of contemporary architecture as published in several international books and architectural magazines. It represented New York at the International Biennial of Architecture and Design and received many awards, including two as “the store of the year”: “The Annual Interiors Awards Competition” and “The Visual Merchandizing and Store Design”. In November 2007, the designer opened his second international store at rue Saint-Honoré, in Paris. The project was also designed by Hani Rashid and is part of the international plan to be followed by other stores in the US next year, as the new Miele store, which will be opened in March at the Village of Merrick Park, in Coral Gables, Miami.

In the beggining of the year, Carlos Miele launched his first international advertising campaign, for the Spring 2008. The campaign was shot by Michael Roberts with model Caroline Trentini and is running in February and March issues of Vogue US, Vogue Paris, Vogue Italy, W, WWD, L’Officiel and online at Style.com. The pictures will be also part of a photo book shot by Michael in the city of Rio de Janeiro, Brazil. This work emphasizes the beauty of Brazil’s landscapes, the fluid and organic forms, the colours, the craftwork, the textures and sensuality. But transcending those roots and reconstructing them for new audiences.

More Coverage on Singapore Fashion Festival 2008.

Edited by Eugene Tang. Photography by Ken Wong. Videography by John Tan