Gloria Coelho

Sao Paulo Fashion Week may not be as big as New York or London or Paris or Milan (yet), but it's gotten pretty substantial. In case you had misconcep

SAO PAULO--Even before arriving at her show, and certainly before the clothes came out, I could tell that Gloria Coelho is one of the city's most respected designers: It was nearly impossible getting a ticket, the crowd was far more sophisticated and chockfull of socialites than regular, and Coelho started the show a good hour and fifteen minutes late. But once the show did finally get underway, it all made sense. Coelho's strong stylistic perspective, and sophisticated design sensibility clearly mark her as one of the most experienced and developed designers in the industry here.

SAO PAULO--Gloria Coelho is one of the doyenne's of Brazil's fashion scene (also the ex-wife of Reinaldo Lourenço and mother of Pedro Lourenço). She presented her spring 2012 collection yesterday which she called "Spiritual Psychedelic." Before I get into the clothes, Coelho's line sheet merits quoting: "After 184 years Neptune enters Pisces upon returning to its home, the deep sea, resstablishing the universal love, compassion, solidarity and fantasies dissolving the rigidness of concrete and infinite. By shuffling the mind and giving a lysergic air to everything it touches, we created clothes with energy of love and healing intension, clothes that heal." Coelho says she looked to "1967, 1968, 1969, 1970, 2011 and X-Men" for inspiration (yes, X-Men is a year). As for colors, the collection uses "colors from the sixties," and "Pokemon colors." As you can imagine, after reading Coelho's line sheet (and I had plenty of time to do so seeing as how her show was nearly two hours late), I was intrigued to see the clothes. And despite the wacky descriptions and inspiration, the clothes were pretty great.