Global fashion has already moved past Parisian minimalism and Milanese quiet luxury. The new energy is coming from a place where the sun decides what you wear and colour is not a sin - Rio de Janeiro. Brazilian brands are dominating spring/summer 2026 picks, and the influencers writing the rulebook all have photos from Copacabana.

Vicky Montanari, Emili Sindlev, Camila Cisneros, Alex Segura - the names dictating trend right now - all have been to Rio recently. The style they bring back can be summed up in three words: sensuality, craft, chromatic optimism. Which means: leave the blacks and greys for winter, stay awake.

Farm Rio, founded in 1997 by Kátia Barros and Marcello Bastos, produces more than 700 colourful, bold prints a year. B-Corp certified, it recently entered a partnership with the British label Barbour - the Brazilian tropics intercepting British classic style, and it works. Serpui makes handbags as artworks from natural fibres; one of them even showed up in "And Just Like That".

Tammy Salcedo's Bahia Bohemia is bringing back vintage-inspired swimwear - not loud, but sophisticated. Patricia Bonaldi's PatBo makes evening looks using traditional craft techniques. And, of course, Havaianas - the flip-flops from 1962, inspired by Japanese rice-paddy slippers, now appearing on the streets of Paris, not just on the beach.

Why Rio, why now? Partly saturation - after years of minimalism, the eye is hungry for colour. Partly the politics of style: Brazilian fashion was long in the shadow of New York and Paris, but a generation of influencers saw it as "authentic", which is a magic word in an industry that runs on tired clichés.

But the Balkans should pay attention too. The Brazilian aesthetic is not just "more colour". It is a whole system - cut, movement, the feeling that clothing belongs to a specific climate and body. When a Macedonian or Serbian woman buys a pair of Havaianas, they will look good on the beach. When she puts on a printed Farm Rio kimono on a Skopje street in July, she has to wear it as her own, not as an imitation. That is the difference between trend and style - the latter cannot be copied, it has to be lived.