Barbara Fialho photographed by Rafael Pavarotti

CASA DAS CANOAS BY OSCAR NIEMEYER
RIO DE JANEIRO BRAZIL

Designed by Oscar Niemeyer in 1951 as his family home, Casa das Canoas is a landmark of modern architecture and has long been a big inspiration for me. In a uniquely Brazilian way, his visual language manages to be pragmatic but also feminine and sensual.  As Niemeyer put it himself:

I'm not attracted by man-made right angles and straight lines. What draws me in, are the free and sensual curves - the curves that I find in the mountains of my country, the sinuous course of its rivers and the body of the woman ... My work is not about "form follows function," but "form follows beauty" or, even better, "form follows feminine. Oscar Niemeyer

Niemeyer reminds me of the primacy of beauty. He shows us how to mix elegance and femininity with modernity. He understood the critical role beauty plays in good design; that it lifts our gaze beyond the mundane and toward the sacred. In this way, he knew that beauty saves us every day. I love Barbara Fialho in Spring Summer 2019. Here she is in CASASOLA Stretch-Knitwear and Suiting, all made in Italy with the finest materials available.