Beira’s Debut Runway Show Offers a Wealth of Detail for the Sensitive and Attentive Eye

By Camila Yahn
April 25, 2018

Beira’s debut offered a new, or at least unusual, experience for those who attended the show in person.

Lívia Campos’s label already speaks a different language — gender doesn't even seem to be a question. The most important characteristics of the clothes are those that aren't immediately noticeable.

To the casual observer, the runway show might have seemed repetitive or lacking in novelty. But those paying close attention could see the work behind the construction, the thought given to every seam.

This is precisely the point of Beira, the question Lívia asks herself whenever she begins a new piece.

“How can we create a garment where the construction — a pocket, for example — reflects a particular way of thinking about how it's positioned and how it's joined to the rest of the piece? It's not about creating an extraordinary silhouette. These are normal clothes: a coat, trousers, a jumpsuit, something loose, something short, and so on. For me, that's not the big deal. What matters is how each piece is constructed, particularly in terms of its seams.”

Lívia was happy and excited about her SPFW debut. She speaks passionately about her collection and believes she is going through a period of evolution, achieving better results in patternmaking, her greatest passion.

“All our pieces now incorporate seams made using a cylinder-arm sewing machine, which gives them a sportier feel and draws attention to how the different parts are joined together. And it's a very difficult machine to work with because very few people have one. So it was a conscious decision to say: yes, I want this machine, and I want to use it on all my clothes, even if it makes production more difficult. There's an investment involved, but I gave myself the freedom to say: I don't want to use any other kind of stitching anymore. It would be much simpler without it, but so much more beautiful with it…”

If tomorrow she decides to make a pair of shorts, the question will be how they are constructed and how they will create volume. If there is volume, how will it be achieved? How will the pleat be assembled? And so on.

I mention to her that the collection's color palette is one of the most restrained I've ever seen. The models arriving from a previous show had nude nail polish on, which she asked them to remove.

“For me, it's either nothing or black,” she laughs.

Lívia pays extremely close attention to color, almost to a radical degree. In the beginning, she even considered working exclusively with black so she could focus entirely on patternmaking.

“And now look, there's not a single black piece!” she laughs. “That's why I'm afraid of making definitive statements, because I end up changing my mind!”

The entire collection was originally going to be red, with the work focused on textures and construction, until she grew tired of seeing so much red.

“I also really liked lilac, but I kept thinking about how to transition from one shade to another. Brown came in at the very last minute and ended up playing that role. It became the most important color, and it almost wasn't included! I get nervous just thinking about it. It would have been a disaster.”

All this work appears subtly on the runway.

“You have to pay a little more attention to notice it; otherwise, it really does go unnoticed,” says Lívia.

A wealth of detail for the sensitive and attentive eye.

All the clothes from the runway show are already available for purchase at Pair, in the Jardins neighborhood of São Paulo.

Source: https://drive.google.com/file/d/1ysXlyr_csjuanMl0gLHvlK9FqYZ0WzLX/view