Brazil’s fashion landscape entered a new chapter this spring with the return of Rio Fashion Week, a platform that’s signalling the city’s renewed fashion ambition on the global stage. While the industry once rallied around Fashion Rio – the former fashion week in Rio de Janeiro that ended in 2014 – this new iteration is reframing the conversation for today’s financial and political moment.

Staged at Pier Mauá in Rio de Janeiro, RIOFW merged runway shows with cultural programming and business sessions. Voices like Imruh Asha, fashion and image director at Dazed, brought their expertise by unpacking the intersections between fashion and contemporary culture. On the catwalk, a diverse lineup of designers foregrounded craft and experimentation, mapping a contemporary Brazilian identity shaped by both heritage and forward-thinking design, and reaffirming the country’s growing influence in fashion.

Scroll down to see our favourite shows at Rio Fashion Week 2026.

MISCI

At the Marquês de Sapucaí, MISCI creative director Airon Martin asked the question, what would happen if Carnival never ended? With the collection Tropical Escapism, MISCI leaned into the spectacle and celebration, with a live soundtrack by Beija-Flor de Nilópolis’ drum section reinforcing this sense of movement. 

The references ran deep, from traditional samba schools to the sun-drenched freedom of Gal Costa in the 1970s. Jewellery by Alan Crocetti punctuated the looks, adding another layer to the interplay between body and movement. The clothes slipped between fluid and more strict, but never fully formed into a solid silhouette. The result was a sense of constant movement, a collection as alive as the city it was born from.

LUCAS LEÃO

If fashion right now moves at the speed of a scroll, Lucas Leão is doing the opposite. On the runway, he’s less interested in spectacle than in slowing things down. His collection at Rio Fashion Week focused on the lost rituals of getting dressed. In place of algorithm-led desire, Leão offered something more tangible. Tailoring, once central to Rio’s cultural life, was a focus of the show, but in a way that felt romantic rather than nostalgic. Even when he did modernise with laser-cut textures and 3D-printed details, the feeling stayed the same. Past and future sat strangely but comfortably close, suggesting what Brazilian luxury could look like if we all opted out of the endless scroll.

KAROLINE VITTO

Karloline Vitto’s work, first shaped at the Royal College of Art, has always centred bodies that fashion tends to ignore. And now, after her recent London Fashion Week show, the Brazilian designer lands back in her home country with little interest in playing by its rules. Rather than hide the bodies of her curve models, there were prominent cut-outs, slashes and low-rise lines throughout. Now operating between made-to-order and ready-to-wear, with her production increasingly based in Brazil, the strategy reflects a shift towards the Brazilian market. Whether it’s a permanent homecoming or not, Vitto has brought Brazil into the ongoing conversation about who fashion is actually for.

DENDEZEIRO

With DENDEZEIRO, designers Hisan Silva and Pedro Batalha pulled the art of ballroom out of its usual conclave and dropped it into the realm of Brazilian fashion. The codes were all there – attitude, performance and precision – but they were reworked through local rhythms such as funk and pagode baiano. What emerged on the catwalk was close-cut silhouettes, often barely there, plus latex and leather, which turned up the heat considerably. Despite that, the collection never tipped into caricature. By the time Alton Mason closed the show, it was clear that this collection wasn’t just about referencing ballroom culture, but partaking in it too.