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Ghetto Chic Essay

¶ … Headline: Favelization Cooper-Hewitt, National Design Museum, Smithsonian Museum

The author argues that the image of the Brazilian favela is being misappropriated to market high fashions to non-Brazilians. The author argues that such usage of the favela as image is offensive, and beyond that it is also inaccurate with respect to what life in a favela is actually like. The author, who never set foot in a favela other than on a guided tour for tourists, discusses this marketing impact, what it means for the companies using it, and what it might mean for the people who live in favelas. There is also a section on how the favela is becoming, increasingly, a sign of Brazilian identity, a phenomenon for which so-called favela chic is a symptom.

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The marketing materials for a number of fashion products, including many that are distributed outside of Brazil, invoke the favelas or Brazilian slums. In some cases, the designer in question has some roots or connection to the favelas, but in other cases the connection is tenuous and potentially little more than marketing fantasy. The problem, the author, notes is that there is something offensive about appropriating this imagery to help sell clothes and shoes, when none of the proceeds of those sales will actually benefit those who live in the slums. The author sees this practice as a form of the rich exploiting the poor, and raises her objections. The fashion world should have some sensitivity to this issue, in light of things like offshore production at sweatshops, and several incidents of…

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