Funny feature article by Rebecca Mead in The New Yorker about socialite Ruthinha Malzoni and the strange customs of the Brazilian wealthy. Apparently Malzoni got mad at the time and wrote a retort in the Daslu Magazine, unaware that this just made the whole thing even funnier. This was written in 2003, but really, we all know those people are exactly the same today.
Daslu, which features prominently in the article, is one of the most luxurious stores in the world. It's located in São Paulo.
I lucked out and found a copy of the article online. It's taught at San Diego University as part of some Global Ethics course...
It was hard to find support for Serra, but not impossible, and a good place to look was within the cream-colored, heavily guarded walls of Daslu, a women's clothing store in a wealthy residential district of Sao Paulo. The store--which is windowless and has clusters of unsmiling security guards standing at its entrances, as if it were the embassy of a particularly beleaguered nation--caters to rich Brazilians, members of the ten per cent of the population who command nearly half the national income, and wear Chanel, Valentino, or Dolce & Gabbana. The Daslu customer does not speak in the voice of the man or woman on the street, not least because Daslu customers don't actually walk on the street but are driven around in Mercedeses that have been equipped with bulletproof windows and armored panels and, in some cases, gun-carrying chauffeurs. So, with the inevitable victory of Lula, as the new President is known, drawing near, the political chatter in the store ran to resigned humor at the dark days to come.
Six days before the election, a customer named Ruthinha Malzoni was at Daslu, making her selections from the designer collections that had just arrived from Europe. Malzoni is one of the city's better-known society figures, on account of her striking beauty, her startling agelessness, her personal charm, and her svelte aplomb when it comes to wearing the latest designer creations. She had arrived at the store wearing a white silk Dolce & Gabbana tailored suit and a vividly colored bustier by Dior, a massive crucifix of Brazilian gems resting on a cantilevered bosom, and had settled into a curtained area with a rackful of clothes and a small gaggle of salesgirls, who rushed back and forth with armfuls of finery. Every so often, a maid in a black dress with a white lace collar and cuffs would appear with a tray, offering cups of espresso and glasses of water.
The real had slipped to its lowest point yet, almost four to the dollar; but the nation's financial crisis did not appear to be having any effect on Malzoni's life style. She didn't need to try on any Chanel outfits, she said, because she'd been in Paris a month earlier, staying at the Plaza Athenee, and had been unable to resist popping across the street to the Chanel boutique. She was in the market for clothes for a New Year's trip to Hawaii, though she declared the gauzy four-and-a-halfthousand-real Blumarine dress she tried on for that purpose to be ugly. "I look like I could be taking care of children in this dress," she said.
DRESSING FOR LULA, by Rebecca Mead (PDF)
Great article! The store Daslu, with it's many little tiny rooms and one foot thick walls sounds like a scene from the German film Das Boot...but with a Couture twist!
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