Fashioning Brazil: Globalization and the Representation of Brazilian Dress in National Geographic

Exploring the collaborative dynamics between subject, photographer and viewer, Fashioning Brazil analyses how Brazilians have strategically appropriated and reinterpreted clothing derived from existing dominant cultures. Focusing on the ways Brazil has been fashioned through the gaze of the pioneering scientific and educational magazine, National Geographic, the book encourages us to look beyond representations of exotic difference. Instead, it brings to light a history of subversive self-fashioning in Brazil, within the context of cross-cultural contact, slavery, and immigration.

Offering an in-depth investigation into Brazilian dress and fashion through the ethnographic lens of National Geographic, the book features a series of case studies of the magazine's photographs. Taking us from body paint to jeans and lycra, and from loincloths to bikinis, Kutesko frames her analysis within the historical, cultural, and political contexts of Latin America and the United States.

Exploring how dress can operate in unexpected or strategic ways, Fashioning Brazil sheds light on readers' interactions with an iconic magazine, and sheds new light on debates about global dress and fashion.