Belle Époque, Nostalgia, and Consumption in the Farm Rio–Sézane Collection

Abstract

In this article, we seek to analyze the Farm Rio–Sézane campaign, created to promote the collaborative collection between the Rio-based brand and the French brand, built upon nostalgic elements associated with the cities of Rio de Janeiro and Paris, particularly grounded in the Belle Époque and the emergence of the modern city between the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. As interpretive frameworks, we draw on nostalgia and the temporalities mobilized by the campaign, analyzing photographs and video produced for the website and social media through elements such as color, texture, soundtrack, and framing. We conclude that the campaign promotes a symbolic rapprochement between Rio and Paris in order to align the Brazilian brand with European fashion. However, it does so through a nostalgic view of both cities’ past; through a contemporary appropriation of urban space that erases elements uncomfortable to bourgeois enjoyment; and through a colonial perspective in which Rio represents nature, while Paris represents the urban.