The starting point for this first pattern was in imagining Eve as a Brazilian woman. Maria Bonita (a member of a Cangaço band) came to mind, and in doing so Paradise was redesigned as the Brazilian caatinga with all its fauna and flora. While rethinking Eve, I wanted to invert the biblical story and have Adam come from Eve’s ribs, and not the other way around. This notion can be seen in the pattern, rewriting the idea of the “second sex”.

The theme for this drawing is the deforestation of the Amazon. I started by drawing the shape of what is left of the amazon, with contrasting gaps in white showing what is already gone, in ink so that the idea that the amazon in bleeding can be conveyed. While I was asked to convey a serious topic, I did not want to have any gloomy undertones since it would be applied in fashion and needed to have commercial value. This is why I added creatures of the amazon (both real and from Brazilian folklore) coming and going to illustrate the point that this is a man-made problem and consequently can also be fixed by men.

My patterns for this collection went on to São Paulo Fashion Week, to Janja’s (Brazil’s first lady) wardrobe in her interview with Fantastico, and chosen as Marina Silva’s (the Brazilian Minister for the Environment) outfit on her inauguration ceremony.