The project takes Amazon designers around the world and leaves a mark on local employment.

In Amazon’s first year, Poranga Fashion supported 14 Amazon designer brands and showcased them in ten fashion shows, leaving paid work for 260 local professionals, according to the person in charge of the project.

“Last year we had 14 brands, this year we intend to increase them to 16 or 18, depending on adoption,” Jessilda Furtado, head of the association that created the project, told Lusa in Lisbon, where she visited by invitation of the “Feel the Amazon” project in Portugal to take part in “Amazon Month”, an initiative that ended this week.

Some of the designers who showed last year “will not be showing again this year because they have already achieved a lot of fame,” as the idea is to give other brands the opportunity to “be in the same place,” he said.

According to the person in charge, the goal of the project is to “cover the entire Amazon region.”

In practice, “the project aims to get more attention from designers” and “it produces good results” because “it attracts attention,” he added.

Apoiar – Associação Amazónia de Produção, Organização e de Incentivos Artísticos, headed by Jessilda Furtado and overseeing the project, seeks incentives so that fashion creators and entrepreneurs “can take their rightful place” and “strengthen local entrepreneurship through the art of Amazonian fashion.”

The project was initially almost entirely financed by the Brazilian federal government to the tune of about 150 thousand reais (about 27 thousand euros) through the Secretariat of Culture, but even in its first year it also received assistance from other organizations. , such as Santa Teresa College, fashion, the Brazilian Service for Micro and Small Businesses (Sebrae), some small companies, emphasized Jessilda Furtado.

“This project arose out of a need we identified because the creative economy and local culture are seen much more through theatre, music and dance. And we saw that we had great fashion artists who were very famous in our region and were more successful outside the home than at home,” he said.

According to the person in charge, in the first year more than 400 workers were involved, 260 paid and the rest volunteers, most of whom are “already fashion students or working in the fashion industry.”

Amazon mentor Poranga Fashion added that “brands have outsourced work to seamstresses” and deployed “other services” as a result of the requirement that all supplies and people to work in the atelier come from Amazon.

According to Jessilda, this year she “promised but did not guarantee funding from the Brazilian state.” However, Santa Teresa teachers “offered to cover all the costs of workshops and courses this year,” said the woman in charge of the project, who brought two of the project’s designers with her to Lisbon.

This year, the idea is also to invest “not only in clothes, but also in accessories,” said the person in charge, who also admits the possibility of “creating an online store where artisans can sell” your products in one place.