Alexandre Herchcovitch

A worldwide famous Brazilian fashion designer

“My customer in Brazil is someone looking for something different,

something that isn't necessarily a trend. People looking for real

designers, who develop materials and colors and mix them in unique

ways. People who desire new things, and new ways of expressing

themselves and communicating something through their clothing.

That's the person who wears my clothes. This is the same customer I

see elsewhere.”

Alexandre Herchcovitch

Timeline

1971 – Born in San Paulo, Brasil

1993 – Graduates at Santa Marcelina College of Arts

1993 – Presents his first ready-to-wear collection

1999 – First time at London Fashion Week

2005 – Invited at New York Fashion Week

2006 – Becomes Chief Director of FMU

2009 – Collaboration with Rosa Cha

Alexandre Herchcovitch

Alexandre Herchcovitch is a Brazilian fashion designer. His family came from Poland, but he was

born in San Paulo, Brazil, on July, the 21st, 1971.

When he was only ten, he apparently had already decided that he would have become a fashion

designer.

His mother gave him some modeling and sewing lessons, and he began to make real clothes,

including the dresses that his mother wore when going out at night.

After that, she encouraged him to start and sell his clothes to some family friends.

He attended a very traditional school, the local Orthodox Jewish school, but at the same time he

always liked to go the very alternative San Paolo clubs. Both of these experiences had a strong

influence in his future works.

In 1993, he graduated at the Santa Marcelina College of Arts. The same year he presented his

first ready-to-wear collection.

Since the beginning, he showed a very original approach to fashion. As a source of inspiration, he

used Brazilian history and local folklore, combined with a lot of formal research. A visual

element which ended up distinguishing Herchcovitch aesthetics was the wide use of skulls in his

patterns and accessories.

In 1999 he was called to present his collection in London, in the English Fashion Week.

Then, it came Paris, and the French loved him too.

Now, since 2005, his collections are presented on the runways of the New York Fashion Week.

Still, they can be seen twice a year on the San Paulo Fashion Week catwalks.

Alexandre Herchcovitch dream is “to achieve full creative freedom”, as he said to a French

journalist some time ago.

Among the designer favorite pieces of his whole career we find the “skusers”, a t-shirt with legs

attached, he created in 2002, and the “pomba gira” print, which he made in 2006, inspired by a

creature of Brazilian folklore.

Nowadays, he's no doubt the most famous Brazilian fashion designers.

He owns two big stores in San Paulo, which look like art galleries much more than usual clothes

stores. He's recently opened his first store in Tokyo. His brand has a virtual shop as well, on the

web.

Apart from being the fashion designer behind his own brand, he's also a fashion consultant for

the Zoomp, a company leader in fashion retail in Brazil.

He cooperated with quite a big number of brands, both Brazilian and not. Among them we can

cite Lupo (socks and underwear), Melissa (shoes), Motorola (mobile phones), Hello Kitty and

Tilibra (exercise books)

Since 2006, he's also Chief Director of the FMU – Faculty of Fashion – in Sao Paulo.

Finally, a few months ago, Rosa Cha, a Brazilian beachwear brand, worldwide famous,

announced that had hired Alexander Herchcovitch to design its upcoming collections.

We can bet we'll hear even more from him in the future, since Herchcovitch is fast becoming a

big and serious name in the fashion world.

Resources

T. Jones, A. Mair, Fashion Now, Taschen, 2005

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alexandre_Herchcovitch

http://herchcovtichloja.com.br

http://herchcovitch.uol.com.br

http://nymag.com/fashion/fashionshows/designers/bios/alexandreherchcovitch/