ABC: Rise of Evangelicals Changes Brazilian Fashion
Strolling down the main shopping drag in this working-class Rio de Janeiro suburb, it's not the second-skin dresses in shocking pink spandex that catch the eye or even the strapless tops with strategically placed peekaboo paneling.
The newest look can instead be found in stores like Silca Evangelical Fashion, where the hot items are the demure, long-sleeved frocks with how-low-can-you-go hemlines and the polyester putty-colored potato sack dresses.
In the birthplace of the "fio dental" or dental floss string bikini, so-called evangelical fashion has emerged as a growing segment of the country's $52 billion-a-year textile industry, catering to the conservative sartorial needs of Brazil's burgeoning numbers of born-again Pentecostals.
Once so difficult to procure that evangelical women tended to make much of their own clothes themselves, the modest garb is now popping up all over Brazil.
On the tiny high street of Rio suburb Itaborai, not one but two evangelical clothing stores compete to dress the faithful. M&A Fashion got its start two decades ago as a conventional clothing shop, selling the short, tight styles favored in this tropical country, but shifted to evangelical offerings five years ago. Silca Evangelical Clothing, two doors down, opened in March. …
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