Brazil’s true history reveals the country’s overdue debt to its black and indigenous peoples, who were directly responsible for building much of the country’s culture and wealth. Similarly to many other sectors of society and of the economy, the fashion industry has perpetuated oppressive and negligent behaviors toward these peoples for a very long time.

The VAMO (Afro-Indigenous Vector in Fashion) movement was created during the COVID-19 pandemic. It is a multiracial team of professionals who are seeking to start a reparation process in Brazilian fashion, so that black and indigenous people can have tools and opportunities that have long been denied to them by a systemically racist market.

VAMO is a call for education and for the decolonization of our Eurocentric mindset. Its objective is to create spaces, methods, and equitable initiatives that enable, recognize, empower, and change the reality and the sense of belonging of the multipotential Afro-indigenous population in the fashion industry and in Brazilian society.

Based on the three pillars of sustainability (environmental, social, and economic), the movement encourages new integrative environments that can be truly plural and innovative and enable other ways of expressing Brazilian Afro and indigenous identities now and in the future.

To generate impact and communicate its values and principles, the movement needed a visual identity that could represent the Afro and indigenous worlds in a current and functional manner, without stereotyping/generalizing their languages and cultures. The identity had to be authentic enough to help decolonize the graphic language of fashion communication.

An iconic, flexible, and quickly identifiable visual identity was designed based on the graphic aspects that traditional African and indigenous iconographies share: geometric elements and ornaments, symmetry and repetitions, graphic play of forms and counter forms, and movement.

Carme supports VAMO and one of our partners is the Steward of the movement, responsible for its communication, history and memory keeping.