Samba was My first love

 

 

Samba has been a part of my life for as long as I can remember. A large part of my family (as well as I) come from Rivera, which is a small town in Uruguay right at the Brazilian border. Rivera is adjacent to Santana do Livramento,
a city in the Brazilian state of Rio Grande to Sul.

 

Being a very small town next to a gigantic country, we were influenced by Brazilian traditions, music and culture, especially when it came to the carnival. All listening to samba, the clubs would organize costume balls and the Rede Globo TV station would broadcast the Carnival in Rio straight into everyone´s living room.
My grandmother used to order gorgeous tailor-made dresses so that she could take me to the special balls organized for children.
The carnival was one of the highlights of my life and I loved to dance samba, loved the costumes and loved the whole Brazilian atmosphere.

Years later we moved to Sweden, where everything was so clean, beautiful and orderly. Obviously, I wondered how they celebrated carnival in this country and probably got my first shock when I realized that there was no carnival celebration at all... When I had lived in Stockholm for a few years, I came in contact with a samba group led by an authentic Brazilian dancer, Maria de Souza. I could not believe my luck. In this group, I learned to dance my first basic samba steps, and also learned the basics of manufacturing structures and sequin embroideries for the samba outfits.

Today, with several formal design educations/degrees to my credit and over 20 years of experience as a samba dancer, I have an accurate feel for what it takes to satisfy a dancer with high demands on fit, flexibility and design. I use a large part of my time to experiment, and have developed my own techniques and ways of fulfilling these demands. I have thus been able to optimize the fit, weightlessness and comfort in my costumes.
Through a natural feel for design and colors — along with the years of formal design education — I make sure that the forms and combinations of pieces in the Fantasia Rëal product line will be consistent and attractive, flattering the body shape and
enhancing the dance experience.

Alejandra Vargas