Face 30-year-old Iris (Iris) is painted with the six colors: gold, silver, blue, pink, green and red spot on left cheek. In fact, among the hundreds of thousands of people dancing this Sunday night at Largo da Batata on one of the many “precariously” festivities in San Paolo, there are a lot more colorful, but iris knows exactly the origin of each color: “Gold and silver is mine, look!” she opened the bag, there are a few tubes of these paints. “Then I asked some girl in the mask unicorn share the rest, and then she shows on the red spot, this person did this to me”. Iris nods to the huge man with a naked torso, obviously tipsy, with a tube of gel with glitter in one hand. The other he tries to spread his vending girls to attract attention. They Dodge, he laughs. This picture has become increasingly common during the Brazilian carnival, which every year to cope increasingly across the country, even in cities, where, as in Sao Paolo, there was no such tradition. The picture is, of course, drunken men who want to touch the pretty women, but most importantly, sequins. The sea sparkles.
Sequins applied around the eyes or on the forehead, men sprinkle their beards. Friends smeared sequins of one color, to make it clear that friends. Strangers making conversation, offering your finger on the sequins, so everyone framed face, as if in some ritual. Sequins, like the heat of this holiday, clinging to every who came without them. The young mulata all the lips in the glitter is the same color that the complex makeup of the girl he kisses. In glitter black babies and white drunk guys. Grandparents. Tourists. In the vast and fragmented Brazil, where there are very rich people and very many poor, where often the only common denominator between them is the Portuguese language, sequins have become a universal symbol of the carnival, which the inhabitants of each district warm up the atmosphere before the big national holiday, carnival. “These days the rich elite Leblon (Rio) dance with the poor of the favelas. Sequins bring us closer together,” says Daniel (Danielo), 29-year-old white guy in the mermaid costume. His whole body is covered with silver sequins.
In recent times the celebration of carnival irresistibly engulfing even the cities where it is usually watched on TV. In San Paolo, a restrained business center of the country, on Saturday preceding the carnival, the municipality is expected 250 thousand people in the 60’s marches. Out of 750 thousand. “The situation got a little out of control,” acknowledged the city government. By the end of the carnival in Sao Paolo will take place 495 processions, 60% more than last year.
This unprecedented surge in the popularity of the holiday is accompanied by an avalanche of glitter, and this new fashion, as it often happens with Brazilians, has an uncertain origin and incalculable scale. According to Google Brasil, search queries for the subject grow by 37% with the onset of February, especially in coastal cities where the carnival tradition is rooted stronger. The company Colormake, one of the largest manufacturers of makeup in the country, recognizes that demand for its products in January and February was “noticeably” higher than in the same dates 2015 “I don’t know why it became so fashionable. Previously, sequins were used, mostly young people, and now it’s almost mandatory attribute. Already in 2016 we noticed that the boom begins”, explains the Nayar Candido (Candido Naiara), the publicist of Pernambuco, on the northeastern coast of Brazil, who in October left the Agency to sell glitter. Only in Recife, a 4-million city where one of the most conservative of the carnivals of the country, she sold 130 kg in recent months. And due to the commercial instinct which never fails the Brazilians, with 2015 on the streets of Rio de Janeiro during processions you can see the stylists are self-taught, grimiruyas sequins just three real (a little less than euros) less capable citizens.
“It is a pity that in San Paolo, no,” sighs Lays (Lais), which just killed lunch break at pedernalillo the turn of the sparkles in the store Abracadabra at one of the large shopping centers of the city. It was here, in the maze of storefronts, scored plastic masks, wigs fluorescent colors and shiny crowns, it becomes apparent unprecedented success of sequins. For the Department of children’s costumes, confetti and streamers, behind a wall of buyers crowding at the counter, are these sparkling deposits, access to which at least hundreds of people. “The excitement began in the second week of February,” says the saleswoman, without stopping the service. Almost all buy the same set: a few of the 3.5 oz jars of a special color (purple, white, orange) 3.5 real (a little more than a Euro) and a set of 10 basic colors (red, blue, green) for a beam of 14.20 (a little more than 4 euros). 25-year-old Leonardo (Leonardo) spent on sequins 50 reais (15 Euro). This year the most fashionable color is purple. Laich scored thirty, he did not take, she is not the first time buying in this location and considers that here it is not the best. Leonardo, who left the coin, but admits: “I now sprinkle these sparkles… But what’s a carnival without glitter?!”
Carnival procession, in which there is iris, it is brilliant. The last rays of the sun reflected in the shiny faces of some girl and her mom, brilliant bare back of a huge fat man in red shiny patches on the jerseys of the girls caught the same under the hot hand of drunken fun. They don’t have anything in common, except the desire to “treat” strangers “their” special color sequins. Only 29-year-old Rafael (Rafael), bald and healthy as the wardrobe, running from the General fun, and out of his car, parked a few streets further on, a towel and furiously rubs his face. “I don’t want the whole car was in these sequins. They stick to everything, then to April, all the seat they will be” — he grumbles, throwing a towel on the ground. It is hopelessly lackluster. “Now begins the time when meeting with you in an hour with a gesture show that you have a sequin on eyebrows”.
Mermaid-Daniela, six-color iris, spender-Leonardo — they all said the same thing. Said with a smile emotion, which causes the gesture from the fact that when carnival ends, the rich back to the rich and the poor to the poor, they will meet in office and this sassy and fun sequin remind them of the hour when they were all equal.
