Helen Rödel was honored to represent Brazil in the inaugural BRICS Fashion Show and Fashion Business Forum, during the South Africa Fashion Week (SAFW), which took place from 24th to 26th October 2018 in Sandton City, Johannesburg, Gauteng, South Africa. Under the invitation of the Brazilian Ministry of Culture, UNESCO and the Arts & Culture Department of South Africa, Helen Rödel presented creations from her latest collection, MIND GARDENS, and spoke about her journey into the fashion industry and her relations with Brazilian government’s programs to promote national culture, fashion and design abroad.

This year South Africa hosted the chairmanship of the Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa Forum. South Africa Government, through the Department of Arts and Culture, has promoted this seminal event under the theme ‘’Collaboration for Inclusive Growth and Shared Prosperity in the 4th Industrial Revolution”, in a time that marks a decade of BRICS cooperation at the highest diplomatic level.

In the words of the Minister of the Art and Culture, Nathi Mthethwa:

“The platform created by the Designer Collections and Fashion Forum will start dialogues of inter-trade, best practices and business development. We hope that this gathering of creative minds will inspire our governments in creating inclusive and socially coherent societies and thereby have a positive influence in the world.

The business to Business Fashion Forum will be a network session that discusses issues of fashion small and medium-sized enterprises and harnessing the experiences of fashion creatives aimed at services addressed to internationalization and innovation of cultural products, as part of its commitment to building sustainable businesses within the fashion sector.

Central to the BRICS mandate is the need to deepen, broaden and intensify relationships between the individual countries. In line with this mandate, members across all aspects of the fashion industry had a valuable opportunity to foster and nurture connected, meaningful and profitable relationships”.