Chatô: the king of cotton

Abstract

The aim of this paper is to analyze the role of the entrepreneur Assis Chateaubriand in the fashion promotion in Brazil during the early 1950s and how, in what refers to fashion, its actions sought to associate the national raw material with French haute-couture in a contradiction with the nationalist ideas which he uses to propagate. Thus, between 1951-1952 he was responsible for bringing to Brazil three important couturiers of French fashion: Marcel Rochas, Jacques Fath, and Elsa Schiaparelli. From the articles published in the Diários Associados media vehicles, the biography of the entrepreneur and texts written by him and spread in these newspapers and magazines I further noted, as their interests in fashion promotion, were possibly linked to personal purposes in relation to cotton of Seridó production, which at that time was produced in Paraíba where Assis Chateaubriand was Senator and probably also maintained economic investments.