Since founding Casablanca in 2018, Charaf Tajer has built a fashion language around movement, pleasure and the idea of dressing for a life lived outdoors. His French-Moroccan background, memories of travel and fascination with leisure have shaped a wardrobe where tailoring can sit comfortably beside sportswear, and silk shirts can feel just as natural as a tennis polo. For Spring/Summer 2027, however, Tajer turns his attention to Brazil, bringing together the country’s color, energy and contrasts in a collection titled Amor e Progresso.
The setting makes the connection even more personal. Held at Espace Niemeyer, close to the Belleville neighborhood where Tajer grew up, the show took place beneath the distinctive architecture of Oscar Niemeyer. Tropical plants transformed the space, creating a small Brazilian landscape inside one of Paris’s most recognizable modernist buildings. The contrast between the concrete curves of the venue and the vegetation surrounding the models immediately established the mood of the collection: polished but instinctive, urban but intensely connected to nature.
That tension continues throughout the clothes. Tajer moves between the sharpness of tailoring and the ease of beachwear without treating them as separate wardrobes. Swimwear appears beneath elegant pieces; football-inspired clothing enters more polished looks; and silk, embroidery and sportswear coexist without much concern for where one category is supposed to end and another begins.
The colors are perhaps the first thing to notice. Citrus orange, lime green, bright pink and yellow run through the collection, recalling the fruit juices and tropical landscape of Rio, while deeper greens and blues evoke the Brazilian coast. Prints bring another layer to the palette, with flowers, palms, waves and animals appearing across silk, knitwear and lightweight pieces.
Look three captures this approach particularly well, with a vivid combination of color and relaxed proportions that feels closer to a day at the beach than to traditional runway dressing. Elsewhere, floral motifs become more delicate. Hibiscus flowers appear not only as prints but as small embroidered or appliquéd details, including on tailored pieces, allowing the tropical references to move between the casual and the formal.
Look nineteen takes the collection in a more playful direction, with a sparkling bikini-like construction that turns the hibiscus itself into part of the garment. It is an exaggerated take on the flower, but one that fits naturally into Casablanca’s world, where clothing often feels as though it belongs to a fantasy version of a holiday wardrobe. Rather than simply decorating the body, the embellishment becomes the body’s focal point.
The influence of Brazilian carnival is most visible in the collection’s movement. Fringes trail from skirts and trousers, beads catch the light and lightweight fabrics shift with every step. The effect is especially striking on the more fitted silhouettes, where movement softens the precision of the clothes. Menswear follows a similar principle. Tailored jackets are loosened by bright colors and relaxed styling, while silk shirts and sporty pieces make the distinction between dressing up and dressing down increasingly difficult to maintain. It is a continuation of one of Casablanca’s most recognizable ideas: luxury does not necessarily have to mean formality.
The accessories reinforce this playful attitude. The house’s Stade and Khopesh sneakers return in new colors, while a crochet bag is decorated with postcard-like details and the Banana bag appears in a fresh version. Even the hotel slipper becomes part of the fantasy, referencing the legendary Copacabana Palace. A surfboard carrying the Casablanca name makes the beach connection almost literal.
What makes Amor e Progresso particularly personal, however, is the way Tajer uses Brazil not simply as an aesthetic reference but as a meeting point for different sides of his own creative vocabulary. The collection brings together the elegance, sportiness, sensuality and color that have long defined Casablanca but gives them a new rhythm. The result feels less like a postcard of Brazil than a wardrobe imagined after spending an entire summer there—sun-soaked, slightly excessive and unwilling to choose between the beach and the city.
