Flyin' Down to Rio

You know you're going to love Brazil the moment your plane touches down at Rio de Janeiro's international airport.

Whereas many airports around the world are named for dead political figures – John Kennedy, Charles de Gaulle, Indira Gandhi, Ronald Reagan, Pierre Trudeau – Rio's airport was named after poet and songwriter Antonio Carlos Jobim. The sounds of bossa nova and images of Ipanema Beach fill the mind. (“Tall and tan and young and lovely” – is there a more provocative set of lyrics?)

I was down there to tell the Brazilians about U.S. retail. And they were there to tell me about style. These sleek and elegant Brazilians know how to love life. The Rio beaches are jammed, even in May (late fall for them). So are the upscale malls.

And then there are their appetites. One of their noteworthy culinary traditions is feijoada – which is putting some black beans on a plate and then piling on spoonfuls of sausage, beef, lamb and many parts of the pig, all from an immense table of simmering pots.

Another tradition is churrasca. It's Brazilian barbecue, only you don't get a cute “I'm The Head Hog” bib, a package of wet naps and a half-dozen spareribs. Instead, waiters come by your table in an endless stream, slicing chunks of steak, chicken, pork, etc. off their skewers and onto your plate. All night! Until you cry não mas.

And they wash it all down with caipirinha, a dangerous little cocktail made with fresh lime, sugar and cachaça. It sounds innocent enough until you know that cachaça is fermented, distilled unrefined sugar cane juice. But by then, you're on your third, which is roughly two more than it's safe to have. At which point, you're certain your Portuguese is fluent, your samba is fluid and that dark-eyed Carioca beauty a few tables away is absolutely mad about you. Which is when it's time to go back to your hotel, take an aspirin and live to fight another night in Rio.

But everybody knows about Rio: Copacabana, Corcovada, Carnaval, all watched over by Christ the Redeemer. To me, Brazil's big surprise is São Paulo, the world's third-largest city. And as such, yes, a teeming mass of concrete, congestion, poverty and traffic.

But it is aptly called “the New York of South America.” It's the commercial hub of Brazil, its banking, investment, real estate and manufacturing center. And its style and fashion heart, as well.

If Cariocas dress like they're all from Miami Beach – swirls of pastel colors, light fabrics and a great deal of exposed well-tanned skin and hard bodies – Paulistanos are the sophisticated urbanites, wearing whatever the fashion magazines from Milan and Paris are telling them to wear. Every woman, it seems, had on stylishly hip-hugging, midriff-baring jeans. The men sling a Zegna jacket over an Armani sweater. And always the soft, supple shoes made of creamy, top-of-the-line Brazilian leather.

Brazil's politics and economy have been turbulent, but the currency now seems stable in the world's tenth-largest economy. According to Manoel Lima, one of Brazil's leading retail architects, the government has recently devalued the real to get exports rising, and productivity is growing.

But it almost doesn't matter. If you're among Brazil's wealthy, you bob up and down with the currency tide, always having enough for that night out on the town, that European vacation, that expensive sports shirt, that apartment overlooking the beach.

Or, with enough caipirinhas, you feel like one of Brazil's wealthy. Until the morning.