Subtlety is overrated. Image: The Sun
This is Carmen Miranda.
Even if you’ve never seen her movies, you recognize her Look: The beads, the bracelets, the flamboyant head wear.
It’s a style a person has to be fiercely and wholly commited to; never mind the weight of it. If you’re in for a penny, you’re in for several pounds.
You may be wondering why we’re talking about the Brazilian singer/actress who was, during WWII, the highest-paid woman in the United States. This was also the era of the American Good Neighbor Policy which was, on the face of it, meant to build closer relations between the U.S. and Latin America.
Miranda had been a successful singer in Brazil and a sensation on Broadway, and was lured to Hollywood by RKO Studios where she became a Technicolor queen. In 1945, she was paid over $200,000 a year (roughly $3M US today), and she was worth every cent.
“She was absolute magic,” Mickey Rooney once said, and actor Roddy McDowall mused, “She looked like she was having more fun than anyone else.”¹
This is why we’re talking about Carmen Miranda: People admired her then, and they still admire her today, especially when it comes to her Style.
For example, if you do a search on Google, you’ll find something like this:
“She was only about 5 feet tall,” says Italia Vogue, “but she was all curves. She had a beautiful expressive face and ironclad confidence. She wore decorative turbans topped with exotic fruits, flowers and other objects in the style of the dresses of women from Bahia.”²
The Guardian explains how Miranda “customized” the look of the women of Bahia, the style of Afro-Brazilian street vendors (“baianas”) in colonial times. “These [women] wore lace tops, gold jewellery and simple cloth turbans, and carried trays of fruit and other produce on their heads. In her stylised version, Carmen added sequins and a small imitation basket of fruit to her turban, which was made of lamé fabric.”³
We should point out Miranda was a boutique hat designer before she hit the Big Time.
Now, there are many online articles to help you design your own Carmen Miranda Look, such as this one HERE. But her fashion influence wasn’t confined to the beads or the lamé turbans.
Let us not forget the Shoes.
From Carmen Miranda’s collection. Image: Pinterest
The Guardian tells it like this: “In 1934, when Miranda was a samba singer in Brazil, she commissioned an orthopaedic cobbler in Rio de Janeiro to make thick-soled shoes to boost her height – she was just 5 ft tall.”4
Now, others would argue Marlene Dietrich popularized platform shoes, while historians might point to actors in ancient Greece.
Even so, Italian designer Salvatore Ferragamo is credited with introducing the world to the wedge heel in 1938, and here’s where Miranda becomes worthy of Shoe Legend status.
The lifestyle site Trama.Life, says, “Soon after she made worldwide success, [Miranda] began a long and happy partnership with Ferragamo, where they used brightness and heights (some platform were more than 20cm height [sic])… Ferrragamo created exclusive models for her, [and they became] one of the most important features of her look.”5
The fabulous Carmen Miranda. Image: Getty
And what of Brazilians? How did they view Miranda?
In 1940, she returned to Rio de Janeiro for a series of perfomances, only to find audiences cool and unreceptive. According to an A&E documentary, Brazilians felt she had sold out to the United States.
“She was derided for having become Americanized,” says the documentary. “This crushed her.”6
But two months later, she launched a new stage show which poked fun at her “Americanization”, and Brazilian audiences loved her for it.
See? She was bedazzled and clever.
In August of 1955, Miranda appeared on the Jimmy Durante Show, where she stumbled slightly while performing a song. She told Durante she was out of breath, but the way she handled it, you’d never know it foretold Something Else.
That night she died of a heart attack. She was 46 years old.
Her body was returned to Brazil, and her country mourned. According to A&E, she lay in state in the City Hall of Rio de Janeiro where approximately 60,000 people came to pay their last respects.
We hope you’ll take the opportunity to watch one of her films, such as That Night in Rio (1941). It’ll be immediately apparent why audiences still fall in love with Carmen Miranda – and her sense of Style.
♥
This post is part of LUSO WORLD CINEMA Blogathon, hosted by Spellbound by Movies & Crítica Retrô.
Sources
¹A&E Biography: Carmen Miranda (1996), A&E.
²Italia Vogue. (Retrieved October 20, 2019.) Do You Remember Carmen Miranda?
³The Guardian. (Retrieved October 20, 2019.) Carmen Miranda’s fashion: Turbans, Platform Shoes and a lot of controversy
4Ibid.
5 Trama.Life. (Retrieved October 21, 2019.) Trend tropical fashion: Carmen Miranda and her influence on fashion.
6A&E Biography: Carmen Miranda.
Silver Screenings 
Hmmm… always wondered who invented those crazy platform shoes.
LikeLiked by 1 person
Haha – yes, me too!
LikeLike
She was something! Delightful post…
LikeLiked by 1 person
She really was something. So much charisma, no?
LikeLiked by 1 person
She was amazing. Great post, Ruth.
LikeLiked by 1 person
Thanks, Maddy. I never tire of watching Carmen Miranda. She was truly fascinating.
LikeLiked by 1 person
She sure was.
LikeLiked by 1 person
Really interesting post!
LikeLiked by 1 person
Thanks! I had fun learning more about Carmen Miramda. I’ve become a huge fan!
LikeLiked by 1 person
Hi. I’ve never known much about her. I had no idea she was a huge star. Her style was great. Based on the photos you include, I’d say that she was chicly over the top.
LikeLiked by 1 person
Haha! Yes, I agree – chicly over the top, indeed!
LikeLiked by 1 person
Wow -now those are some shoes! How interesting to learn more about this iconic woman. 🙂 And yes, that look must be quite a commitment!
LikeLiked by 1 person
Vogue magazine wasn’t kidding when they said she had an “ironclad confidence”. The shoes are gorgeous, aren’t they? Not my style, but still beautiful.
LikeLiked by 1 person
Agreed, I could never pull off shoes like that. I also feel like they would pain me greatly. But I can admire from afar 🙂
LikeLiked by 1 person
I don’t think I’ve really, truly appreciated Carmen Miranda until now.
Great write-up! 🙂
LikeLiked by 1 person
Thanks, Debbi! I never fully appreciated her either, until I started researching her style. A LOT has been written about her clothes, shoes, attitude… She’s still influential in her way.
LikeLike
I loved learning about Carmen Miranda in your fascinating article. It’s so neat that she was a boutique hat designer! She accomplished so much in her all too short lifetime, but thankfully we can still enjoy her wonderful presence in the movies.
LikeLiked by 1 person
You said it. She has a magnetic screen presence, doesn’t she? A truly fascinating person. Thanks for dropping by. 🙂
LikeLiked by 1 person
Delightful to read of Carmen and her fashion influence. Her confidence is inspiring, but those shoes scare me!
LikeLiked by 1 person
Haha! I agree re: the shoes. It’s a long way to fall if something goes wrong.
LikeLike
Those glorious shoes explain why I always thought she was much taller! What a shame that she passed so young.
LikeLiked by 1 person
It is such a shame she died so young. She was incredibly talented.
LikeLiked by 1 person
I was never a big Carmen Miranda fan. However, she certainly had her own style and used it to fashion a very successful stage and screen career. It’s a shame that Fox bailed on her on after the mid-1940s. However, I believe that–although not listed–she was a producer of her independent film COPACABANA with Groucho Marx. There weren’t many women involved in film production in Hollywood at that time, so that was an impressive achievement.
LikeLiked by 1 person
That is an impressive achievement, and one I neglected to mention in my tribute.
LikeLike
Thanks for participating in the blogathon! I enjoyed how you approached her from the fashion angle. Her and Mae West’s shoes look frighteningly high. Carmen had a zest and confidence that were inspiring, and she truly is an evergreen fashion icon.
LikeLiked by 1 person
I was surprised to see how often people still refer to – and write about – Carmen M. Not many people have that kind of influence, hey?And those shoes! How she could dance, let alone walk, in those things is beyond me.
(P.S. I was so excited about this topic, I couldn’t wait to upload the post! Thanks for co-hosting and organizing this blogathon.)
LikeLiked by 1 person
They do not. She could carry off clothes that were over-the-top and simply elegant. There’s a picture of her in a dress by Adrian that shows she knew fashion and what flattered her. The shoes show how graceful she was to be able to do so much in them. There should be a shoe quote about her like there is about Ginger!
(You’re welcome and thank you!!!)
LikeLiked by 1 person
Always learn so much from your posts.46 is far to young. No age at all.
LikeLiked by 1 person
You said it – 46 is way too young. But at least we still have her films…
LikeLiked by 1 person
I’m about 5 feet tall as well, but I lack the “ironclad confidence” to wear shoes like hers! As you wrote, her influence in fashion has stood the test of time, and even those who have never seen her on screen know how she looks like.
Thanks for participating in the blogathon with such a “chich” article!
LikeLiked by 2 people
Thanks, Le! This post was a lot of fun, and it was wonderful to see how many people are still writing about Carmen Miranda! As a result, I became an even bigger fan. She was a truly remarkable individual.
LikeLike
Answering an important question: I was surprised to find out there was only one short film made about Fernando Pessoa’s life – and it was made last year! I’d pay to see a retelling of his unique life.
LikeLike
Carmen Miranda is awesome, and this post was so much fun! I heard there used to be a museum in Rio showing her costumes, but I’m not sure where the collection is now. It would be cool to see them in person.
LikeLiked by 1 person
Wouldn’t it be fabulous to see her wardrobe in person? It would be something to plan your entire week around.
LikeLiked by 1 person
Yeah, oh my word. It would be so much fun.
LikeLiked by 1 person
❤ Thank you for introducing her 🙏🏼
LikeLiked by 1 person
Isn’t she fabulous? I love her outrageous style and her confidence.
LikeLike
Totally 😊! Ditto.. And so much of the fashion vocabulary can be traced back to her gorgeous outrageousness
LikeLike
I loved the way she dressed back then. Once you saw her you never forgot who she was. I did not know how she died. She was so young!
LikeLiked by 1 person
She was surprisingly young when she died.
You’re right – she’s an unforgettable and fab person.
LikeLiked by 1 person