SÃO PAULO, Brazil—When fashion brands interact with the arts, the intent is often to wow the consumer. As an example, take last year’s Chanel Mobile Art container, designed by architect Zaha Hadid and filled with Chanel-inspired works by international artists, which topped the charts in this category. Given the current state of the economy, we may not see such ambitious collaborations again for some time. But without all those splashy efforts on the scene, brands with close and consistent relationships to the visual arts stand out all the more.

One such company is Osklen, the contemporary Brazilian label known for its ability to capture the spirit and chic of Rio de Janeiro. Founded in 1989 by Oskar Metsavaht, Osklen is a major player in Brazilian fashion that has slowly taken hold in America. Two New York outposts opened in SoHo and the Meatpacking District in 2007, and a Miami shop, in Herzog & de Meuron’s sleek and stacked multipurpose building 1111 Lincoln Road, should be ready for Art Basel Miami Beach 2009.

Osklen delivers its take on Brazilian cool through a combination of visuals: original paintings, short films, and photography. On the brand’s Web site and in stores, visitors are given a wealth of imagery to soak up — much more than the standard runway shots and ad campaigns. The use of multiple artistic media is at the core of the Osklen’s unusual creative process: Founder and creative director Metsavaht — who studied medicine, not fashion design — does not start from traditional pencil-and-paper sketches. As he describes it, the collections begin with “a scene, a story, a lifestyle concept, inspired from an experience I had — something I desired or lived. From this point, I create my ‘world’: the mood, the atmosphere, the looks, and the attitudes. In that way, most of the time, I conceive the campaign even before the actual collection.”

A team of designers will then hammer out the details, while Ana Amelia Metsavaht, Oskar’s sister, a painter, and the brand’s art director, gives her brother’s ideas a visual context. She produces a series of original paintings to be hung in stores and serve as the backdrop for the clothes. Her artwork is intended to translate and build upon Oskar’s concepts, which tend to explore the rich and varied imagery of Brazil. Monsoons informed the spring/summer 2009 line currently in stores, for example, and previous collections have mined the Rio neighborhood of Ipanema, the Amazon rainforest, and surfing. For the summer 2007 line, a celebration of Ipanema, Ana Amelia created large-scale oils of black abstracted palm trees on a background of thick, heavy, off-white layers. “The trees translate the feeling of Rio, especially of Ipanema. It’s the Carioca DNA,” she told ARTINFO.

A professional artist with a master's degree from the Sorbonne, Ana Amelia lived and worked in the south of France until her brother asked her to join his business nine years ago. Though she still devotes time to her own work (sold via a Rio dealer), she is a major part of operations at Osklen: In addition to producing the paintings, each season she also translates her brother’s ideas into as many as 40 hand-drawn prints for fabrics that will become everything from dresses to bathing suits.

“She is very sensitive,” says marketing manager Nelson Camargo. “She talks a lot with Oskar. It’s almost like they are one person.” 

For some artists, work that serves fashion may cross too many sacred lines, but Ana Amelia’s paintings help Oskar’s vision take shape, as well as create context for the shopper. It’s not simply a matter of hanging a favored artist’s work in the store as some other brands do: Olafur Elisson’s chandelier in the Louis Vuitton shop on 57th Street in New York may be stunning, but it has no direct relationship to the Vuitton products.

Once Osklen's clothes and accessories are produced, it’s on to video and photography. Like most fashion brands, Osklen uses a great deal of photography: Runway photos introduce a collection, and ad campaigns give it context. But Oskar also relies on short films featuring his collections: Each season, he uses a Bolex camera to shoot one while the photographer is working with models, ensuring a cohesiveness between the still images and the film, which is shown in stores and online. The upcoming 2009 campaign, shot by photographer Lucas Bori, was inspired by monsoons and focuses on water, the feeling of water on skin, and taking shelter from rainstorms. There is an emphasis on the comfort of changing into dry clothes after getting caught in the rain, as well as on the shimmering translucence of water.