A cidade como tecido para a cultura: uma análise da coleção Parangaba de David Lee

Abstract

This study analyzes the Parangaba collection by the Ceará­based designer David Lee, aiming to understand how fashion can function as a means of cultural expression and symbolic representation of the city of Fortaleza. The research is grounded in the concept of fashion as a cultural manifestation (Cidreira, 2012) and draws on definitions of culture as a way of life (Williams, 2000), and the city as both a space of communication (Barros, 2011) and a site for the construction of multiple meanings (Certeau, 2013). The methodology involves an image­based analysis of the Parangaba collection using iconology, as developed by visual arts theorist Erwin Panofsky (1979). The study concludes that Parangaba constructs a visual discourse about the city by resignifying elements of the urban everyday, the peripheries, and local traditions. The collection challenges dichotomies such as center/periphery and modern/traditional, proposing a fashion practice that emerges from the memories, experiences, and contradictions of the city of Fortaleza.