Bold colors and bold designs are the secret ingredient of Farm Rio, a 27-year-old Brazilian brand known for its tropical prints and vibrant hues that are a joy to wear.
A world of color is evident at the new Farm Rio store at 8551 Melrose Avenue, a burgeoning West Hollywood shopping strip with nearby boutiques including Totem, Rag & Bone, The RealReal, Wolf & Badger and Glossier.
This is the second Los Angeles location for the clothing and accessories brand, which generated $105 million in U.S. sales last year from just three stores. One is in Los Angeles’ seaside Venice neighborhood. The other two are in New York City and Miami and offer fashionable styles including dresses, tops, pants and swimwear.
“California overall has been a very successful market for us,” said Fabio Barreto, global chief executive officer of London-based Farm Rio.
Inside the new Farmrio store. Courtesy of Farmrio
Farm Rio’s newest retail store took more than a year to construct and exudes a Brazilian vibe throughout the 1,700-square-foot store, which features hand-painted wallpaper by French artist Dominique Jardy, featuring poetic depictions of Brazilian landscapes and animals.
The changing rooms are upholstered in sustainably sourced buriti straw, a type of palm tree that is deeply rooted in Brazilian culture. Indigenous communities, the buriti is known as the tree of life and is home to a variety of birds and insects.
Much of Farm Rio’s store design is influenced by custom, unique furniture made by Brazilian-influenced artisans. “Each store has a different feel,” Barretto says. “We don’t have one interior design. It’s not cut and pasted.”
That different vibe was also seen last year when Farm Rio opened a pop-up store inside the Liberty London department store, marking the occasion by installing a 40-foot-tall tree covered in bright decorations in the atrium. The Liberty London pop-up led to the Brazilian brand’s first permanent London store, which opened on Kings Road in Chelsea in December last year.
Farm Rio was founded in 1997 by Katia Barros and Marcelo Bastos in a small outdoor market booth in Rio de Janeiro. At the time, Barros had no fashion education — she had a degree in accounting and worked as an auditor — but she’d always had a passion for color, vibrant design, and the kind of whimsical style that’s now carried in the U.S. by Anthropologie, Nordstrom, and Saks Fifth Avenue.
Her Brazilian roots are very important to her: The brand recently partnered with the Yawanawa community of the Brazilian jungle for a capsule collection that pays tribute to indigenous culture and their connection to nature and vibrant culture.
The collection includes beaded jewelry made by Yawanawá women, as well as three exclusive prints that the Farm Rio team created after discussing their experiences in nature with the Yawanawá women.
Today, the brand is led by creative director Barros and CEO Bastos, even though it is owned by Grupo Soma, South America’s largest fashion retail group. In Brazil, the brand is a household name, with more than 100 directly operated stores and 2,000 employees, including 30 designers who create their own prints. Last year, the brand’s revenue in Brazil was $269.4 million.
Farmrio has been focused on Brazil for many years, but began expanding globally in 2019, starting with a pop-up store in New York City, followed by one at Westfield Century City in Los Angeles. It now sells in 1,000 stores worldwide and through 1,500 wholesale locations in Brazil.
The exterior of the Farm Rio store on Melrose Avenue. Courtesy Farm Rio.
The company continues to expand in California and New York, where it is scouting locations in Orange County south of Los Angeles, with a store expected to open by the middle of next year, and potentially in San Diego and San Francisco in the second half of 2025.
Farm Rio has one store in Manhattan’s SoHo neighborhood, but plans to open a new store in Brooklyn this fall and a branch in Washington, D.C., and another store could open by next year on New York City’s Upper East Side.
In Europe, Farm Rio opened a new store in Paris’ Marais district on Tuesday and has pop-up stores planned for the summer in resort destinations including Mykonos, Greece, and Bodrum, Turkey.
It’s all part of Farm Rio’s way of spreading happy attire with colors that evoke a sojourn in the jungle. “We want to be present in all the capitals of the world where we can communicate our brand well,” says Barrett. “We feel like we can spread the word about us quicker and more easily in these places.”