Aniki Bobó: desbunde and psychedelia during the military dictatorship

Abstract

The purpose of this article is to examine the trajectory of Aniki Bobó, one of the most creative boutiques in Rio de Janeiro in the 1960s and 1970s. From the name chosen to the store to the visual identity that characterized it, without forgetting the clothes, everything was elaborated so as to distinguish it from the pattern common to the boutiques inaugurated in Rio de Janeiro in the previous decades. In the same way, Aniki Bobó was different from the other houses that emerged in the late 1960s, which, like the boutique itself, emulated modern shops in London. The analysis of the products marketed by Aniki Bobó, its consumers, as well as its owner, allows us to think about issues related to gender, sexuality, politics and also the relations between the clothes and the policies of the body. The ways in which the memory about the boutique has been and is being constructed is another theme that deserves attention. These are the questions we want to investigate.