Olivia Merquior

Olivia Merquior is president of the Brazilian Fashion Council and content curator and creative strategy lead for Rio Fashion Week. She is also co-founder of Iara, an agency focused on the creative industries whose clients include Bulgari, Vogue Brasil, O Boticário, Hering, Grupo Soma, SP-Arte and Rio2C. Her work at Iara draws on decades of experience in strategy, innovation, trend research and talent development.

In 2026, Merquior helped establish a new fashion week in Brazil’s second-largest city. The last time Rio de Janeiro had its own fashion week was in 2014 under the Fashion Rio banner. With Rio Fashion Week held in the first half of each year and São Paulo Fashion Week in the second half, the two cities could once again work in tandem to anchor the industry. That year, Merquior also took the helm of the newly formed Brazilian Fashion Council, working to bring brands, institutions and public bodies into closer dialogue to promote fashion as both a cultural asset and an economic engine.

Throughout her career, Merquior has built links between Brazilian fashion and international institutions and markets. From 2013 to 2022, she was Première Vision Paris’s fashion coordinator for Latin America. In 2020, she launched Brazil Immersive Fashion Week and later worked on fashion initiatives for Expo 2025 Osaka and the 2025 France-Brazil Season. Merquior studied journalism at PUC-Rio and fashion design at Central Saint Martins.