Paper short abstract:

The paper reflects on trousers used in Rio’s funk balls, marked by eroticism. The garment, due to its materiality, acts as an agent of seduction, a vehicle for marking gender borders, a way of overcoming a “taste of necessity”, gives freedom to dancing movements and epitomizes the feminine attire.

Paper long abstract:

This paper is intended to reflect on a piece of garment that has been widely known, in Brazil, as "calça da Gang", or as "Brazilian jeans" in global contexts, including UK. Those trousers have the appearance of a very tight pair of jeans, although its fabric is not the usual denim employed on the factoring of the jeans trousers. Its fabric is actually a "knitted jeans", a woven jersey made of cotton and Lycra, but as it is a jersey it stretches in horizontal and vertical ways, differently from the jeans made with Lycra, which can only stretch in a single direction, the vertical one. The materiality of the garment relates in many different and significant manners to its context of use. The funk balls are dancing parties happening on every weekend in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, and is mainly attended by popular classes youngsters. The atmosphere of seduction and the eroticism predominate at the party and the trousers acts as an agent of seduction, a vehicle for marking gender borders, is used, by its baroques adornments, as a way of overcoming a "taste of necessity", gives comfort to the body and freedom to the dancing movements and also epitomizes the feminine funk attire. The analysis is rooted in 18 months fieldwork carried on a Rio de Janeiro's funk ball and by accompanying the youngsters in their homes, work and shopping activities. Its theoretical apparatus joins both materiality and agency approaches with the system of objects analysis.