From Calvin Klein to sustainable skincare, the maternal gaze is a guiding principle for Brazil’s prodigal son.
interview by Summer Bowie
portraits by Keith Oshiro
Francisco Costa’s path from the rarefied world of high fashion to the heart of the Amazon is a story of return—both to his geographical roots and to a practice that prioritizes community care by design. Born in the small town of Guarani, Brazil, Costa was raised by a visionary mother who ran a garment factory that empowered hundreds of local women and modeled what would now be considered a quietly radical form of sustainability.
Shortly after losing his mother during his adolescence, the budding young designer moved to New York to study fashion at FIT. An early and formative experience working for a Seventh Avenue garment manufacturer who held licenses for major designers, including Oscar de la Renta, led to Costa eventually working directly under de la Renta, becoming part of his atelier and learning the foundations of luxury design and craftsmanship. This apprenticeship was pivotal—it exposed Costa to the world of refined, couture-level design and helped him develop the precision and discipline that would later define his own minimalist aesthetic.
In the late 1990s, Costa moved to Gucci, where he worked under Tom Ford. This period helped sharpen his sense of modernity, sex appeal, and branding. Best known for his decade-long tenure as the Women’s Creative Director at Calvin Klein, Costa became a defining voice in modern reductionism—an editor of excess, who found beauty in restraint. But even then, his instinct was to reuse, reimagine, and reconnect with materials in deeply personal ways. All along the way, his mother’s ethics of care and resourcefulness continue to shape Costa’s worldview.
With the founding of Costa Brazil, he turned his attention from clothing the body to nurturing it. A pivotal trip to the western Amazon introduced him to Indigenous communities and powerful natural ingredients like breu, a sacred resin with antimicrobial and spiritual properties. Guided by partnerships with organizations like Conservation International, Costa built a brand that honors the land, its protectors, and the rituals that sustain both.
In every sense, Costa Brazil is an extension of its founder’s ethos: pure, considered, and deeply connected to place.
FRANCISCO COSTA: I love that you have all those books behind you.
SUMMER BOWIE: One of the best perks of running a magazine is that we’re constantly receiving beautiful new books that allow us to really sink our teeth into all of the art that we’re exploring. It’s quite a privilege.
COSTA: Isn't that fun? So let me show you my little treasure, because I'm obsessed with books, so I built this little library. This is my pride and joy.
BOWIE: You recently published your own gorgeous book, 555: Revisiting The Fashion Archive of Francisco Costa (Rizzoli, 2023).
COSTA: It's really sweet, that book, because I don't like to look back so much, but I encountered myself in the Calvin Klein archives and I said, how can I actually put this to work? So, I started talking to a few photographers and suddenly I had twenty-one photographers that wanted to shoot the project. It's great because it's also seeing the clothes on and out of context. To me, that works the best.
BOWIE: There's something that feels much more genuine when you look at the collections this way, rather than in a campaign.
COSTA:It wasn't about getting the ‘fashion’ picture, you know what I mean?
BOWIE: I think people forget that you were the first designer in the US to stop using fur. The fashion industry, however, is still an environmental disaster and is currently having this big return to real fur. Did any recent industry trends have anything to do with you making that transition from fashion to sustainable skincare?
COSTA: No. In fact, it goes all the way back to my childhood. I grew up in a very small town in Brazil, and my mom had started this business, which was a children's manufacturing company. All the women that worked in town worked in her factory. She had 725 employees in a town of about 3000 and supported a very sustainable way of living. For instance, whatever textile would remain, she would donate to smaller communities in the rural areas, and she would teach the women how to make quilts. There was always a connectivity with the way she would empower the women with new skills and materials. When I started creating this brand [Costa Brazil], the minute I started engaging with manufacturers, I thought, I don't want to just put my name on something that exists. It’s the same way I created my collections—most of my textiles were created by me. This was a very sustainable approach, though I didn't even know it at the time. I would go to a mill in Cuomo, and they often took me backstage, which I loved. I would go into warehouses filled with yarns—things that have been sitting there since the ’50s—and I always found myself turned on by reinventing, by recreating, reappropriating. With my Fall 2011 collection, I went through knitwear companies in Scotland and in Northern Italy, took all the remnants they had, and I boiled everything. I created a whole new fabric.
BOWIE: So, your mother was really the genesis of both your inspiration in fashion and sustainability?
COSTA: And community care. She was very involved in the community. She was involved in the church and she was civically minded. The mayors of town over the years would come to my house. They used to have meetings there, which was bizarre because she was also so concerned about the wellbeing of the people who worked for her. She really had an impact on me. When I started creating Costa [Brazil] it was that transition, but it wasn't, because for me, it was a process. I was still at Calvin when I started thinking of creating my own brand and I thought it would be a lifestyle brand. I would have furniture linens or what have you, because I love lifestyle. But then, I kept on editing and editing and editing until the Francisco Costa idea ended up becoming Costa Brazil. All of a sudden, the direction changed into beauty because I was really heavily inspired by Piero Manzoni. (Francisco pulls out a book and shows a picture of Manzoni’s Artist’s Shit can). This is what inspired my packaging.
BOWIE: Oh, yes, of course. The shit cans.
COSTA: You can see how it inspired the candle packaging. Obviously, being on the cusp of Arte Povera, he used not only humor, but elements of highs and lows. That was the genesis of it all. When the name changed from Francisco Costa to Costa Brazil, it felt very radical, but it wasn't about me anymore. It was about creating a brand that spoke about the coast of Brazil and something that could be amplified to many regions: the coast of the Amazon, the coast of Rio, the coast of whatever. It could tap into locations that give that sensibility of the wholesomeness of Brazil. When you say the word ‘Brazil,’ it takes you in so many different directions, but often a very happy place, a curious place. People imagine Brazil being this Xanadu, and so it just felt like it really worked that way.
BOWIE: Costa Brazil is clearly deeply rooted in nature and Brazilian heritage, but you also currently chair the America's Council at Conservation International. What does that work entail?
COSTA: Well, I was working with the Special Olympics in Brazil, designing some of the uniforms. Then, I ended up on the west coast of the Amazon, where I stayed with a tribe called the Yaminawá. They are one of eleven tribes of the same ethnicity in that region. The people there are so gentle and beautiful, and being in the forest itself is beyond magical.
While I was there, I was introduced to this resin called breu that they use on a daily basis in many of their rituals. At the time, I was already affiliated with Conservation International, but I engaged a lot more as they helped me identify communities within the area, which were already under cooperatives. C.I. and the Brazil Foundation were very important partners that were able to guide me into sourcing everything properly. So, that helped me build this web of people in the Amazon, which I could go and visit.
I also ended up in a state called Amapá, which is near French Guiana and when I got there, I met a single three-generation family that does all the sourcing for three ingredients. I also found Kaya in another region, which has a coconut-like structure. It looks surreal and ancient and the oil is filled with super powerful proteins.
BOWIE: What are the applications of breu within the Yaminawá community?
COSTA: It's a sacred resin. While it's fresh, it's very white and pulpy, and then when it oxidizes, it becomes this rock. After we analyzed it in a lab, we discovered that it is also a mosquito repellant. The Yaminawá often throw those rocks into several different fires throughout the land, but I had no idea at the time that they were doing it to repel mosquitoes. They keep those fires burning day and night, and then prayer is part of it too. If a child is upset and crying, they will have the child inhale the smoke from the resin. It's known to be very relaxing, a little bit like palo santo. It has those esoteric properties. It is also antimicrobial. Discovering something with all of these incredible qualities felt like a dream. It was a lot like discovering a linen that had been sitting in a warehouse for fifty years.
BOWIE: I’m wearing the face serum right now and it has a really wonderful natural fragrance but it’s completely unscented. It feels very light and fresh without drawing too much attention to itself.
COSTA: The serum is the only sku that we have that's not oil based, but you have big potent ingredients in there. Of course, hyaluronic acid being one of them, which is not a Brazilian thing. But then, you have guarana. Guarana is a tiny little seed that's really powerful. It's very well known in Brazil, because they make soft drinks out of guarana. It has an energizing characteristic to it. So, if you feel a tingling, that’s the guarana activating the skin. And then, it also has camu camu, which is pure vitamin C. We curate our ingredients in the best way possible. It's not about the marketing aspect of the brand, it's about the function of the active ingredients, the product itself.
BOWIE: That really mirrors your approach with fashion, because you are so known for your minimalism. You’ve always chosen materials that speak for themselves.
COSTA: I think I’m more of a reductionist than a minimalist, because I love everything. But, as part of my design aesthetics and my way of living, I always like less. I like to be surrounded with a lot of objects, but I don't want to see all of them all the time. Everything has to come at the right moment. I switch my whole house around all the time, which makes my husband crazy. But the editing is so important. Every maximalist moment is followed by a minimalist moment. So, you have to see it all and then you have that cathartic moment when you reduce it all down to what’s functional.
BOWIE: There is something so cathartic about the editing process. How far have you reduced your living space?
COSTA: Well, when COVID hit, I was in Florida where I had just bought an apartment, but there wasn’t anything in it yet. I ordered two beds before I moved in and that's all I had. I stayed there for the first eight months of the pandemic with almost nothing. It's very hard for me to live without books, though. By the end of the eight months, I had tons of magazines and books.
BOWIE: What does true luxury mean to you today? Especially in the context of sustainability?
COSTA: True luxury is having time. Not having to be somewhere or to do anything. It is a total luxury to be able to edit your life. We are luxury because even though we are a small brand, we are a refined brand. The ingredients are almost unattainable. So, to bring a little bit of the Amazon of Brazil into your home, it's a luxury. And we go through so much to share those ingredients ethically. This work is serious.
BOWIE: How do you balance the tension between haute beauty and environmental responsibility?
COSTA: The beauty business is very interesting to me. There's actually a lot of protocols, and I respect those protocols, but I don’t know if everyone else does. I had zero protocols in fashion. Fashion is very abusive and it’s also very unsustainable. To think that I turned nights and nights with everybody working like insane people. And for what? Just because I wanted to change half of the collection? It’s irresponsible. But, fashion is like a pressure cooker. It makes you insane, because you're not just pleasing the retailers, you have to please everybody. And you're very vulnerable. It's never enough.
In beauty, at least I know the limits. The way I look at sustainability is the people. How do we protect and empower them? This three-generation family, for example. It’s fundamental that these people can live their lives and continue to manage the land. The Indigenous people are the protectors of the Amazon and there are millions of communities throughout the region.
Another consideration has to do with protecting and empowering the consumer. That means creating a quality product that is functional and beautiful with packaging that's genuinely thought out. This is the most difficult aspect for a designer. So, there are parts of the packaging that are not sustainable but they serve a function. When I created the plastic octagonal cap, it was because it needs to have a grip. We’re talking about oils. That's a protective consideration to prevent the glass from breaking.
BOWIE: Do you ever see yourself returning to fashion in a more traditional sense? Or is beauty and wellness where your heart is now?
COSTA: I love fashion. It's just that fashion doesn't love a 60-year-old man. Fashion is for the young and it should be. I have no interest in going back to fashion because I have nothing to prove. But if I wasn't so busy running this business, I probably would create a couture collection. There's nothing more sustainable than that, you know? The oldies, like Balenciaga, only cut the fabric if somebody ordered a dress. So, there's zero waste. I would've loved to be more playful in that area, or to make a difference in a large corporation with the restructuring of its supply chain. But not just to be a designer showing another eight collections a year. If I could make a difference on a large scale, under a group, I would do that in a heartbeat.
