page_title: Carmen Miranda
section_title: Image
hierarchical_section_title: Carmen Miranda / Image
caption_attribution_description: Português: Carmen Miranda em um anuncio do rádio FM da General Electric em 1945 na edição de The Saturday Evening Post. English: Carmen Miranda in an advertisement for General Electric in issue of The Saturday Evening Post (1945).
context_page_description: Carmen Miranda GCIH OMC was a Portuguese-born Brazilian samba singer, dancer, Broadway actress, and film star who was popular from the 1930s to the 1950s. Nicknamed "The Brazilian Bombshell", Miranda is noted for her signature fruit hat outfit she wore in her American films. As a young woman, she designed hats in a boutique before making her first recordings with composer Josué de Barros in 1929. Miranda's 1930 recording of "Taí", written by Joubert de Carvalho, catapulted her to stardom in Brazil as the foremost interpreter of samba.
  During the 1930s Miranda performed on Brazilian radio and appeared in five Brazilian chanchadas, films celebrating Brazilian music, dance, and the country's carnival culture. Hello, Hello Brazil! and Hello, Hello, Carnival! embodied the spirit of these early Miranda films. The 1939 musical Banana da Terra gave the world her "Baiana" image, inspired by African-Brazilians from the northeastern state of Bahia.
  In 1939, Broadway producer Lee Shubert offered Miranda an eight-week contract to perform in The Streets of Paris after seeing her at Cassino da Urca in Rio de Janeiro.
context_section_description: Miranda's Hollywood image was that of a generic Latina, blurring distinctions between Brazil, Portugal, Argentina, and Mexico and samba, tango and habanera music. It was stylized and flamboyant; she often wore platform sandals and towering headdresses made of fruit, becoming known as "the lady in the tutti-frutti hat". Her enormous, fruit-laden hats were iconic visuals recognized worldwide; Saks Fifth Avenue developed a line of Miranda-inspired turbans and jewelry in 1939, and Bonwit Teller created mannequins resembling the singer.
  Her tutti-frutti hat from The Gang's All Here (1943) inspired the United Fruit Company's Chiquita Banana logo the following year. During the 1960s, tropicália filmmakers in Brazil were influenced by Miranda's Hollywood films.
  In 2009 she was the subject of São Paulo Fashion Week and a short film, Tutti Frutti, by German photographer Ellen von Unwerth. Two years later, Macy's wanted to use Miranda to promote a clothing line. Other products influenced by her stardom are the Brazilian fashion brand Malwee's "Chica Boom Chic" collection for women, and the Chica Boom Brasil company's high-end Carmen Miranda line, which includes Miranda-themed bags, wall clocks, crockery and placemats.
caption: Miranda in a 1945 advertisement for a General Electric FM radio in The Saturday Evening Post
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