Flying down to rio; With stopovers in So Paulo and Salvador, the Express design team blitzed Brazil, stalking inspiration for 2005.

Byline: Mark Holgate

Sometimes, I swear, this job is just like Fear Factor," says Andrew Maag, executive vice president of design for Express. Maag and his team-Johanna Howard, Sun Lee, and Helene Bizouerne-have just arrived in Brazil and are gearing up for a grueling four-day grind around the streets of So Paulo, Rio de Janeiro, and Salvador, to seek out inspirations for 2005. It might only be June, but since January, the team has already racked up air miles visiting Japan, Turkey, Italy, and Mexico.

If the Express design team is now stalking the globe for ideas-just like John Galliano in China or Donna Karan in India-then it's all down to the brave new world of mass fashion, where cheap is now looking chic. If you're still showing your fashion smarts by adding a few plain-and-simple chain-store basics to your expensive and flashy designer looks, then great-but you're also way behind the curve.

Those very same chain stores-not only Express but Banana Republic, Club Monaco, et al-now offer fashion spelled with a capital F. And it's not just a heavily diluted version of some haute idea that was white-hot a season ago. These days, you'll find clothes of intriguing originality that are apace with the latest runway trends.

The defining moment of change was the appearance of the Marc by Marc Jacobs collection a few years back. Two things happened: the mall stores woke up to the fact that a designer was giving them some competition, and the mass-market companies saw that there was an enormous, coast-to-coast demand for cool clothes that didn't cost a fortune. The time had come for those with major mall presence to sharpen up their acts.

This is where Maag and his team come in, trawling Brazil for ideas that will feed into the looks they generate for the 973-outlets-and-counting Express chain. The bulk of the team's time is spent cherry-picking from stalls, stores, and street traders. From So Paulo's flea market Praca Benedito Calixto they score a surprisingly good array of antique lingerie and costume jewelry ("It was unmined territory," says Howard. "None of the local girls were interested in the jewelry; it probably looked too much like it belonged to their grandmothers"). At Rio de Janeiro's Ipanema hippie market they discover a line of handmade tan saddle-leather and white crocheted bags that are made locally, based on Brazilian fishermen's bags ("We'll adapt it to work with the bag styles we already offer," says Bizouerne). And after what seemed like a fruitless daylong search around Salvador, they finally stumble across a textile-design store, Didara by Goya Lopes, that sells graphic, folkloric prints that are typical of the area's African heritage. The designers are particularly thrilled with this discovery: It's a direction that they've been thinking about going in for some time.

There's also time for some retail research in each city they visit. They whet their appetites at the So Paulo and Rio de Janeiro branches of Clube Chocolate, a Colette-ish mix of designer labels, homewares, and art books, with a few peculiarly Brazilian touches: The So Paulo store has a fruit stand at the entrance and-unforgettably-20-kilo bags of dog food stacked up by the Celine.