Carmen Miranda's headdresses

Flamboyant is a word that's hard to translate into finnish language.

So instead I would rather just show these Carmen Miranda headdresses from 1940's and 1950's.

Portugal born Brazilian Carmen Miranda was an actress, singer and entertainer popular in 1940's and early 1950's. At the time she was the highest paid actress in Hollywood. Her style was a mixture of different Latin American clichés with no specific origin, and her image was highly controlled by her studio.

Exoticism is a delicate form of racism. Miranda was promoted as the "Brazilian bombshell" but as she grew her popularity in the United States, she was rejected by her Latin American audience for strengthening the negative stereotype of the South American woman. Miranda herself tried to break out of her image with only moderate success. She died at age of 46 of a heart attack. She had a habit of drinking and using description drugs.

Disregarding this side of the story, her appearance is a nice example of golden age of Hollywood costume design. It's purposely extravagant, carefully stylized and definitely recognizable. I think there are two ways to make something look very interesting. One is the "less is more" and the other one is Carmen Miranda way.