Gustavo Lins or Couture With an Architect's Eye

Gustavo Lins trained as an architect, has a passion for kimonos, the colour black and the contrast between silk and leather -- and the Brazilian put his life story into the haute couture line he is unveiling Tuesday in Paris.

"I spent the first half of my life in Brazil, the other half in Europe," the 50-year-old designer told AFP, adjusting the shoulder of a green silk tulle dress during a fitting session in his workshop in Paris' Marais district.

"I wanted to take stock, to look at where I am today," he said.

Fascinated by the Spanish Catalan architect Antoni Gaudi, Lins studied architecture as a young man and secured a scholarship that took him half way around the world to Barcelona.

During an internship in a fashion atelier, he learned the very basics of the trade, and was encouraged to go further by his university tutor at the time.

"He told me there were more than one ways to be an architect. With silk, leather, cotton or wool. My subject would be the human body."