The wall of Olga Valles‘ office is a vast tableau of famous faces past and present: Barack Obama smiles warmly, while Yasser Arafat poses in his trademark black-and-white keffiyeh. Next to him is George W. Bush, practically cheek-to-cheek with a fierce Saddam Hussein, teeth bared in a snarl under his black beret.

Beyond them are Osama Bin Laden, Venezuela’s Hugo Chavez, an array of soccer greats and the more colorful images of Shrek, Simba from the movie “The Lion King” and assorted monsters.

Valles runs Brazil‘s oldest and most productive mask factory, Condal, a family business started by her Spanish-born husband in 1958. As such, she’s responsible for keeping a finger on the nation’s sense of whimsy and translating the year’s most popular characters, be they real or imaginary, admirable, silly or scary, into masks that will adorn revelers during Carnival, Brazil‘s annual five-day extravaganza. Roving percussion bands have already begun taking over Rio’s streets dragging behind them, Pied Piper-style, throngs of dancing, drinking, costumed revelers.

Carnival’s license to be whoever you want to be for a day is at the core of Valles’ business, with the season’s sales representing 70 percent of her income. She says it’s also a responsibility she takes seriously: Masks and costumes are about much more than looking good for the party.

It’s a time when Brazilians turn to “fantasias,” as Carnival disguises of all sorts are called, to express whatever they’ve kept bottled up during their humdrum workday lives: humor, criticism, fantasies, admiration, aspirations. After all, who doesn’t want to be someone else for a day? Valles’ masks facilitate that, and she’s proud of it, she says.

“I do it for the people, to keep this spirit of street Carnival going,” she said. “It’s social commentary, it’s a way of expressing how you feel. Brazilians need to turn everything into a game, even the most serious things. It’s how they process things.”

Marcelo Servos, manager of the traditional costume purveyor Casas Turuna in downtown Rio, carries Condal masks among other costumes.

“Dressing up is about the imagination, dreaming, becoming someone else,” he said. “People love to transform themselves.”

Picking through the women’s section of Casas Turuna, friends Josiane dos Santos Silva and Vanessa Ventura Freitas had very different secret selves to unveil during Carnival. While Silva wanted to dress up as a soldier, complete with camouflage and fake bullet belts, …read more
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