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High-level summary: Brazil, with its sizable, young, fashion-conscious population and periodic boom cycles — each inevitably hailed as the one that will finally launch the country onto its rightful place on the world stage — has long been regarded as a luxury sector El Dorado. International brands have been venturing into South America’s largest country since the 1990s, at first timidly and then, during the last boom, which lasted from around 2009-2014, quite boldly. During those years, the number of foreign luxury brands operating in Brazil more than doubled, according to a report by McKinsey, and the country’s high-end malls now feature labels such as Chanel, Louis Vuitton, Gucci and Prada.