Sophia's Costumes

Maria Sofia Pinheiro Machado Jobim was born in Avaré in São Paulo state on September 19, 1904, daughter of Francisco Antenor Jobim and Quita Pinheiro Machado. She married the engineer Waldemar Magno de Carvalho on September 19, 1927.

She was involved in numerous teaching and artistic activities throughout her life. Through her constant travels around the world, she formed a vast collection of typical costumes, rare pieces, jewelry and shoes, as well as a specialized library with hundreds of rare books on clothing.

In her travels she has attended to many courses and done a lot of research. She attended the Central Art School, the South Kensington Museum and the British Institute in London. She also studied at the Carnavalet in Paris, the Traphagen School of Fashion and the Metropolitan Museum in New York, the Benaki Museum in Athens, and the Cairo Museum in Egypt.

In the 1940s she began to use the signature Sophia Jobim. The National History Museum also holds postcards, photographs, menus, travel programs, and documents related to her social activities and home life.

Professor, researcher, clothing expert, and museologist, Sophia taught Historical Clothing at the School of Fine Arts of the Federal University of Rio de Janeiro between 1949 and 1968.

Sophia's Costumes
The Sophia Jobim collection of the National History Museum has more than 6,000 documents, from which we highlight its iconographic work. Sophia designed costumes for the theater and cinema, for her classes on clothing, and for publications in newspapers and magazines. The allegorical costumes we display here have been subject of several researches. The reason why Sophia has drawn these costumes is still unknown. They could have been used as didactic material or for a play. Or they could have been an exercise for identification of regional clothing attributes. But her ability as an illustrator and her artistic talent is evident in each of the designs and reveals the talented artist she was.

The National History Museum's Sophia Jobim collection is an important source of research for all those interested in clothing. The full collection is available for consultation.