Ivan Erick Menezes Honors Florbela Espanca for Vogue Portugal June 2021

In this Vogue Portugal June 2021 issue fashion editorial dedicated to Florbela Espanca, models Camila Simões, Elson Lima, Lana Rost, and Natalia Renken are styled by fashion editor and creative director Alexandre Dornelles. Ivan Erick Menezes photographs ‘Eu quero amar, amar perdidamente’ [I want to love, love hopelessly] inspred by Florbela Espanca./ Beauty by Silvio Giorgio; hair by Silvio Giorgio

Florbela Espanca (1894-1930) is one of Portugal's most known and loved poets, an early feminist in a very turbulent period in the country’s history. Her avant-garde mind and soul were frowned upon by a conservative society, and the poet ended her early life at age 36.

Espanca lived in a politically tumultuous period known as the First Republic (1910-1926), a time of great religious conflict in Portugal. The revolution immediately targeted the Catholic Church, expelling residents of religious institutions. On 24 May 1911, Pope Pius X issued the encyclical Iamdudum which condemned the anticlericalism of the new republic for its deprivation of religious civil liberties and the "incredible series of excesses and crimes which has been enacted in Portugal for the oppression of the Church."[

Espanca’s poetry often expressed paganist views, causing many to be prejudiced against her. As the Portuguese First Republic revolution matured with its tight embrace of secularism and liberal values, people became increasingly conservative in response to its perceived failures.