Luxury mecca Daslu goes up for auction today with a bid of R$1.4 million

If there are no buyers, the price could drop by half. Photo: Tiago Queiroz Daslu's auction could be closed today for the minimum amount of R$1.4 million. If sold, the proceeds will be used to pay off debts from the company's bankruptcy proceedings, as determined by the São Paulo courts. Included in the package are rights to exploit the group's brands and the Daslu website. If there are no buyers, a second auction will begin, ending on June 14, at half the price. "The current valuation of the brand is much lower than what it has generated in the past," says Mariana Valverde, a lawyer working in the fashion industry. "Daslu was a pioneering store selling international brands in Brazil, offering a whole luxury experience," she adds. Initially, Daslu operated in several interconnected houses in Vila Nova Conceição in the 1990s, where high-society women circulated and tried on clothes at will - men were forbidden to enter. The saleswomen earned the affectionate nickname "dasluzetes" - they were young women from the cream of São Paulo society. In 2005, a big party marked the inauguration of Daslu's imposing neoclassical building on Marginal Pinheiros, with the then governor Geraldo Alckmin, an orchestra and many distinguished guests. A month later there was a mega-operation by the Federal Police which revealed a tax evasion scheme. The group's owner, Eliana Tranchesi, who died of cancer at the age of 56, was sentenced to 94 years and six months in prison. Recently, her ex-partner and brother, Antonio Carlos Albuquerque, who was on the run, was arrested by the police in Morumbi, São Paulo.