Kilin and Xibô

A passion that came and went many times

A passion that came and went many times

Little squirrel was what Sergio used to call Vera Beatriz, the great love of his life. From this nickname came Kilin, one of Sergio’s most famous creations, who addressed his wife using his nickname all his life. As far as she was concerned, Vera Beatriz was amused at Sergio’s slanted eyes and his playfulness. She started by calling him a foolish Chinese, which turned into Xibô and ended up becoming the name of another important piece in the designer’s story: The Xibô chair. Beatriz Vera and Sergio’s story had a chapter all of its own.

Vera Beatriz dated Sergio at the tender age of 13. And he was all but 16 years old at the time. They dated at parties, as did all teenagers. “It was platonic love. He would always say: ‘Will you marry me?’ We dated for a year. For a year we danced at all parties,” says Vera Beatriz. After a while, Vera Beatriz learned that Sergio was the nephew of Nelson Rodrigues. Her mother was worried about her daughter dating a boy from a family she considered very complicated. “Nelson, at the time, was a scandal. The bourgeoisie would get up and leave during plays because they said things no one dared to bring up on stage. When my mother heard that, she was not amused. Furthermore, she had read about his father’s tragic murder in the newspapers.”

Vera Beatriz was beautiful and very popular among boys. Unable to withstand the pressure from her family, the relationship ended after a year. Sergio was heartbroken. “He wouldn’t leave me alone, he even followed me to church. He would wake up early in the morning because the bus from Sacre Coeur would pick me up before seven. He would go to the corner just to wave me goodbye.”

Time passed and Vera Beatriz married her first husband. She says that he was a good, kind man, but they had nothing in common and, after the birth of their son, Luiz Eduardo, and of four years of marriage, Vera Beatriz left him. He was very disconnected from the world, while Beatriz Vera was a modern, educated, lively woman. Her marriage was no longer going well, and Beatriz Vera announced her divorce. “At the time, it was an act of heroism because no one separated. My father wouldn’t talk to me for a long time.”

After this first separation, her parents sent her to Curitiba where her Uncle Munhoz da Rocha was the governor. They agreed that he would offer her a notary public in northern Paraná if she gave up the separation. She didn’t, but while in Curitiba she went to her uncle’s library and ended up bumping into Sergio, who, at the time, worked for the government of Paraná. “He turned pale. He had just gotten married and I had already separated.” Sergio went away and told his then wife, Vera Maria, to whom he was still married. The truth is that Sergio’s passion for Vera Beatriz had never ended. Later, Vera Beatriz found that, in his teens, Sergio had kept a notebook where he described all the parties they went to those days they dated, all of her dresses, and the songs the two danced to.

Shortly after traveling to Curitiba, Vera Beatriz got married again. She had a daughter, Luciana, and this time was married for nineteen years. She waited for her daughter to get engaged at age 19, did psychoanalysis and announced she would separate. Vera Beatriz already had a job at a distributor selling bed and table linen and underwear and earned good money.

After separating for the second time, she found out Sergio had been separated from his wife for a year. Sergio had four children: Angela, Adriana, Veronica, and Roberto. Her friends told her that he was still in love. They prepared a dinner and invited the two. When he met Vera Beatriz, he immediately wanted to get married. She no longer wanted anything to do with this marriage business, as she had been through two unhappy marriages and now wanted to enjoy life. “He insisted and I agreed to meet him. I went to his apartment. He played the songs of our days to get me involved. And I said I did not want to get married anymore. Then Sergio went out to get some ice cream. Hazelnut ice cream, I remember well. ” When he came back, something in Vera Beatriz had changed. And marriage with Sergio became a real possibility.

They started dating and were soon living together. “I went to live with him in Leblon. I left a huge duplex and went to live in a tiny apartment with no wardrobes.” They got married in a civil ceremony, in 1973, and only years later, in 1992, after the two were already widowers of their first marriages, they had a church ceremony.

The church wedding was an old dream of Sergio’s. After all, he had been educated by Jesuits at Colégio Santo Inácio. It took a while to get married in the church. Sergio always felt sad because he thought he had to have a church wedding. “One day, Sergio woke up in tears. He said he had dreamed he was at a church that was not a church. He stood before a priest who was not a priest, dressed in white. A wonderful light. It was a spiritual dream. Both wearing white and friends in white too. This priest gave me an absolution, and ‘I’ve been forgiven, Kilinha.’ He really wanted to get married in the church.”

As the two were then widows, they were free to do so. Sergio contacted Don Luciano Mendes, his cousin. Beatriz Vera was no longer Catholic, but spiritualistic. And the person Sergio wanted as his best man was Jewish. Don Luciano gave a lot of thought to it and said: Wasn’t Jesus Jewish too? And married the two. The ceremony took place at their house in Petrópolis, in a small chapel built especially for the occasion. Later, it was converted into a studio.

Sergio and Vera Beatriz rented a house on Conde de Irajá street, in Botafogo, where they put a kind of shop and an office together. They still lived in Ipanema, but got tired of commuting from Ipanema to Botafogo. They then moved to the upper part of the house, which later they managed to buy. Finally the couple moved to São Clemente street, close to work, to have a little more peace and quiet.

Sergio Rodrigues’ business skills did not keep pace with his huge creative capacity. But Vera Beatriz ended up managing Sergio’s professional life. Lucky for him. She went to the office and never left.