Spring in the City of Light is all about casual chic with a twist.

Left: Paul Smith silk stripe pocket square $60 • Paul Smith silk tie $145 • Thom Browne oxford shirt with navy grosgrain placket $255 • Ermenegildo Zegna navy double-breasted blazer $2,195

Right: dries Van Noten oversize double-breasted blazer, available at Jeffrey New York $1,090 • Loewe anagram belt, available at Jeffrey New York $280 • doo-ri top, available at Saks fifth avenue $595 • Van Spijker Harmina pumps $1,240

“MACRAMANIA IS SWEEPING THE COUNTRY,” reads one of my mom’s macramé manuals from the ’70s. Back then, it was all about making planters, wall hangings and funky belts. Though all the rage during the Carter administration, the practice actually dates back to Arab cultures in the 13th century (the word is derived from the Arabic migramah, an ornamental fringe or veil) and was picked up by sailors in the 19th century. Now macramé is back, this time on runways and in haute hotels.

In the 2011 spring/summer fashion shows, Julien Macdonald sent a beautiful white macramé minidress down the runway, and Catherine Malandrino showed sandals with intricate plaits winding up the leg. Last year, when he was commissioned to create a macramé wall hanging in the lobby of the new Ace Hotel in Palm Springs, L.A. artist and designer Michael Schmidt wanted to shake things up. “I suggested we take the seventies macramé idea further by incorporating nautical and Japanese rope-knotting techniques,” he says. The curtain hangs from assorted pieces of antique hardware, ship’s pulleys and butcher’s hooks. The result is a loopy, drapey work that transforms the lobby.

“Of all the things I make and exhibit… my micro macramé seems to stop people in their tracks,” says jewelry designer Lorraine Cook, who uses the technique with bright colors and beads to create intricate, tribal-looking necklaces. “Why? I have no idea, other than inside all of us is a primal love of color, threads and beads.”

Macramé’s current popularity makes sense with the resurgence of crafts, but it’s also a sign of our interconnected, globalized culture. Cook, who lives in Queensland, Australia, became interested in the art form while Googling. “I searched ‘woven jewelry’ and stumbled on macramé…. It was like opening a Christmas present.”

MIKE ALBO’s favorite ’70s macramé manual is Create a Happening with Basic Knots.

YOU KNOW SOMETHING has become an obsession when you can’t stop doing it, even on vacation. For seven years Michael Andrews was a mergers and acquisitions lawyer on Wall Street, but whenever he got a break, he “would go to Thailand or India and try out different tailors,” he says. “After five or six, my travel partners started getting a little annoyed.”

So in 2006, Andrews left Wall Street, took a few classes at the Fashion Institute of Technology and opened Michael Andrews Bespoke—a reasonably priced custom-tailoring boutique in lower Manhattan for guys who aren’t Gordon Gekko (suits start at $895). “I don’t care if you’re a construction worker or a tech guy. You still need one good suit,” Andrews says.

He measures every client himself, offers fabrics from fine mills like Zegna and Dormeuil, and works primarily with two factories in China to keep costs down. A wide range of guys in all shapes and sizes come through the door, including some athletes. “There’s a former center for one of our local basketball teams who is walking around in a whole lot of powder blue fabric,” says Andrews with a smile. “We try to give style advice, but if that’s what they want, that’s what they want.”

It turns out a lot of men want their suits made by a former “suit.” The boutique recently moved into a new 4,200-square-foot space in a secluded Lower Manhattan alley. The new shop has a vintage bar that gives it a speakeasy vibe. (Note: “Make sure you stay sober through the whole fitting.”) Andrews’ success is a sign that fine tailoring is catching on with American men. As for his own collection, “I have about fifty suits.

I should probably have more, but I have a one-in, one-out policy.”

THE WEWOOD WOODEN WATCH doesn’t come with a lot of bells and whistles. There’s the Crono model, on the left, with its two tiny digital screens that display stopwatch, alarm and date functions, and there’s the Date, right, which has just a plain old analog face.

But you don’t buy the WeWOOD for the advanced technology. You buy it because it’s singularly beautiful. In fact, since debuting in the U.S. this past fall, the one-year-old Florence, Italy–based maker of wooden watches has received raves from style blogs, fashion mags and, most important, watch shoppers. It’s fairly obvious why: With ebony or maple and often duotone bands and bodies, they look really cool.

“At first they were perceived as men’s watches,” says marketing manager Emma Bogren. “But now about forty-five percent of our customers are women going for that chunky, oversize look. We have some more feminine styles, like a bangle, on the way.”

WeWOOD works with American Forests to plant a tree for every watch sold, and most of its material comes from a mishmash of industrial companies that might otherwise discard the odds and ends used to make the watches. The system is imperfect, but WeWOOD is still trying to find reliable suppliers so they can use reclaimed wood exclusively. It’s only a matter of time.

CASHMERE HAS GRADUATED from exotic luxury fiber to preppy mainstay to almost commonplace: Much has been made of the rise of the under-$100 cashmere sweater, readily available at Old Navy or Uniqlo, stores that have opened up this lofty knit to a new, younger audience. But edgy has never been the province of cashmere, except at one design house that, for 21 years, has been shattering all preconceptions about the luxe goat wool.

TSE Cashmere has “always been a laboratory of ideas,” says Alyson Day, vice president of marketing. “We’ve sought out collaborations with innovative designers who will do interesting things with cashmere yarn.” These have included Calvin Klein alum and onetime Council of Fashion Designers of America Womenswear Designer of the Year Narciso Rodriguez, and Puma creative director Hussein Chalayan. Now Michelle Obama favorite Jason Wu joins those ranks. His spring collection for TSE (pronounced “say”) features classic shapes and loose, open, often sheer knits. Fabrics that blend cashmere and silk are light enough for a warm day and will go equally well with a pearl necklace or animal print heels—or both.

DEBBIE WILD, perfumer Jo Malone’s director of fragrance and lifestyle, wants you to think of your favorite fragrance the way you would “your little black dress”-which is to say, as a starting point. “You can accessorize your main fragrance with other scents for something that’s uniquely your own,” she says. To help people go about this, Malone patented “The Art of Fragrance Combining,” an initiative complete with an interactive website that helps customers figure out which scent combinations work best.

While most perfumers want their product to be immediately recognizable, Jo Malone stresses simplicity and personalization-fitting for a company that started when a young Malone began mixing soap shavings with flowers that grew outside her English countryside home. Although the line has since been bought by Estée Lauder and Malone is no longer involved, the products remain refreshingly uncomplicated. The simple bottles adorned with black-on-ivory labels contain such elemental fragrances as Vintage Gardenia and Verbenas of Provence. “They’re very fresh and clean,” Wild says. “And they’re very English. Our new one, English Pear and Freesia, was inspired by the John Keats poem ‘Ode to Autumn.’”

This year, Jo Malone has entered its first partnership, a collaboration with another very English firm, Farrow & Ball, a paint and wallpaper company that specializes in historic colors. The two have created a limited edition line of candles. A travel set will be available internationally this month. “We’ve matched some of our scents to their colors,” Wild says. “The philosophy is decorating your home with scent. You want your home to look beautiful and smell beautiful, too.” Keats, that old lover of beauty, would approve.

YOU KNOW THE SCENE: A befuddled male shopper wanders through the sparkly maze of a chic boutique. A rugged washed canvas weekend bag catches his eye, but he hesitates, noting a display of peep-toe pumps a few feet away. His brow furrows as he wonders if he’s really stumbled upon the men’s section after all.

In the last five years or so, fashion-forward retailers have begun catching on to how men prefer to shop, banking on the fact that fellows feel at ease in unabashedly masculine spaces uncluttered by pencil skirts and evening clutches. Surrounded by old leather club chairs, goes the logic, gents will happily splurge on boat shoes and calfskin billfolds. Throw a hunting rifle and some antlers on the wall—even better, serve neat single-malt Scotch—and they’ll pick up rugby shirts without a care in the world. A slew of boutiques have followed that model, keeping their men’s and women’s shops entirely separate. When J. Crew launched a boutique in downtown Manhattan in 2008, the gruff ambiance at the resulting men’s shop was underlined by its setting, a former liquor store, where sherbet-hued cashmere sweaters lined the heavy oak bar.

This summer, the trend has gathered steam, led by Coach, the luxury leather goods and accessories emporium. In May, the label opened its own clubby men’s-only spot on Manhattan’s Bleecker Street where this season’s preppy- cool accessories come in casual materials perfect for a sailing getaway. But though the Bleecker Street shop clearly caters to the outdoorsy, All-American Coach customer, that doesn’t mean the guys are afraid to get a little trendy. “The male customer has evolved over time, taking a more adventurous and global approach to fashion,” says Mike Tucci, the company’s president of North American retail. “Historically they gravitate toward staple shades like black and mahogany, but I think that’s changing as we introduce more offbeat colors, like cranberry and chambray.” Bring out the single malt—we’ll drink to that.

SWITZERLAND’S WATCHMAKERS have been expertly marking time for centuries. Lately, some have switched their focus to changing how we view time itself, and Franck Muller is one of these visionaries. A watchmaking legend, Muller has created some of the world’s most unusual—and mischievous—timepieces. Crazy Hours, for example, mixes up the numbers on the dial. At the top of each hour, the hour hand jumps to the correct number, which is in an incorrect position. This playful timepiece takes some getting used to, but it makes you pay attention to the passing of every moment. The Irregular Retrograde Hour, also from Muller, is in a similar vein: It shows the day’s working hours in regular indices, then during lunchtime, from noon to two, expands the display, appearing to slow time so you can enjoy a leisurely repast.

Another player is master watchmaker Pierre Kunz, whose ladies collection Cupidon watch has a heart on the dial with triple retrograde second hands (each hand marks 20 seconds). Under each is a French qualifier for love: beaucoup (lots), passionnement (with passion) and à la folie (like crazy).

The Vintage 1945 Jackpot Tourbillon, pictured, is a very cool and—at around $625,000—very expensive watch from Girard Perregaux. Not only does it have a tourbillon (an 18th century mechanism thought to counteract gravity and improve a watch’s accuracy), it is also a mini one-armed bandit, with slot-machine reels that turn with a pull of the solid gold handle on the side.

As intricate as these timepieces are, the watchword is not complexity, but whimsy. “We are trying to put joy into our watches,” Muller says. “Everyone needs more joy in their lives.” Life is short after all.

BEING A MEMBER of the jet set isn’t all fun and games (mostly, but not all). One must deal with jet lag, for instance—though not for long, if Paris-based designer Mathieu Lehanneur has his way. His latest project, a sleeping system called Once Upon a Dream, developed in collaboration with the legendary champagne house Veuve Clicquot, aims to wake up weary travelers.

The project came about after Clicquot invited Lehanneur to invent something unique for a private 19th century guesthouse, in which the company (based in Reims, France) houses corporate visitors. In talking with the firm’s executives, Lehanneur learned that traveling through disparate time zones often took its toll on the vintner’s guests, so he worked with a team of sleep scientists to devise a solution.

Once Upon a Dream—which is currently making the rounds of design fairs—resembles a canopy bed set on a stylized platform. But what a bed. The hanging ivy suspended over the occupant is actually a switch. With one touch, the device whirs to life: A curtain is drawn around the “sleeping capsule,” the room’s lights slowly dim, the temperature drops ever so slightly, and white noise begins to hum. As the sleeper drifts off, a micro-diffusion of sea air is released, providing metabolism-soothing antioxidants and hydration. He or she awakes rested and ready to face a new time zone.

The bed is a one-off for now, but Lehanneur has big plans for it. “It’s the perfect device for an airport or a hotel,” he says. And yes, having made his bed, he has actually lain in it. “It was only a one-hour nap,” he recalls of his test run. “But it felt like a whole night.”

IT HARDLY MATTERS if you’re in Hong Kong or Hollywood—you step into the dramatic light of a chic hotel lobby these days, and you can’t help but notice that everyone there, bellhops included, looks ready to walk the runway.

That’s because for the last decade or so fashion houses have been getting in on the hotel trade and outfitting hostelries down to the last doorknob. Book a swank room in, say, Milan, and there’s a good chance that every gummy worm in the minifridge has been “curated” by a fashion visionary. Maison Moschino opened in Milan in March, followed by the April debut of the Armani Hotel in Dubai. And this month, Diane von Fürstenberg– designed rooms become available at Claridge’s in London. The line between hospitality and high fashion is becoming decidedly blurred.

This spring W Hotels, never the sort of company to shy away from the latest and greatest, hired stylist Amanda Ross, once an editor at Harper’s Bazaar, to deepen its relationships with fashion designers and bring her brand of grown-up cool to the hotels’ boutiques. It’s not the W’s virgin foray into fashion (Michael Kors and Gwen Stefani have both designed uniforms for staff at the properties), but Ross’ appointment as Global Fashion Director is an industry first. “Hotels are this third space, not quite public and not quite private,” says Ross, who’s equally at home in the front row at Paris Fashion Week and combing through Barcelona’s vintage stores. “Everything, everyone looks a little better there. Or wants to.”

CARNABY STREET, the trendy London district that helped popularize the miniskirt, is turning 50 this year. But don’t expect a neighborhood made famous by the Rolling Stones and the Sex Pistols to let down its hemlines. With free concerts scheduled for June 5 and 6, Carnaby Street rocks on.

At the beginning of the Swinging ’60s, fashionistas started swarming the narrow lanes off Regent Street, London’s grand shopping boulevard. The Georgian storefronts on these little roads housed increasingly edgy designer boutiques. One of the fashion mavens drawn to them was Zandra Rhodes, who started her couture career as a textile designer at the tiny Foale & Tuffin boutique. Using Rhodes’ brilliantly patterned fabrics, Marion Foale and Sally Tuffin helped put tiny skirts, colored tights and the now-infamous pantsuit on the fashion map.

The inspiration for the Carnaby Street look? Pop Art, says Rhodes. “It was Andy Warhol and the Union Jack and the U.S. stars and stripes and top hats—both sides of the Atlantic in a higgledy-piggledy mix.” Rockers took notice. The vintage military jackets from a boutique called I Was Lord Kitchener’s Valet showed up on Jimi Hendrix and influenced the cover of The Beatles’ Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band. The district also played a role in the emergence of punk, funk and hip-hop. And while the music may have changed, you can bet today’s fashionistas still stop in to pay homage to shops such as The Great Frog and Lambretta.

IT’S EASY TO ENVY THE SWEDES, with their crime writers, mini meatballs and catchy pop tunes. Now there’s another reason to see green, as the country’s famed retailer H&M introduces its premiere home collection, a bid to give the modish management at Ikea a run for their krona.

H&M Home launches its spring line of textiles and soft accessories featuring a pop-inspired aesthetic— think psychedelic pillows depicting Viking princesses, paint-splattered duvet covers and graphic throw blankets. “We want to show people that an item doesn’t have to be expensive or dramatic to change your home,” says Evelina Kravaev Söderberg, H&M Home’s design chief. The bad news? So far the linens are available only online in Sweden and its Nordic neighbors (plus Germany, Austria and the Netherlands). Though the fashion brand is known for its attention-grabbing designer collaborations (it’s worked with Karl Lagerfeld and Sonia Rykiel, among others), this time H&M is taking a humbler approach, tiptoeing into the realm of home décor with nary an international creative director or champagne-fueled debut bash. Nonetheless, the jawdropping prices (4.90 to 49.90 euros, or around $6.50–$68, for everything from candy-striped cushion covers to organic cotton bed sets), are earning the company plaudits from design-hungry bloggers around the globe. The response has been so strong the products are already slated to expand to the U.K. come autumn. Just in time for Brits to curl up under the covers and hibernate. There’s still no word on when the line will be available in the U.S., but you may want to start fluffing your pillows just in case.

WHEN CHICAGO-BORN DESIGNER Cynthia Rowley presented her spring 2010 runway collection, critics couldn’t help but notice that the winsome frocks she sent down the catwalk weren’t exactly your grandma’s tea dresses. With hues straight out of a box of watercolors, the dresses had a feminine touch, but they were anything but girly. The hard little details in black remind you that Rowley is a tomboy at heart. In fact, her menswear line earned a nod from the prestigious Council of Fashion Designers of America. Says the designer, who loves chasing waves in Montauk, Long Island, as much as she adores peacocking down Manhattan’s fashionable Bleecker Street near her flagship boutique, “I like to balance pretty with an edge.”

It’s a look that’s earned her collaborations with Target (she was the first major designer to team up with the megastore) and Roxy, the funky surfwear brand. Now, the talented thrill-seeker is hooking up with United to design new uniforms, which will be seen on that other type of runway starting in September. Working with the airline has her beaming with hometown pride. “As the saying goes, you can take the girl out of the Midwest, but you can’t take the Midwest out of the girl. I still like to go back to my Chicago roots, which made it even more fun to collaborate on a project with United.”

IT’S BEEN 100 YEARS SINCE the Frenchman Pierre Cartier brought dad Alfred’s storied jewelry concern to America, but the company, famed for whimsical designs like its rock star panther ring, is still partying like it’s 1909.

To wrap up Cartier’s yearlong centennial celebrations, the exhibition “Cartier and America” will open on December 19 at San Francisco’s Legion of Honor. You might want to bundle up, because it will be icy: There’s the “Star of South Africa,” an 83-carat rock found in 1869 along the banks of South Africa’s Orange River, a discovery that set off the South African diamond rush. (The bauble was later whittled down to a mere 47-carat pear-shape, lest you fear it all sounds a bit Dow 14,000.) Then there’s Grace Kelly’s diamond engagement ring, a hefty sparkler that’s equal parts movie star, European princess and prizefighter.

But if cut, color and clarity don’t dazzle you, some of Cartier’s more quirky amusements are also on display. Space nerds will cheer at the miniature 1969 Lunar Landing Module, rendered in yellow and white gold. Unfortunately, it’s not available as a stocking stuffer. And for your inner crocodile hunter, there’s a hefty 1975 necklace on view featuring an emerald beast taking a bite out of a yellow-diamond rival; the piece comprises a total of 2,087 jewels. Now, that’s fierce.

If you’re looking for your own piece of the rock, check out Cartier’s newest collection, Secrets & Merveilles, which will have four themes: peacocks, pearls, snakes and, of course, diamonds—something for everyone on your holiday list.

AS THE LIGHTS DIMMED before the Michael Kors Spring 2010 show in Manhattan this fall, tastemakers, trendcasters and the behind-the-scenes folks whose livelihoods depend on the rest of us shopping were all perched anxiously on petite chairs. Then there was Vogue editor Anna Wintour, impervious behind her bug-eyed glasses. Across the aisle, wearing a sharp suit, sat silver-haired Michael Douglas, in town for the filming of Wall Street 2: Money Never Sleeps.

This September, more than ever before, fashion industry observers drew in their breath, wondering precisely what alchemy of cut and color might just inspire Americans to reach into their wallets. Design duo Proenza Schouler wagered on cheeky electric-green cocktail frocks, while the venerated Oscar de la Renta proffered major gowns in orange and magenta with just a hint of flamenco flair. What they weren’t doing was anything demure or muted. Together, the top American designers seemed to be embracing insouciance, banking on escapism. Silver paillette disco dress, anyone?

Back at the Kors show, the lights came up, blindingly bright, and the models in minxy minidresses (black with see-through plastic cutouts) stalked toward the photographers to the strains of Lady Gaga’s “The Fame.” For a moment, the room felt like it was moving to the lyrics: “All we care about is runway models, Cadillacs and liquor bottles… We got a taste for champagne and endless fortune.”

In the front row, Wintour cracked a faint smile. Gordon Gekko threw her a wink. Fashion was back.

SARAH HORNE thinks that everyone should own exactly one piece of disco ball–inspired clothing.

PATRICK ROBINSON, the Gap’s executive vice president of design, has classic casual down pat. “I’m an authentic, straight guy,” he says. He’s referring to his straight-leg pants, of course—a salient point given that he recently unveiled his brainchild, 1969 Premium Jeans, a line of denim a year and a half in the making that execs hope will breathe new life into the brand.

The designer, who earned his fashion stripes at Giorgio Armani and Perry Ellis, has brought new cred to what had become an increasingly out-of-touch label. “People know Gap the way they know Coca-Cola,” he says, sitting in his Chelsea office, clad in a flannel shirt and dark jeans with a strategically placed hole above the knee. “My job has been to make the brand relevant again, to channel that affection people have and to get them in the stores.”

To that end, Robinson has gotten back to basics. “I don’t say, ‘This season it’s about robots,’ or fairy wings or Morocco.” Instead, he finds his inspiration closer to home. “There are these little neighborhoods all over America, in San Francisco or Minneapolis. Young people starting little businesses and building communities—doing things with purpose. This is not the one percent of the one percent who are buying couture.” Making Gap meaningful to these people, says Robinson, is all about keeping his eyes open. “How does America want to dress now?” The answer, it seems, is for $69 or less. As with most things Gap, the new look is basic, the denim soft, the rivets copper (and one blue one on each pair of pants, but that’s about as wild as it gets).

Reviving a storied public company comes with a lot of pressure, and Robinson, who has overseen Gap’s design since 2007, concedes that “starting from scratch with the denim is complicated.” Picking his own wardrobe? Not so much. “I’ve worn Gap every day since I’ve started this job,” he laughs. “Even weekends! Everything on my body, even the socks and the underwear, are Gap. If there’s one person who thinks the brand is cool,” says Robinson, “it should be me.”

SARAH HORNE has vivid memories of trying to master the perfect peg-legged cuffon her first pair of Gap jeans (circa 1989).

IN THE DREARIEST HOURS of the 1970s, when oil prices were as high as the hemlines, Halston’s shirt dress made him the ultimate American sportswear designer. It was the embodiment of minimalism, but with a sexy wink—equal parts Jackie Kennedy and Bianca Jagger. Halston defined ’70s fashion in the same way that Andy Warhol (a friend of the designer’s) epitomized the art world, and his self-titled fragrance became the second-best-selling of all time.

In 1984, six years before his death, Roy Halston Frowick lost the right to his name—and his legacy. Money men swooped in to divide the spoils, resulting in an endless string of déclassé licensing deals. An unlikely hero arrived in the person of movie mogul Harvey Weinstein, who acquired the brand in 2007, leading to hopes that it would once again attire moneyed beauties and lend bankable stars that cool, decadent whiff of Studio 54.

Since its relaunch, Halston has been quietly gaining momentum. When the Spring 2010 collection debuts this month in New York under the creative direction of Marios Schwab, the front row will get a preview of Pure Metallic, Halston’s revamped fragrances for men and women, in platinum-finished versions of the bottles originally created by jewelry designer Elsa Peretti. And just like in the ’70s, a dab at the neck may be just the thing to stave off recession fatigue.

SARAH HORNE is a lover of all things fashion—except for the romper fad.

In the dreariest hours of the 1970s, when oil prices were as high as the hemlines, Halston’s shirt dress made him the ultimate American sportswear designer. It was the embodiment of minimalism, but with a sexy wink—equal parts Jackie Kennedy and Bianca Jagger. Halston defined ’70s fashion in the same way that Andy Warhol (a friend of the designer’s) epitomized the art world, and his self-titled fragrance became the second-best-selling of all time.

In 1984, six years before his death, Roy Halston Frowick lost the right to his name—and his legacy. Money men swooped in to divide the spoils, resulting in an endless string of déclassé licensing deals. An unlikely hero arrived in the person of movie mogul Harvey Weinstein, who acquired the brand in 2007, leading to hopes that it would once again attire moneyed beauties and lend bankable stars that cool, decadent whiff of Studio 54.

Since its relaunch, Halston has been quietly gaining momentum. When the Spring 2010 collection debuts this month in New York under the creative direction of Marios Schwab, the front row will get a preview of Pure Metallic, Halston’s revamped fragrances for men and women, in platinum-finished versions of the bottles originally created by jewelry designer Elsa Peretti. And just like in the ’70s, a dab at the neck may be just the thing to stave off recession fatigue.

Sarah Horne is a lover of all things fashion—except for the romper fad.

Bathed in bright footlights on the stage of a club in Lapa, a revived bairro near downtown Rio de Janeiro, a 12-member band plays a delirious samba. The crowd, almost a thousand of Rio’s most glamorous Brazilians and best-informed tourists, is in a state of rapture. As the singer belts out the chorus, they chant along. A menagerie of instruments propels the samba, though at its core are the pandeiro, a type of tambourine, and the melodic cavaco, a four-string guitar resembling a ukulele. One band member hammers a counterbeat on an agogo bell, another a drum called a timba.

The beat picks up, and the crowd at the Clube Dos Democráticos follows the band’s lead, only vaguely aware they’re witnessing a powerful resurgence of Brazil’s signature dance—and by extension, its national spirit.

One of the world’s most sensual forms of dance music, samba—a swank precursor to the lambada—was just 10 years ago all but forgotten. After decades at the top of the charts, the form was relegated to the nostalgia bin, supplanted on top-40 radio by Brazilian rock and pop ballads. But that’s changing now, as a new generation returns to samba with fresh ears.

While the music mixes the heavy beats of African drumming with the melancholy melodies of Portugal, the dancing—a libido-fueled bump-and-grind—is strictly Brazilian. The word itself is a bastardization of the Angolan “semba,” which means belly-button bumping, and that’s as good a description of the action on the dancefloor tonight as any. On stage, a saxophone sounds a crazy warble and suddenly the singer raises his hands to end the song. The band nearly collapses. The crowd erupts in applause, which echoes outside onto Rua Gomes Freire.

It’s the night after Christmas, and the party seems like it’s just beginning. Hundreds of revelers crowd the sidewalks of Lapa, flirting and toasting the tropical evening with copas of sugar-cane rum. Crowds arrive through the night and try to squeeze their way past the less-than-democratic doorman, a scene that’s playing itself out at numerous other clubs in the area, such as Carioca da Gema, the Centro Cultural Carioca and Bar da Ladeira.

“For young musicians, Lapa is like a church,” says Thais Villela, a 29-year-old singer who is part of a new generation of singers and musicians who worship at samba’s altar. “We learn something new each day from the ‘old guard,’ who will spend the whole night talking to you about samba. Our mission is to carry on their work.”

“It used to be the last neighborhood a local would go to hear music, but it’s Bnow the place they think of first,” agrees Moyseis Marques, a young singer with a baby face. And the tourists are following suit, making the samba pilgrimage to the historic neighborood, an area once considered too dangerous to visit. What used to be a menacing, litter-strewn place lined with abandoned colonial buildings and ratty brothels is now a colorful neighborhood full of street fairs, art galleries, upmarket bars and antique shops. And of course samba clubs.

Samba was born in the early 20th century in Rio’s impoverished hilltop favelas. It became the “Brazilian sound” in the ’30s, when a government program delivered radios from the cities of Rio and Sao Paulo to the northeast hinterlands. Samba was the signature sound of those early broadcasts. Soon enough, it was one of the elements that gave this vast country its unified national identity.

“Samba is a mixture of Portugal and Angola,” says Áurea Martins, the mistress of Lapa and the most experienced female performer in the bairro, whose 45-year career is enjoying a sudden revival amid the current boom. “But it brought Brazil together.”

A young couple gets down at one of the many smaller clubs. The word “samba” means belly-button bumping.

A 68-year-old Afro-Brazilian, Martins, who in the past year has released two albums—one solo and one with her all-female group, Orquestra Lunar— possesses a diminutive stature that belies the power of her husky, emotion-packed voice. She was born in Campo Grande, an impoverished suburb in western Rio, and her singing career started during the last samba boom of the 1960s and ’70s, when record labels released songs by favela-based composers like Cartola and Nelson Cavaquinho. Like Cartola, Martins became a household name, touring the country and playing to thousands of fans.

In the ’80s, samba found itself sidelined by pop, rock and pagode, a watered-down and wildly popular genre of treacly ballads. Samba venues were shuttered, and Rio’s youth abandoned Lapa, migrating to Copacabana and Ipanema in search the newer sounds, sandy beaches and itsy-bitsy bikinis.

Samba in its purest form—what aficionados such as Martins call samba de raiz or roots samba—all but disappeared.

In the mid-’90s, however, the beginnings of a revival began to stir via jam sessions—known as rodas de sambas—at a hipster restaurant near Lapa called Sobrenatural. The raucous sessions were organized by a local musician called Galote and soon attracted hordes of kids eager to recreate samba’s golden era.

“It was the only roda de samba in all Rio,” recalls Edu Krieger, 32, who discovered samba in Sobrenatural. Today he’s one of Brazil’s best-known young composers, writing for singers such as the Grammy-winning Maria Rita. “It was the meeting place of many people who today work in Lapa.”

The roda then spread from Sobrenatural to a tiny backstreet bar called Semente, in the heart of Lapa, on Rua Joaquim Silva.

Brazilian samba impresario Aline Brufato purchased Semente in 1996 and immediately promoted the club’s rodas. Young musicians flocked to the club, and a cult following persists to this day (comparable to those surrounding the now-closed CBGB in New York or The Roundhouse in London). “After the Sobrenatural, Semente was the place,” says proprietor Brufato. “Even today, it is an open stage for musical experimentation.”

Countless new sambas are written every week at Semente, songs born in the early hours of the morning over ice-cold beer and scribbled down on napkins. Drop in virtually any night of the week and all the unmistakable signs of the samba renaissance are there: A rousing beat blasting onto the street, and elegant couples swinging sensually across the smoke-clogged dance floor.

The new virtuosos of samba call this their spiritual home. Brazilian guitarists Yamandú Costa and Zé Paulo Becker and French violinist Nicolas Krassik can be found there on any given night.

“I always say that Semente was my cocoon,” says Villela, who began singing on Semente’s cramped stage and now performs in Lapa’s larger clubs. “The masters learned their trade here and came out as beautiful butterflies.”

Every Friday, Brufato runs the biggest samba night in town (called Semente da Música Brasileira) at the Clube dos Democráticos. And numerous smaller clubs have bloomed among the storefronts: Estrela da Lapa, Bar Mofo, Mal do Século, Parada da Lapa. “For a long time there were only two samba clubs in Lapa,” Martins says. “Today there are more than 20.”

All that bumping of bellybuttons has had a profound effect on this once-depressed area, spurring economic growth and bringing in investment. Millions of private dollars have been been spent restoring the crumbling 19th-century town houses and colonial buildings that were abandoned during samba’s dark years.

Lapa’s red light district and homeless, knifewielding scamps are now gone (mostly), and the zone is one of the hottest real estate grabs in Rio. Upmarket bars, restaurants and hotels seem to open every other week. The streets are well-policed; crime is negligible.

New hotels, office towers and luxury condominiums now crowd the skyline here, replacing most of the seedy no-tell motels and ramshackle worker dormitories. Top restaurants are opening, like the popular Pizzaria Carioca da Gema, where revelers gather and fortify themselves with pizza and sizzling Brazilian steaks before heading out to dance. The luxurious Hotel Santa Teresa offers pleasant jumping-off point for a caipirinha-fueled local night out.

Semente, a Lapa mainstay, is where the new samba resurgence was born.

The prosperity is spreading to neighboring bairros as well. Praça Tiradentes, just east of Lapa, is now infected by development fever.

“This area used to be like an antiques shop,” says Plinio Fróes, the owner of Rio Scenarium, one of Rio’s best-known samba clubs. “Now the samba attracts politicians, intellectuals and playwrights alike.”

Fróes believes this is just the beginning. He recently bought three more buildings in Lapa and plans to open a convention center and another samba club. Two new hotels, run by Ibis and Formula 1, recently opened in the square. The expansion seems endless, and it all really began with the rodas at the humble Sobrenatural. The beat goes on.

It is a Friday night on Avenida Mem de Sá, one of Lapa’s main thoroughfares, and the pounding sound of the timba drums and the pandeira filters from half a dozen samba clubs, each packed to the rafters with Rio’s sweaty new samba lovers.

Inside one club, two women prepare to mount the stage to serenade a packed house: Martins, the smiling, enduring doyenne of classic samba, and Villela, an avatar of the nova geração or “new generation.”

“It is an exchange,” says Martins. “True Brazilian music will always exist.” With that, Martins lifts her delicate frame from her barstool and sweeps back towards the stage for her final set of the night, her trademark black beret pulled tightly over her hair.

“Samba might agonize,” Martins says, quoting a famous samba lyric with her customarily cheeky smile. “But it will never die.”