With Dino Alves behind the scenes at Karacter Model Tour in Cabo Verde

Known for three decades of redefining Portuguese fashion, Dino Alves has always considered clothing a vehicle rather than the destination. Long before fashion design, there was photography. Now, he returns to the medium that shaped his creative language, capturing people with the same instinct that has always driven his work: creating images that reveal something beyond the surface.

Behind the Scenes Photography Dino Alves

Hair Helena Vaz Pereira from Griffehairstyle

Creative Direction Lido Palma
Styling Carla Leal

All models from Karacter Agency
Girls: Camila, Daniela Santos, Emely Monteiro, Elly Gomes, Kaynara Fernandes Delgado, Mia, Rafaela Correia, Tainara Cunha, Thaynara Almeida, Yanina Delgado.

Boys: Arlindo Santos, Edmar Correia, Eduardo Fortes, Fredy Pires, João Paulo Rocha, Jorge CG, Leandro Toni, Mark Miranda, Mauro.

Last December, Dino was part of the Karacter Model Tour in Cabo Verde, where he styled a new generation of faces scouted and discovered across the islands alongside Karacter founder Lido Palmer. While photographer Paul Edrice captured the models’ first professional editorials, Dino turned his lens towards the moments in between.

Shot across the volcanic landscapes of São Vicente, his intimate black-and-white photographs strip away spectacle in favour of atmosphere, gesture and emotion. For Dino, monochrome isn’t nostalgia—it’s clarity.

For ZOOT, Dino Alves shares an intimate edit from Cabo Verde—a rare look behind the scenes through the eyes of a designer returning to his first creative language.

From the beginning of my career, clothing was merely a pretext for creating happenings and fashion images, and I’ve always considerer myself a creator of fashion images, photography stems from the same premise. What I truly enjoy is creating images and communicating through them.
Dino alves

*Thaynara Almeida, female winner of KMT Cabo Verde 25.*

ZOOT: Did you do an education as a photographer, and is this medium something you want to pursue in the future more often?

Dino Alves: Yes definitely, the photography and painting will be two forms of artistic expression that will gradualy gain more and more prominence in my career. Because there’s always a natural tendency in life to return the one’s origins.

ZOOT: You seem to prefer B&W, how does nature and the human body influence your photography?

Dino Alves: Black & White is a kind of natural image editing. when you put them in B&W, they immediately become poetic. It’s asif the B&W erases what’s less good in the framing. People exist in the landscape , in nature, whether it’s the countryside or cities and it’s these spaces that they behave. More than human bodies, it is the human soul that influences my photography.