Daspu was born in Rio de Janeiro on 16 December 2005 as an unlikely financial lifeline for Davida, the NGO founded in 1992 by former prostitute Gabriela Leite to advocate for sex workers. The name began as a joke by designer Sylvio de Oliveira: a deliberately crude play on the Portuguese word puta, or prostitute, aimed at Daslu, São Paulo's elite luxury retailer. Daslu was already under public scrutiny over allegations of smuggling and fraud involving its owner, Eliana Tranchesi. When journalist Elio Gaspari published the name in O Globo on 20 November 2005, the joke instantly became a brand. Daslu filed a lawsuit, but withdrew it after the public and media largely sympathized with the sex-worker organization rather than the embattled luxury house. A satirical name had become a national publicity weapon, exposing the class tensions between Brazil's exclusive luxury market and workers who were normally excluded from it.
The controversy forced Davida to transform an improvised fundraising idea into a functioning fashion company, complete with collections, retail outlets called "putiques," and T-shirts carrying messages about citizenship, sexual freedom, HIV/AIDS prevention, and sex-worker rights. After Daspu was rejected from Rio Fashion Week in 2006, it staged a parallel show instead, using a mix of sex workers and professional models and reportedly drawing a larger audience than the official event; Gisele Bündchen was among the high-profile fashion figures associated with the occasion. The label's spectacle was not merely a stunt: it made the bodies and political demands of Brazilian sex workers visible in a fashion system built around exclusion. Although Daspu's commercial activity weakened after 2009 and Leite's death in 2013, later commemorative shows—including a 2014 collection honoring her—kept the label's confrontational legacy alive.
