In Brazil: Unspoiled Beach Fit for the Chic

The sculptured 20- and 30-somethings — models and actors sprinkled in with São Paulo’s elite professionals — sipped colored martinis and bronzed on leopard-print pillows, as gentle Bahian breezes tickled their skin. Few flinched as a steady stream of private planes and helicopters zipped above the water.

HE sun was blazing at the Tostex beach club in Bahia, Brazil, and the tanned and toned partygoers were lounging on rustic queen-size beds, fighting off the inexorable mosquitoes on an otherwise lazy day. A scruffy D.J. from São Paulo who went by the name Julião swayed in his thatch-roofed booth and cranked up a funky remix of Laurent Garnier’s saxophone-infused song “The Man With the Red Face.”

Situated on the palm-fringed coast of Brazil’s Bahia state, Trancoso still looks like the hippie getaway that first made the town popular 20 years ago, with its uneven cobblestone streets and dirt roads. Colorfully painted low-rise wooden houses are the norm, even those that now sell $35 wineglasses and $3,000 paintings.

It was another picture-perfect day in Trancoso, a former fishing village that has turned in to a super-trendy getaway for Brazilians and fashionable jet-setters willing to pay St.-Tropez prices for rustic accommodations on an unspoiled beach.

“This is the freest place in Brazil,” Ms. Vigorito said. “You can do anything here, .”

“Trancoso has an energy all its own,” said Paula Vigorito, 40, the owner of Tostex, as he ushered people in to her house, which doubles as a store for chic jewelry and sculptured art, for a warm-up party four evening in early January. Inside, guests drank cocktails from plastic cups and grooved to a D.J. Outside, a crowd of long-haired men and young women dressed in printed T-shirts lounged on the front lawn.

In January, Rodrigo Hilbert and his wife, Fernanda Lima, both Brazilian television actors, were spotted dancing at the Pink Elephant beach club. Francesca Versace and Dimitri Mussard, an heir to the Hermès fortune, party-hopped in Trancoso over the Christmas and New Year’s holidays. And the Brazilian singer Bebel Gilberto tied the knot here in February in an informal wedding with 50 guests, which was fawningly documented by the Brazilian gossip site Glamurama.

That let-loose spirit may report the swirl of Brazilian and international celebrities who have jetted here in recent months to party. The roster reads like the pages of Quem, the Brazilian gossip magazine.

The heart of Trancoso’s party scene is the Quadrado, a grassy, open field near a cliff overlooking the beach flanked by the town’s nicest restaurants and boutiques, in simple one-story houses. Anchoring the far finish is an elderly white church.

And then there's the regulars, boldfaced names like Naomi Campbell, Gisele Bündchen and Diane von Furstenberg, who rent or own more secluded summer houses up the beach.

Open later are the beach bars and clubs. While a few places feature forró, traditional Brazilian dance music, Trancoso’s night life feels more like an expensive São Paulo nightclub — beach style. Young women wear high-cut party dresses, the men body-hugging Spanish shirts and Bermuda shorts. And in lieu of strappy Jimmy Choos or Diesel tennis shoes, everyone wears sandals, the better to dance on sandy dance floors pumped up by high-end sound systems and European D.J.’s.

During the peak season, which goes from about December through February, Trancoso feels like a vampire town. During the day, the Quadrado is eerily calm, with most stores and restaurants shuttered until about 3 p.m. But at night, it springs to life: multicolored lights sparkle from low-hanging trees, friends sit at outdoor tables on the dusty edge of the grass, and art galleries stay open well past midnight.

At 3 a.m. on a Saturday at the Pink Elephant, young women in tight pink outfits with white feather headdresses pranced through the club with Champagne bottles and sparklers. The wooden deck shook, with some clubbers tossing their sandals to dance on the damp sand next to the D.J. booth. By 4:30 a.m. the sun was rising behind a low gray cloud over the water, melding yellow sunlight with the pink lights of the club.