white symbolizes purity and the fresh start offered to everyone at the new year - easy to notice, most people festooned with white clothing and a shirt, hat, a scarf, or another accessory purposively of a different color. 

for the carioca, these colors too have significance at the turn of the year - red is worn to attract romance and provide luck in love, yellow brings happiness, gold is said to attract money, and green, color of the lush forests which surround the city, bestows the wearer with good health for the year ahead.

chic as it may be, no carioca will be caught wearing black on the new year, as on this day the fashionable hue becomes a marker of death, disease, and ill fortune.