the most extravagant costumes during rio's carnaval are shown off at the official parades in the sambódromo - costumes, or fantasias in portuguese, are one of the judging criteria during the annual sambódromo competition.

the more creative and memorable the costumes, the better the samba school's chances are at winning - the costumes are an extremely important part of the schools' parades and presentation theme, but scored separately.

each parade has a theme, and tells a story via an original samba song, costumes, and floats - the costumes of the samba schools must help explain the story (enredo), also told in the lyrics of samba theme (samba-enredo).