Rhuigi Villaseñor, just months into his appointment at Bally and several years into operating his own label Rhude, has come up with another big fashion idea: to redesign the human uniform. From his living room in Los Angeles, he describes the purpose behind his new label RHU, a co-venture with Zara, as Jobsian—incidentally he is wearing a black turtleneck. “Good design is good design,” Villaseñor proclaims.
The menswear label—an abbreviation of Redesinging Human Uniform—exists in a post-athleisure, post-streetwear world, where clothing has to be as much a reflection of one’s identity as it has to be functional and comfortable. Two of Villaseñor’s key items, as such, are leggings and a nylon button-down—things that evoke the spirit of travel and sport. Logos, graphics, and vibrancy still play, and he identifies footwear and T-shirts as two prime opportunities for RHU.
“When I started Rhude, a lot of it was coming from a yearning for luxury,” he says, “but prices are up, inflation is up. How can the kids shop? This collection is not only about escapism—it’s really making sure they are still a part of something special. I want to offer something that could feel as if it speaks the same language as what Rhude is doing or what I’m doing next with Bally but at a price point more customers can afford.”
He invokes his younger brother: “If we weren’t siblings, what would he do to get fresh? It is hard. Fashion is so expensive.”
The core principle of RHU is to evoke the lifestyle of Villaseñor himself—a jet-setting guy as comfortable at the Formula 1 Grand Prix in Monaco in a white tux as he is in Brooklyn rooting on the Nets in full Rhude streetwear. And it’s for customers with $9 to $250 to spend. “Really good design is a right,” he says. “I was pushing Zara to produce the goods at a higher quality than they normally would, and we are able to do that so that we could achieve a garment that, I think, doesn’t feel like it’s cheating.”
The brands and creatives Villaseñor name-checks as he pieces his RHU vision together—Nike, Prada Linea Rossa, Bape, Steve Jobs, Jay-Z—are somewhere between fashion and philosophy. You buy into a lifestyle, not just a shirt. “We always find the counterculture and the subculture—we maximize it, and it becomes mainstream,” he says. Consider RHU his latest push to make his outsider point-of-view the dominant one.
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