Rhuigi Villaseñor took his bow for his first Bally show wearing a slick double-breasted pinstripe suit that, he cheerily shared afterwards, he’d picked up at Celine. “I had it altered to fit,” he added. Simultaneously endearing and exciting, Villaseñor is a fashion Dreamer who built his own Americana-energizing house, Rhude, through the outsider prism of his own arrival as an 11-year-old in LA from the Philippines. Now he is looking to repeat the trick, at the invitation of Bally CEO Nicolas Girotto, but this time applied to the fusty codes of Euro-luxe from his hyper-aware LA perspective.
As the second big debut today in Milan, Villaseñor was under scrutiny: supportive scrutiny, but scrutiny nonetheless. Future, Laura Harrier, Skepta and Ghali were amongst those in the overcapacity crowd here to witness him step up a division. As Luka Sabbat said backstage afterwards: “Rhuigi started out really small, and built up Rhude from scratch—I’ve known him since we were teenagers. And now he has a whole community of people who are behind him and rooting for him. My messages were blowing up from people who couldn’t be here. And it’s just really cool that he is.”
First, some practical caveats: Villaseñor’s two new categories, jewelry and swimwear, got slightly lost in the mix. There was one woman’s shoe—heeled to reflect a Swiss toy-making motif that the designer featured less troublesomely elsewhere—that was clearly challenging to walk in.
Then, the mood. After clarifying who he was wearing, Villaseñor described his agenda with this collection as: “being about opulence and sexiness. It’s about what I want to wear when I go out, and what my friends want to wear when they go out, and what I think other people want to wear when they go out.” As a little dig at that tired old “streetwear” debate, his set was illuminated by streetlights.
Monocolor tailoring and loafer-led, Monaco-ready, python-accented casual wear dominated for men, whose looks were in the slight minority. They were the backdrop to an ambitious, sleek and finely-styled womenswear offering that was rooted in the classical contemporary codes of luxury, with a few invigorating twists. A fitted black knit dress with a G-string cut out at the lower back was one. Another came via the candy-toned metallic finished double-B moto-jackets.
Much of the offering was perhaps a touch too reverential to the literal codes of luxury that we were hoping this collection would enhance through loving interrogation. At times it felt a blend of late-Ford x early-Giannini Gucci flavored with accents of Ralph Lauren. That’s not to say it wasn’t what Villaseñor was aiming for—opulent and sexy—because it was. And you can see this designer’s personal momentum and the inherent oomph of these pieces making them highly sought-after. Once he sheds some nerves and is a little more settled in behind the big desk at Bally, it would be great to see Villaseñor import more of himself—and his playfulness—into this new, old luxury world. The upcoming curling capsule (yes, really) should provide that wit in spades. For now, this was a debut that delivered much, and promised even more.
