BENCH FASHION WEEK HOLIDAY 2018
From local collabs to fast fashion favorites, YStyle presents a rundown of this season's ready-to-wear collections.
YSTYLE: Congrats on the successful collab! Tell us, how did it come about?
RIK RASOS: Thank you! We’ve worked with Human a few years ago when they reached out to young local brands to do a pop-up store inside their flagship store. After that, we’ve openly talked about doing a collaboration but never pushed through with it because the timing wasn’t right. Fast-forward to today and we finally made it happen. Right now, we feel like the market is ready for something collaborative between an underground label and a retail staple. How similar or different is the experience from producing your own collections independently?
Very different! For Proudrace, we work at our own pace and the pieces we produce are just enough for our international stockists. Manufacturing is also a little bit more complicated, especially with the fabrication that we develop for every collection. For our collection with Human, our schedule is tighter than usual and we had to simplify some of the things that we are used to doing. Deconstruction and reworking of traditional pieces is still very present in this collection as it is our brand’s DNA but it was executed in a way that it can be produced in larger quantities. Nevertheless, we still kept the exclusivity of this collaboration and just produced enough to reach out to a wider audience. Talk us through the design process. What were your main inspirations?
We kept our aesthetic in every piece in this collection. We’re very lucky that Human gave us the creative freedom to produce what we want and believed in our vision for this collaboration. It’s like an introduction of Proudrace to a new market so we decided to revisit the more distinctive prints from our past collections. We also got inspiration from Human’s archives and distorted and re-constructed the traditional shapes of their staple styles. We really want to capture a very RTW vibe mixed with our label’s aesthetic. I would say the collection is conceptual but easy to digest. It’s made with the Human customer in mind so they can easily add pieces from this collection to their existing wardrobe.
While both labels celebrate individuality and youth culture, there is also a distinction between their market and aesthetic. How were you able to marry the two identities together?
I remember Human from their past collaborations with designer Joey Samson and have always admired how bold the label was when it started. Around that time, nobody understood what androgyny is and Human took a risk by producing that line. Then they launched Human Black, which is also a great contemporary sub-line by the label. So when it came to our collaboration, I knew it would be a perfect fit because they’ve already established that sense of rebellion when nobody else was doing what they did in the local retail landscape. Clichéd as it may sound, our partnership just fell into place, like it was meant to happen. Being an underground label for so long, it feels like this collaboration is the best platform for us to explore and see where we can take Proudrace. Any favorites from the collection? Everything denim!