Rhuigi Villasenor, with his label Rhude, was one of the eagerly awaited names in Paris fashion week this season. For his official calendar debut, the Philippines-born and Los Angeles-based designer brought his guests to the iconic Elysée Montmartre venue. Bandannas and baseball hats with references to LA – Villasenor first caught the attention with a t-shirt and bandanna outfit worn by rapper Kendrick Lamar – abounded among the audience. A booklet entitled ‘Treehugger, tales of forest’, placed on the audience’s benches, set the tone for a collection dedicated to the protectors of Mother Nature and its forests, a highly relevant contemporary theme. Mustered on the stage, the models chosen by Phipps – in all shapes and sizes, from athletic to slender, from lumberjack to neo-waif – celebrated men in all their diversity, a stance the designer assumed early on in his career. They walked the catwalk judiciously, outfitted as US park rangers, hats firmly on their heads and velvet trousers sporting galactic prints, or as campers with an urban dweller or pilgrim touch, wearing jumpsuits and printed ponchos whose images are the work of photographer Linda Westin
