10 Years of Reinvention

RIO

Runway

THE STORY

For its 10-year anniversary, RIO—formerly Gypsy Sport—returned to the runway during NYFW and LAFW to celebrate a decade of challenging traditional ideas of who gets to be seen in fashion. The brand had long created space for people of color and marginalized communities while designing clothing that allowed people to embody who they already were. The anniversary show needed to honor that history while imagining what the next generation of the RIO/Gypsy Sport person could look like.

CREATIVE APPROACH

My approach began with the brand’s history, but also drew from my own perspective as a Black woman working in fashion and living in Los Angeles. I imagined the modern person wearing Gypsy Sport ten years later and styled each look through that lens. Using individuality, authenticity, and self-expression as the foundation.

THE RESULT

The final runway celebrated ten years of RIO/Gypsy Sport while carrying its original spirit forward: inclusive, representative, authentic and unapologetically stylish. The show and collection received coverage from Vogue, the Los Angeles Times, Forbes, The Cut, Hypebeast and more, extending the story beyond the runway and reinforcing the cultural relevance the brand had built over the previous decade.