7 Puerto Rican designers pushing fashion beyond tradition

These artists are injecting a new meaning into “Made in Puerto Rico.”

In a tropical haven stylistically clung to whatever can beat the heat, these seven Puerto Rican designers are stripping practicality from their hometown’s fashion scene. Carrying an Antwerp Six-esque drive to put Puerto Rico on the international fashion map, the artists are adding a new layer to a style scene shaped by tradition, history, and colonial dynamics that have stunted the development of a local ready-to-wear industry.

We sat down with the budding designers to find out how they use memory, performance, engineering and even a bit of absurdity to pioneer a new wave of underground fashion in Puerto Rico.

Pretty Ballads

Name:

Diego McElroy Sein.

Your brand in three words:

Rough. Polished. Purposeful. I’m drawn to things that balance refinement with utility. I appreciate well-made objects, but I believe they’re meant to be used, worn hard, and collect stories over time.

Biggest inspirations:

My family and everything they’ve taught me about life. Martin Margiela. Walter Van Beirendonck. Dieter Rams. My dog. Memories. Heavy music. Utility and modular systems. Vintage apparel.

Fashion history garment you wish you designed:

It’s a tie between David Bowie’s black sculptural stage piece designed by Kansai Yamamoto and Massimo Osti’s Ice Jacket.

DRIPWIFE

Name:

Cristina Alvarez.

How do you balance wacky and chic?

You don’t, you submit yourself to the possibility of looking hideous and relish in bad taste. Biggest inspirations: John Waters, Jeremy Scott’s Moschino, Leigh Bowery, and Vivienne Westwood.

Your brand in three words:

Fun, colorful, misbehaved.

Amanda Forastieri

Name:

Amanda Maria Forastieri.

A style you love that no one gets?

I love cottagecore and the peripheral, slow and decentralised life it represents. It embodies more reciprocal, holistic ways of existing outside the conventional metropolitan lifestyle associated with fashion.

Your brand in three words:

Graphic, visceral, earthen. Biggest inspirations: Right now, I am most inspired by the rivers of the Caguas Valley and the stories connected to them. I love merging the ancestral and the contemporary.

CRSTYLA

Name:

Crystal Velez Rodriguez.

Who do you picture wearing your line?

Addison Rae, she just gets it. But in the meantime, my friends.

Biggest inspirations:

My friends and all the past versions of me.

Your brand in three words:

Nostalgic, playful, Puerto Rican.

ANTUANE

Name:

Antuane. I don’t need a last name for people to recognize my work. I want them to automatically associate my name with a very distinct way of looking at fashion.

What horror film has the best wardrobe?

Tony Scott’s The Hunger. It demonstrates that terror can be elegant.

Your brand in three words:

Bold, passionate, free.

Biggest inspirations:

People and the way they perceive my garments. I want to create something that makes someone look twice.

DAVID

Name:

David Rodriguez

Who would make the soundtrack to your collection?

I think for now it would be a mixtape made by Arca, Aphex Twin, and Boy Harsher.

Biggest inspirations:

I’m inspired by struggle, struggle is what made me change my life completely. Fashion-wise, Rei Kawakubo, Yohji Yamamoto, Junya Watanabe, Noir Kei Ninomiya, and Issey Miyake.

Your brand in three words:

Abstract, personal, intentional.

INFAME

Name:

INFAME.

What style would you like to see return?

Oh, why bother? Trends have lost all meaning, if they ever had any. They’re fleeting, superficial, designed to generate brief, massive attention rather than lasting value. Then they fade into oblivion. Loop that, there’s fashion: a rotting system constantly leading to exhaustion and waste.

Your brand in three words:

Humble, fearless, impermanent.

Biggest inspirations: Probably something that has been buried or drowned.