New York Fashion Week. The streets are bustling with extravagant outfits and eager designers. Down in the Public Hotel, an exclusive show is just beginning. The audience is seated directly on either side of the runway, enraptured as model after model struts down the stage, wearing the distinctive pieces of Patricio Campillo. His designs are built off of one particular Charro suit, handed down from his grandfather, then to his father, and finally to Campillo himself. He has transformed it; the pants have turned into elegant, flowy skirts, and the blazer into long, draping cloaks. His aim in this suit, along with much of his collection, is to preserve his Mexican culture, while incorporating his own progressive style, and giving a voice to queer design.
Campillo grew up around the Charro culture of traditional Mexican horsemen.. He was riding horses by age three, and got his first Charro suit at five. Decades later, Campillo felt that Charro culture was being left behind and wanted to keep the beauty of the artisanal tradition and craftsmanship alive.
While Campillo pays tribute to his heritage, he acknowledges the flaws within the strict traditions of the Charro culture, mainly the homophobia. Growing up as a queer boy, he never felt completely comfortable with expressing himself. As a designer, he wanted not just to amplify the Charro culture, but redefine it – displaying the beauty of his heritage while also battling its homophobia. This led him to his suits – designs that challenge traditional gender norms and clothing rules. By adding feminine touches to the masculine garments of his heritage, like using corsets to accentuate silhouettes, or changing trousers to skirts, Campillo is redefining traditional menswear – blurring the lines of traditional clothing, and creating something new and fluid.
The effect is almost surreal. And in fact, Campillo drew inspiration from Remedio Varos, a Spanish Mexican surrealist painter who uses dreamlike images to convey complex emotional states. Campillo was drawn to her supernatural aesthetics, particularly the way she dresses the witches and wizards in her paintings, which inspired the layered textures and fluid silhouettes in his dreamlike version of the charro suit.
Before Campillo started designing, he began a career in politics, but he hated it. He had always loved fashion, and the world he found in magazines like Love Magazine, Purple, i-D, Self Service, and Garage His boss eventually fired him, perhaps because he didn’t want to pay Campillo to read magazines all day. This was the kick the designer needed to follow his dreams. He went into journalism and moved to Paris where he became an assistant to Tiffany Godoy, the editor of The Reality Show Magazine. There Campillo got the opportunity to go to re-sees. He’d spend hours examining the designs, which is how he learned about clothing and realized he wanted to be a designer.
Although Campillo never underwent any formal training, he moved back to Mexico and created his own brand in 2017.
By 2024, he was a semifinalist for the LVMH Prize and later that year he got the chance to have a show at his first ever New York Fashion Week.
One year later, Campillo has emerged as a designer who sees fashion as more than just clothes; he sees it as a form of communication. His goal has always been to break away from the traditional rules, blending personal identity with political expression, using bold T-shirts, powerful statements, and culturally-rooted designs to speak out. “Inclusivity is one of the most important tools to allow tradition to remain relevant,” Campillo said.
When the last model steps off the runway at his second ever show, Campillo appears, jogging into the spotlight. Emblazoned on his shirt are the words “Golfo de Mexico”. The phrase, an allusion to Trump’s threats to rename the gulf, was an example of what Campillo is always doing in his work—how his clothing is at once an expression of his Mexican heritage and a form of political protest. He is a perfect example of how fashion and politics meet, not quietly, but in loud, unapologetic ways that demand to be seen and heard.
The Fashion Clause 