How Designer Rio Uribe Overcame 'Being Hot, and Then Not' in Fashion

Designer Rio Uribe’s journey through the fashion industry hasn’t exactly been a breeze. (Has anyone’s?)

The Los Angeles native worked in janitorial and retail before moving to New York City and getting a job in the stockroom of a Balenciaga store; there, he climbed his way up to a corporate merchandising role. In 2012, he designed some hats that got picked up by Opening Ceremony, and the brand formerly known as Gypsy Sport was born. In 2015, it won the CFDA/Vogue Fashion Fund and continued to show regularly at New York Fashion Week, heralded — especially in queer creative communities — for its distinctive unisex designs and inclusive casting. But post-pandemic, Uribe announced that Gypsy Sport was shutting down, just 10 years after its launch.

Fortunately, it wasn’t long before the designer embarked on a sequel, with a rebrand to Rio World (after a brief stint as “Rio Sport”), a new setting, L.A., and the same spirit of cultural celebration. And while Uribe has staged a couple of runways since Gypsy Sport’s 2023 shuttering, the fullest expression of this new-yet-familiar vision was Rio World’s Spring 2026 show, held Tuesday night at The Broad in L.A.

Looking back, Uribe says something “lit up” in him during the “extensive and expensive” process of changing the name of his brand. “I thought, well, if we’re changing the name, that gives me a chance to start my brand all over again,” he told me backstage after the show. “So tonight was the launch of the new brand and letting people see that Rio, at the core, it has a lot of the same values and aesthetics of what I started with […] But it feels a lot more grown up.”

Making things even more monumental, his was the first fashion show ever staged at the beloved art museum. The event, which featured stars like Vivian Wilson in the front row and Kerri Colby on the runway, was also open to the public; but instead of the chaos that public fashion shows often invite, the diverse crowd of respectfully enthusiastic young fans beautifully embodied Uribe’s unwavering commitment to fostering a sense community and belonging, especially for Latinx and queer people.

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“I love that I am a Mexican American Chicano designer; the first fashion show to ever happen at the Broad is such a win for me,” he noted. “But I feel like that’s a win for my community. And I want people to know: Every day that you get dressed, you’re making a statement.”

Below, Uribe opens up about the “struggle” that the last few years have entailed, where his brand stands today, life as a designer in L.A. and how this latest event and collection — titled “A Poem and a Protest” — came together.

For those just catching up, can you give a quick recap of the last few years — the move, the name changes, how the brand is doing now?

Around the pandemic era, I decided I wanted to be close to my family. So I moved from New York back to Los Angeles and obviously everybody was struggling at that time and it was really hard to keep the brand alive and going. So we survived off of making essential worker uniforms and masks and all of those things. And luckily we made it into 2022 and the brand was still alive enough to continue showing — we scaled down from two shows a year to one show a year.

It was definitely a struggle for the last few years trying to just keep a brand going. And also, fashion is so fickle, so you could be hot one moment and not the next day, even if your stuff is really good and even if you’re improving on your designs and craftsmanship and wearability. It’s still just the way fashion is. Then I had to undergo the name change because of the sensitivity of the name. 

Our e-commerce business is finally growing again, and I really wanted to make a lot of things for our fans and followers to be interested in buying and wearing. It’s been a struggle, but we’re still here. And the theme of the [Spring 2026] collection is ‘brilliance and resilience.’ And so that’s how I would describe the last three years.

What has it been like being a designer in L.A. as opposed to the ‘fashion capital’ of New York?

I have the experience and the love for New York and I know that’s the United States fashion capital. But I’ve learned, by meeting so many designers in L.A., there’s so much creativity here that’s not celebrated.

I thought, if there’s not enough brands here to showcase that, I’ll be the one to wrangle the coolest hair designer, the coolest models. So I love being a designer in L.A. and I’m inspired by the city a lot. It’s like a double-edged sword because it is true that New York is the fashion capital, but there’s an opportunity to prove them wrong in a sense.

How did this opportunity come about to do a show at The Broad? It feels like a big moment.

This has been about a year in the making. I hadn’t heard back from the Broad for a few months; I was just tossing out ideas, emailing every email we could find on their website. A couple of years ago I did a show at MOCA in L.A. that was a political statement, and one of the curators from that show was working [at the Broad] now. And she heard that I was trying to make something happen and she wrote back and said, ‘We would love to work with you, but it might have to be 2026. Our calendar is fully booked.’ But that sparked a fire in me and I was like, no, we have to make it happen now. I’m very persistent person.

When I first started my brand in 2013, I had that same energy and, I think from working so hard and being hot and then not, and being broke and tired, I lost a lot of that motivation and energy, but it’s starting over again. And so I just kept pushing and The Broad actually responded; I don’t really know what made them change their mind, but it was very last-minute. 

Within three weeks, here we are. And I think it’s a perfect setting because one of the things that I love about The Broad is that they’re very inclusive. It’s free every day. So it’s one of those museums I visit more often.

Let’s talk about the collection you just showed. It was so cute. What was your starting point?

I think this is the first time that I’ve ever looked at all of my past collections and chosen looks that I appreciated or maybe didn’t appreciate enough, and I wanted to revisit those. There happened to be a lot of plaid, a lot of polka dots, which we turned into our logos. And it was the first time that we used leather; about 40-50% of this collection was natural materials. So we used silk, cotton, fur, leather. We tried to scale back on synthetic materials and that’s just part of eco-consciousness and sustainability. And I think the future wave of fashion is going to be more about natural materials as opposed to manmade materials, like fast-fashion kind of materials.

You’ve always been really intentional and thoughtful about casting; what’s your approach to choosing models now?

That’s probably my favorite part of being a designer is getting to meet and cast so many cool people. My vision of the world is just very inclusive and diverse, and it is intentional, but it’s not like a checklist, like, oh, we need a plus size girl or whatever. It just comes naturally. We met 400 people at our casting call, narrowed it down to 100, narrowed that down to 50, and then we got down to 30. But it’s really just about making sure that young people or anyone watching can see themselves in my clothes.

They just announced the winner of this year’s CFDA/Vogue Fashion Fund. Having won it in the past, do you have any advice for the current winner or participants? Looking back, was it helpful?

It was extremely helpful. I would not be here at The Broad having a show today if I wasn’t a finalist or winner of the CFDA/Vogue Fashion Fund. I’m so proud of anyone who puts themselves through that process because it is painstaking. I’m very proud of the winner. I love her work and I thought, they were all great candidates. Luckily I don’t have to choose the winner. My advice is: Just take this as confirmation that you’re on the right path and don’t let anything stop you.

Once a winner, always a winner.

Scroll through the full collection, below.

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Source: Fashionista.com