On the day we met, Patricio Campillo was wearing a look of his own design — skillfully tailored, quintessentially Campillo, featuring a golden set of aviator eyeglasses and Dries Van Noten shoes. In the Ridgewood studio that served as the staging ground for Fall 2025’s collection “Fictions of Reality,” a proverbial garden of coffee flowers was splayed across sleeves, coats, and collars.
This was just one of a melange of references the designer made to his upbringing in Mexico City and time spent in Zacualpan, a small town outside the city where part of the brand’s credo found its origin: recontextualizing Mexican masculinity with Charro influences. “I’m trying to preserve the proportions, the fit, and the way the jackets are structured in the Charro way of classic tailoring,” Campillo explained as we leafed through each garment.
Cropped jackets with charro-forward proportions were set on top of long overcoats, while a triple-layered waist piece (think three, excellent belts layered together) included recognizable “Grecas” patterns of the culture’s sartorial toolkit.
“This season was about increasing the level of craft that we put into each of the clothes,” Campillo told PAPER. A watchful eye on show day would have noticed a unique type of wrinkling present across many of the pieces. Each crevice and dip was handmade, pinned down and ironed to give it that distinctly crisp look. Pivoting the gaze down to the models’ feet — a new line of collaborative shoes with the Portuguese Footwear Association and Portuguese brand Mariano were resplendent in rich layers of goat hair, in equal-parts tawny and dark shades.
The world-building also pulled references from magical realism and Mexican surrealist painter Remedios Varo. “I wanted to go into the past, but from a futuristic perspective,” Campillo said. That is to say, honoring one’s forebears and the cultural output they’ve lent us, while artfully translating those artifacts into something special for today’s audiences.
On the sidelines of the show, Vogue Runway’s Fashion News Editor José Criales-Unzueta shared: “I think he has the talent and determination to really go all the way, which is exciting. I think it’s important to have him in New York.”
When all was said and done, 24 looks and storytelling that spanned from Zacualpan, to Mexico City, to New York and beyond made an appearance on the runway 39 floors above Tribeca’s 180 Maiden Lane. A graceful, sweeping sunset of rusty orange flames and rich reds elegantly draped the sky outside the space.
As the last model dipped under the dressing-area curtain, Campillo made his closing appearance, jogging down the runway and coming to a stop in front of a beaming bank of lights – satisfied, determined, expectant.
“I’m just super excited, really happy,” Campillo shared with a laugh minutes after the show. On the collection, the energy, and the sunset, he inquired, “Is magic something that happens, or is it something you find?”
Photography: Jose Cuevas
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