RVCA Drops Stella Maxwell Collaboration
RVCA’s newest collaboration is with Stella Maxwell.
“I was kind of thinking, ‘What would I wear? What would I love to see my friends wearing?’” said the model of designing the collection with RVCA founder Pat Tenore.
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“I’ve known Pat for a really long time,” she continued. “I met him when I first began my career. We’ve been friends for so many years. He’s like family.”
Their mood board was filled with shots of Kate Moss’ Calvin Klein ads, photographs of a young Jane Birkin, Tupac Shakur, Madonna, TLC and Nirvana.
“It’s early ’90s hip-hop meets ’90s grunge with maybe a little bit of ’70s love woven in there,” she said of the line. There are white tanks, graphic T-shirts, high-waisted jeans, dresses, swimsuits, sweats — and lots of red plaid. “It’s unisex, very street, very comfortable to wear.”
It’s a nod to Los Angeles and New York. Maxwell, who was born in Belgium, has been living between the coastal cities: “We loved the idea of balance of opposites…the balance of the L.A. and New York connection.”
The partnership marks Maxwell’s first clothing collaboration. (She helped design a line of handbags with The Kooples.)
For RVCA, based in Costa Mesa, California, “it’s to gain a new girl, or the girl that we want to obtain in the future, so to speak,” said Scott Payne, global vice president of product and marketing for RVCA.
“The success is gaining an increased audience for sure for RVCA,” he went on, of launching women’s capsules. Last year, the brand unveiled a collection with model and actress Camille Rowe. “It really drives awareness, traffic through socials to our website.”
Sales of women’s at RVCA — owned by Boardriders — is roughly 25 percent of the business, Payne said, with key U.S. markets in California and Hawaii and the East Coast showing the “biggest growth pattern.” Internationally the focus is on Australia, New Zealand, Japan, the U.K., France, Italy and Spain.
Stella Maxwell x RVCA is out Monday (with a second drop coming Oct. 17), but loyalty members of the brand are able to access the line on Friday for 72 hours.
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