Photographed by Gabriel Villareal for the March 2025 Issue of Vogue Man Philippines
Proudrace returns with an artisanal collection that is, in technique and in feeling, distinctly Rik Rasos.
Rik Rasos suspects that he has a photographic memory, but it isn’t something that the designer and creative director can readily explain. Disparate images tucked away into the corners of his mind manifest in the tangible ideas that make the pieces of his label Proudrace. Half of the time, he isn’t even too sure where his inspirations come from. “Like, did this happen in my life?” he’d think, wondering if the visual cues that would randomly come to mind were either contrived or picked up in passing. “‘Yun pala [But really], I’ve just seen or read about it somewhere.”
In Proudrace’s 12 years, Rik has amassed an encyclopedic set of references from pop culture and his niche interests combined. It came in the form of the Versace head of Medusa that he turned into an icon of Madonna and the Coca-Cola logotype he reworked to the words ‘Filipino Lover.’ In one instance that’s since become a brand trademark, it was the bright red motel sign off the side of the road somewhere in Manila that read “Mahal Kita” [I love you] in bold, all-caps sans serif. “You know,” he starts, “the things you see every day and all the time, they get embedded in your mind.”
So embedded are the emblems that mark his life that he distilled them into the first show he put together in years. “I haven’t released a collection for a very long time,” he explains. “I felt like I was ready to introduce another evolution of this brand.” Along with his interlude came a group of people who only knew Proudrace from its tongue-in-cheek T-shirts. “I wanted to show everyone I actually make clothes.”
Titled “From Proudrace With Love,” it was a tapestry of all the lives he has led, and he has led plenty. Among the eclectic cast of characters he sent down the runway, you could pick out goth Rik, pageant-obsessed Rik, emo phase Rik. Even corporate Rik, based on a one-time stint in 2018 (“Okay, this isn’t for me,” he remembers thinking, laughing. “But it was part of the phases of my life”).
The Rik you might already know of is the party boy slash skater boy slash DJ, who came of age between the upbeat tempo and noise of Manila’s underground rave scene. Every Thursday night, he’d sneak out to go to Fluxxe’s themed parties in Taguig, dance, play a set, and sell T-shirts to the hosts and their regulars comprised of creatives. Inadvertently, they would become the early iterations of the graphic tees that led to his global recognition.
But the version of himself he most fondly calls back to in the collection was the active kid who bounced between piano lessons, after-school basketball, and art lessons, spending his free time in his aunt Macaria Alaras’s tailoring shop near his childhood home in Legarda.
He’d help around through the daily motions in exchange for her guidance: the fundamentals of making clothes, how to haggle at Divisoria, how to lead a team, and how to talk to clients. Through it, he began to develop a love for the craft and, more resolutely, for construction: in pattern pieces that made parts of a whole, and in the lines where seams met.
At home, he’d return to balikbayan boxes his dad, who first lived in Saudi Arabia then moved to the U.S., would frequently send back home, packed tightly so breakables remained intact. The gaps were cushioned by miscellaneous clothing: XXXL souvenir T-shirts, disparate sets, and school uniforms. He’d rummage through the care package and laugh, “Para saan ‘to? [What is this for?]” He ended up cutting them up into bags or garments tailored to fit. Deconstructing found pieces and turning them into something else became a trait that stuck.
“It’s a fully realized brand now for me because I also evolved as a person. It’s not just the brand that evolves, it’s also me.”
Last year marked a particular milestone for Rik. He would sign off the collection the way his dad would sign off his boxes, “with love.” It felt full circle to reference his start and splice it with everything he’s learned to get to this point; in the past, he’d pushed himself to his breaking point to meet the demands of the market, but now he’s done with that. As he’s learned, he’s more successful operating in a “slow burn,” designing on his own terms, and at his own pace.
The 35-piece artisanal collection he exhibited at the CCP Black Box Theater took two years and six months to create, with half that time spent sourcing deadstock fabric from here and abroad. Rik found a large part of it in his relatives’ stored balikbayan boxes, which he dug up, finding the patchworked vintage lace, leather, and workwear material that made a few hero pieces.
In styling the show, the designer had a note he set for himself to follow: “Ayoko ng pahinga [I didn’t want a break].” But it wasn’t that he needed one; his medley of deliberate disarray fit within the visual schema he’d established: irreverent and unflinchingly tender. “I don’t want to veer away from what I know and who I am,” he says. “I’m not hiding anymore. This is the real me.”
Skin peeked through the gaps in thickly padded coats and upper-thigh cut-outs on the backs of jeans, and the fabric on shirts and dresses curved over the body to show torsos. The exaggerated white lining strewn over the backs of tailored jackets resembled Good Morning towels, inspired by those tucked inside Filipino kids’ shirts at playtime. He finished a few of the looks with nude stockings and open-toe sandals that, to him, evoked the image of an SM saleslady, and so that “there weren’t any gaps” left in the collection, he tacked lace-front mustaches onto models’ faces. “So, from foot to head, it’s inspired.”
This was the Rik that had pinned down his narrative. “It’s a fully realized brand now for me because I also evolved as a person. It’s not just the brand that evolves, it’s also me,” he expresses. “I really think that’s true. Parang renaissance [It feels like a renaissance].” He laughs, “It’s the Renaissance tour of Proudrace.”
By CHELSEA SARABIA. Photographs by GABRIEL VILLAREAL. Vogue Man Editor DANYL GENECIRAN. Stylist and Producer: Anz Hizon. Makeup: Booya Mocorro. Hair: Mong Amado. Model: Cole of Luminary. Producer: Julian Rodriguez. Photographer’s Assistant: Ruby Pedregosa.
