RSVP Gallery is celebrating its fifteenth anniversary with a brand new partnership.
The Chicago-based streetwear retailer is becoming a member of forces with denim label Agolde and its guardian firm Residents of Humanity to create a subbrand, additionally titled RSVP Gallery.
To rejoice the partnership and its fifteenth anniversary, RSVP Gallery and Agolde are releasing a vintage-inspired capsule assortment and coffee-table ebook on Friday. RSVP Gallery can also be working with artist Theaster Gates for the collaboration.
“The launch of this capsule assortment is just not solely celebrating the 15-year anniversary of the model, but in addition launching [RSVP Gallery] in a fashion during which it’s by no means been earlier than — a model that’s sitting below one other door, aside from collaborations that we’ve performed up to now,” mentioned RSVP Gallery’s Don C, who cofounded the retailer alongside Virgil Abloh. “I find it irresistible as a result of [Agolde] is usually a denim model and we thought we complemented it nicely within the showroom as a result of we’re menswear and we’re not doing denim like that.”
Types from RSVP Gallery and Agolde’s assortment.
Courtesy of Agolde
The capsule assortment is centered on a classic workwear aesthetic and was impressed by the early ‘90s, which Don C mentioned had been adolescence for him. The gathering affords males’s items like puffer vests, rugby shirts, varsity jackets, tracksuits and extra types.
Don C defined the partnership took place after connecting with Residents of Humanity’s director of selling Jared Freedman, who wished to assist deliver RSVP Gallery to a bigger buyer base.
“He actually thought that RSVP Gallery was an incredible model and he didn’t perceive why it wasn’t amplified in a fashion during which he thought it ought to be,” Don C mentioned. “I advised him it’s actually simply infrastructural issues and my bandwidth being brief and issues like that. He was like we must always do one thing, so it simply authentically changed into a friendship and a enterprise relationship.”
RSVP Gallery will proceed to supply collections below its subbrand inside the Residents of Humanity model portfolio. Don C mentioned the second assortment is within the works.
Types from RSVP Gallery and Agolde’s assortment.
Courtesy of Agolde
By means of the partnership, RSVP Gallery is debuting its coffee-table ebook, which chronicles the retailer from its inception and offers perception into pivotal collaborations and moments all through the final 15 years.
The ebook is supposed to be interactive, with ripped-up pages and sticker pages that give the reader methods to find extra about RSVP Gallery. Based on Don C, one spotlight of the ebook is a bit on RSVP Gallery’s “white wall,” which was an precise white wall within the retailer’s again workplace which he and Abloh used to take polaroids of their pals and well-known guests. He mentioned the model has polaroids from notable figures like Rihanna, Pharrell Williams, Future and extra, all sporting an RSVP Gallery T-shirt.
“I had saved arduous drives, polaroids and totally different content material because the inception of RSVP in 2009,” Don C mentioned. “It’s simply so many enjoyable issues — having the ability to see all the individuals who have been by means of the store, all of the occasions that we’ve performed and been part of over the past 15 years has been actually refreshing to see that.”
Don C additionally mirrored on the position RSVP Gallery has had on the general streetwear market over the past 15 years, reminiscing how Abloh leveraged the retailer’s community of expertise for his inventive tasks and the numerous manufacturers RSVP Gallery helped launch.
“We launched Off-White, we launched Pyrex, we launched Worry of God, we launched Simply Don,” he mentioned. “We had been the primary retailer to have all of those manufacturers — we don’t stunt that, however that’s a truth. From a inventive standpoint, not solely did we launch, however we additionally creatively work with these manufacturers behind the scenes to assist them launch their companies.”
For the subsequent 15 years of RSVP Gallery, Don C acknowledged he hopes to proceed rising the enterprise to succeed in extra folks and thinks the partnership with Residents of Humanity will assist obtain that objective. He additionally has plans to open one other RSVP Gallery location in Chicago subsequent summer season.
