California Apparel News

Mark Rios is a Los Angeles architect who has worked on high-marquee projects that include building downtown Los Angeles’ Grand Park, developing the industrial-chic look of the Row DTLA retail and creative-office center and the upcoming remodel of Los Angeles’ Music Center plaza.

In between these multimillion-dollar projects, Rios has managed to squeeze in the creation of a new men’s fashion line called Guillermo, which is made in Los Angeles. The line’s website, wearguillermo.com, was recently unveiled, showing an urban update of the guayabera—a lightweight, open-necked shirt with four patch pockets often worn for social occasions and get-togethers in Latin America.

“It is the polo shirt for Latin America,” Rios said. “It has no class structure. It is worn by the poor and the rich.”

The traditional guayabera shirt was often worn by the architect’s father, Guillermo Rios, a surgeon who came from a long line of Mexican ranch owners. The younger Rios wanted to update the shirt for contemporary, urban society.

He talked about his idea to Carl Louisville, the founder of Guerilla Atelier in downtown Los Angeles’ Arts District, and Louisville encouraged the architect to work on the idea. Later, Louisville joined the brand as a creative director, taking his experience of developing fashion lines with other brands and selling them at his now-shuttered Guerilla Atelier.

In the past, Rios’ architecture firm, Rios Clementi Hale Studios, located in Los Angeles’ Leimert Park, had developed other non-architecture projects, including Not Neutral, a line of coffee and tea mugs mostly used in restaurants. It also introduced Rio Outdoor Furniture.

Rios said projects that don’t require a construction crew help his firm. “It gives our clients confidence,” he said of working on projects outside of architecture. “We look at design as a problem-solving process. We are thinking outside of the boundaries in any project. Design work becomes better if it becomes more integrated and more thoughtful.”

Rios is deeply invested in the shirting line, Louisville said. “He has the same passion for this as developing multimillion-dollar projects. He’s at every meeting. He has a point of view on everything. He wants it to be hugely successful,” the creative director said.

The idea behind Guillermo is to figure out how to make a shirt that will fit any situation—work, play or special occasions. Guillermo’s updated guayabera, which retails for $295 and is sold on the company’s website, dropped the shirt’s traditional embroidery and bright colors. It also tried out a different silhouette. Instead of the traditional boxy guayabera, the new line went for a jacketlike silhouette.

The new look was created by zippers on the shirt’s side seams, which can be undone to give the shirt a fuller look or closed for a sleeker style. “It has different ways to transform the shirt according to mood and occasion,” Rios said.

The guayabera’s traditional large patch pockets became concealed pockets behind the shirt’s seams. Pockets are large enough to hold phones and wallets.

During Guillermo’s first season, Louisville sold the new collection at his Guerilla Atelier, which closed in 2017. Louisville noted that as many women were buying the shirts as men. With that in mind, Rios hopes in the future to produce silhouettes that will attract more women. One idea was to make longer versions of the shirt, which could be worn as shirtdresses.

The current season of shirting also has slogans embroidered inside the sleeve, just below the wrist. One reads “La Paz Sea Contigo,” which in Spanish means “Peace Be With You,” Rios said.

“When you extend your hand to greet someone, it is the message transmitted from you to them,” Rios said. “Clothing should represent an attitude and point of view. That is the goal of Guillermo.”

Plans for the future include expanding the line to include pants and jackets. Eventually, Rios hopes to bring it to the wholesale market.