Patricio Campillo nearly walked away from fashion. Instead, the Mexican designer found his way back to the clothes—and identity—at the heart of his work.

<a href="https://www.lofficielusa.com/fashion-week/patricio-campillo-spring-summer-2026-collection-nyfw-interview">Patricio Campillo</a> and his namesake brand have become a beloved addition to the NYFW schedule since his debut in 2024. Known for recontextualizing Mexican charro culture through fluid expressions of modern identity, Campillo creates clothes that are sharp, meticulously constructed, and undeniably sexy. Whether flirting with couture, manipulating leather, or masterfully architecting silhouettes in wool, each collection tells a story of heritage, desire, perception, and ambition.
As a 2024 LVMH Prize semifinalist, Campillo was the first Mexican to be shortlisted. The recognition propelled him onto the global stage, but it came after more than a decade of frustration, experimentation, and near-abandonment of the craft—years that almost led him to quit. Along the way, a growing disconnect with his business partner added another layer of complexity. “What I saw for the brand wasn’t necessarily what my business partner saw at the time,” says Campillo. “He was part of my family, so I think that really affected me emotionally.” The brand was struggling financially, and the investments Campillo had received were quickly depleted.
“Creatively and aesthetically [the label] was going somewhere,” he continues. “The collections were also getting better, but not financially.” The response wasn’t there, either. Campillo longed to be recognized on an international stage, but the dissonance between his creative ambitions and the brand’s financial reality was taking a toll—not only on his pockets, but on his mental health. He began to yearn for a softer life: late breakfasts, slow mornings, spontaneous yoga classes in the middle of the day. He wanted to start a family, take vacations, and pay down his credit cards. So he made the difficult decision to transform the creative project into a reliable manufacturing company—one that would supply uniforms to hotels and offer easy-to-produce resortwear at his Mexico City boutique.

Backstage at Campillo's Fall/Winter 2026 show. Courtesy of Campillo.

“I decided to buy the company from my partner,” he explains. “Two days after I signed all the contracts, I got a call from LVMH.” Campillo jokes that it was as though the universe had been waiting for him. But once the celebration was over, chaos ensued. “I had sold all my samples and gotten rid of most of my patterns. So I had to start from scratch and do a collection in six weeks. That’s what I brought to LVMH.”
These serendipitous moments are woven throughout Campillo’s life. Perhaps the most significant came in 2012, when his sister introduced him to fashion journalist and editor Tiffany Godoy. While studying marketing in Madrid, Campillo had the chance to move to Paris as an exchange student. Two weeks after arriving, his sister called with a proposition: “She was like, Maybe my friend needs an assistant.” He worked for free, attending whichever shows Godoy was able to secure tickets for on his behalf and writing reviews of Rick Owens, Kim Jones, and Yohji Yamamoto instead of sitting through his statistics lectures. “I couldn’t believe the life I was living,” he recalls.

When it was time to return to Madrid, Campillo transmuted his longing for Paris into his first collection. “I always had this idea when I was sitting at shows that I wanted to be the one who was creating, rather than the one who was seeing the creations.” Over Zoom, he sends a link to an article about his debut collection and first lookbook, published on Fucking Young! “I can’t believe I’m sharing this,” he says, laughing sheepishly. It’s here that you can begin to trace the DNA of Campillo’s work beyond gender, “but never beyond sexual attraction.”
When he returned to Mexico City, Campillo put designing on pause and immersed himself in the world of PR. He worked as an account manager for the tequila company Don Julio, which would later become one of his main sponsors. But the work soon left him feeling listless and itching to design again. That’s when he established The Pack. The clothing brand that ultimately became Campillo explored everything from Japanese motorcycle gangs to Chicanos in Los Angeles. In hindsight, these collections were about more than fashion; they charted Campillo’s journey through disparate subcultures and aesthetics. It’s almost as if he needed to explore the world before finding his way back to himself.

Today, Campillo is a heritage brand with a story rooted in its founder’s childhood: riding horses from the age of 3, watching his mother wear shoulder pads like armor, and receiving his father’s charro suit—a gift that, he confides, “changed everything.” “I started kind of sexualizing myself through that aesthetic. But also it just felt very natural. That was my starting point for really having a voice that felt mine.”
It’s this feeling that he hopes to give those who wear Campillo—the alchemy of clothing as power, transforming fabric into stories of Mexico City, culture, and something uniquely Patricio’s. “Your voice in fashion can only come from a place of what makes you different,” he says. On the precipice of his next show, that idea feels more potent than ever.

The Long Way Home: Patricio Campillo’s Return to Fashion

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