PLAY TIME WILL TELL

RJ SANTOS, founder and creative director of fashion label RANDOLF, imagines his clothes as a playful scenario and a burst of inspiration.

- DANIELLE RAMOS

ESTABLISHED A LITTLE OVER A DECADE AGO, Randolf is designer RJ Santos’ brainchild, a space for the 34-yearold designer to pour out his whims and turn them into clothing. Affectionately referring to his design process as “playtime,” each collection is infused with this sense of exploration and freedom.

His Spring/Summer 2018 collection, for instance, was inspired by a song almost everyone knows. “When ‘Dancing Queen’ by ABBA played, an image popped into my head—a teal room with a girl dancing in a pink dress. That became the starting point for the collection,” the designer shares. True to this vision, the line, revealed at Tokyo Fashion Week in 2017, featured a whimsical pink dress crafted from tulle, complemented by a mesh sleeve with motifs that mimicked tattoos.

In his youth, Santos leaned more toward being a visual artist than a fashion designer. Conventional glamor didn’t resonate with his laid-back disposition. Introduced to alternative fashion through publications like i-D, Santos began to infuse his brand with humor and nostalgia. He designed cheeky motifs (think huskies in martini glasses or deconstructed halo-halo ingredients) and incorporate them into his clothing.