VAQUERA

VAQUERA is an American ready-to-wear fashion label founded in 2013 by Alabama-born designer Patric DiCaprio. The brand developed around an intentionally irreverent approach to fashion that combines do-it-yourself construction, exaggerated proportions, cultural references, and a deliberately unstable boundary between clothing, art, and commentary. Its work is often described through the idea of “fashion fan fiction”: familiar luxury objects, logos, garments, or social codes are reinterpreted as provocative wearable pieces rather than reproduced as conventional commercial products. The label’s creative development during the 2010s involved DiCaprio working with co-designers Bryn Taubensee, Claire Sullivan, and David Moses. Taubensee remained associated with the label as co-creative director, while Emma Wyman served as stylist and Walter Pearce as casting director. This collaborative structure supported VAQUERA’s highly staged presentations and helped establish a recognizable visual language built from theatrical casting, unconventional styling, loose construction, and deliberately conspicuous references to popular and luxury culture. VAQUERA became known for pieces such as a Tiffany & Co.-referencing bag dress, bra T-shirts, and broad, oversized garments. These designs positioned the label less as a traditional wardrobe brand than as a platform for questioning fashion’s ideas of authenticity, status, copying, fandom, and taste. The label’s clothes frequently use recognizable cultural signifiers as raw material, turning them into exaggerated or surreal objects. Its D.I.Y. sensibility also gives the work an anti-polished quality that contrasts with the controlled presentation associated with established luxury houses. In 2017, VAQUERA was nominated for the CFDA/Vogue Fashion Fund, bringing the label additional recognition within the American fashion industry. That same year, it collaborated with Hulu’s The Handmaid’s Tale on a runway collection, extending its practice of working with cultural properties and translating their visual themes into fashion. The brand’s audience and public profile have also been reinforced by support from prominent entertainers, models, and fashion figures, including Rihanna, Tessa Thompson, Travis Barker, Emily Ratajkowski, Ella Emhoff, Tess McMillan, Jacob Bixenman, Sam Penn, and Charli XCX. In 2020, Dover Street Market New York hosted the designers’ February runway show. VAQUERA subsequently joined Dover Street Market’s Paris-based showroom and incubator structure alongside labels including Eli Russell Linnetz, Rassvet, and Honey Dijon. This relationship connected the label’s independent, experimental practice with an international retail and presentation platform. Available reference material does not establish a separate parent company, owner, public listing, financial profile, or official website. VAQUERA is best characterized as an independent American fashion label whose identity rests on conceptual ready-to-wear, collaborative creativity, and an intentionally disruptive approach to fashion imagery and construction.

VAQUERA was founded in 2013 by Alabama-born designer Patric DiCaprio. From its beginning, the label pursued an approach distinct from conventional ready-to-wear businesses: garments were treated as expressive, referential objects, and the design process drew heavily on D.I.Y. methods, exaggeration, parody, and fashion-world quotation. The label’s work became associated with “fashion fan fiction,” a term that captures its tendency to take familiar brands, products, images, and cultural ideas and reimagine them as highly visible, sometimes surreal clothing. During the 2010s, DiCaprio worked with Bryn Taubensee, Claire Sullivan, and David Moses. Taubensee remained involved as co-creative director, while Emma Wyman handled styling and Walter Pearce directed casting. Their collaboration helped build a distinct runway identity in which the garments, models, casting, and presentation worked together as a form of visual commentary. Rather than emphasizing conventional refinement, VAQUERA frequently used loose proportions, visibly playful references, and an intentionally disruptive relationship to established ideas of luxury and taste. The label became particularly recognizable for oversized clothing, bra T-shirts, and pieces that transformed famous consumer or luxury signifiers into clothing. Among the cited examples is a Tiffany & Co.-referencing bag dress. These works exemplify VAQUERA’s interest in status objects and the circulation of fashion imagery: recognizable symbols are made strange through scale, context, and construction. The result is clothing that can function simultaneously as apparel, satire, fan expression, and performance. VAQUERA’s growing visibility led to a nomination for the 2017 CFDA/Vogue Fashion Fund. Also in June 2017, the label collaborated with Hulu’s The Handmaid’s Tale on a runway collection. The project demonstrated the brand’s willingness to work across fashion, entertainment, and popular culture while maintaining its theatrical and conceptual approach. The label developed a following among well-known entertainers, models, and fashion personalities, including Rihanna, Tessa Thompson, Travis Barker, Emily Ratajkowski, Ella Emhoff, Tess McMillan, Jacob Bixenman, Sam Penn, and Charli XCX. Such support increased its cultural visibility, although the available reference material does not provide sales figures, distribution data, or details of a formal corporate structure. In 2020, Dover Street Market New York hosted the designers’ February runway show. VAQUERA later joined Dover’s Paris-based showroom and incubator, a platform that also included Eli Russell Linnetz, Rassvet, and Honey Dijon. This development gave the independent label an association with an international fashion retail and presentation network. The available sources do not identify a parent company, public owner, executive board, official website, or financial disclosures. VAQUERA is therefore best documented as an independent American fashion label centered on Patric DiCaprio and Bryn Taubensee, with a continuing identity rooted in experimental ready-to-wear and culture-driven design.

• 2020

  Dover Street Market presentation and incubator association

  [1]Vaquera (fashion brand)en.wikipedia.org

  Dover Street Market New York hosted VAQUERA's February runway show, after which the label joined Dover's Paris-based showroom and incubator.

• 2017

  CFDA/Vogue Fashion Fund nomination

  [1]Vaquera (fashion brand)en.wikipedia.org

  VAQUERA was nominated for the 2017 edition of the CFDA/Vogue Fashion Fund.

• 2017

  The Handmaid's Tale runway collaboration

  [1]Vaquera (fashion brand)en.wikipedia.org

  In June, VAQUERA collaborated with Hulu's The Handmaid's Tale on a runway collection.

• 2013

  VAQUERA is founded

  [1]Vaquera (fashion brand)en.wikipedia.org

  Patric DiCaprio founded VAQUERA, developing the label as an American ready-to-wear project with Bryn Taubensee, Claire Sullivan, and David Moses involved during its formative period.

An independent, experimental American ready-to-wear label positioned around D.I.Y. construction, dadaist humor, oversized forms, fashion fan fiction, and the transformation of recognizable cultural or luxury references into provocative garments.

• Ready-to-wear · 2013

  Conceptual ready-to-wear

  VAQUERA's core output is conceptual ready-to-wear that treats clothing as both fashion product and cultural commentary. The label uses exaggerated silhouettes, unconventional styling, and recognizable references to challenge ordinary expectations of polish, wearability, and luxury presentation.

• Apparel

  Oversized garments

  Loose and oversized garments are among VAQUERA's recurring visual signatures. Their scale helps create a theatrical silhouette and supports the brand's interest in distortion, anti-conventional styling, and the transformation of familiar clothing forms into expressive fashion objects.

• Tops

  Bra T-shirts

  Bra T-shirts are a cited example of VAQUERA's irreverent approach to everyday apparel. The design combines a recognizable T-shirt format with an intentionally exposed or provocative reference, reflecting the label's broader use of humor, juxtaposition, and fashion fan fiction.

• Dress and fashion object

  Tiffany & Co.-referencing bag dress

  The Tiffany & Co.-referencing bag dress is one of the label's best-known cited examples. It turns a recognizable luxury-accessory reference into a garment, illustrating VAQUERA's practice of recasting status symbols as surreal, theatrical, and deliberately literal fashion pieces.

• 2017The Handmaid's Tale runway collection

  United States

  VAQUERA collaborated with Hulu's The Handmaid's Tale in June 2017 to create a runway collection. The project connected the label's fashion-referential design language with a prominent television property.

  Outcome. The collaboration produced a runway collection and expanded VAQUERA's cultural partnerships beyond the conventional fashion-label context.

  Source

• 2020

  Join Dover Street Market's Paris showroom and incubatorStrategy

  Background

  After Dover Street Market New York hosted VAQUERA's February runway show, the label became part of Dover's Paris-based showroom and incubator structure.

  Action taken

  VAQUERA joined the showroom and incubator alongside labels including Eli Russell Linnetz, Rassvet, and Honey Dijon.

  Aftermath

  The arrangement connected VAQUERA with an international platform for presentation and retail development, although the available source does not provide commercial results.

  Source

1. 1Vaquera (fashion brand)en.wikipedia.org