Brytiago closed out Artistix’s New York Fashion Week show on Thursday night, becoming the first male reggaeton artist to do so. Sporting the brightest neon green ensemble of the group, the Puerto Rican singer stood out with ease, as he walked the strip accessorized by his abs and a stacked array of diamond chains.
Artistix by Greg Polisseni is an edgy streetwear brand that launched in 2013. They have a history of aiming to merge art with fashion, centering artists like June Ambrose and Dreamville in campaigns, and garnering the attention of Colombia’s Maluma and the Dominican Republic’s Natti Natasha. Just earlier this year, she too stunted on their runway with over-the-knee boots and a patterned bodysuit, very well paving the way for Daddy Yankee’s protégé to do so this time around.
Andy Hilfiger, Tommy Hilfiger’s younger brother and creative visionary in his own right, is known for his commitment to merging music and fashion. After facilitating Hollywood partnerships with the all-American type brand his brother enriched himself with, and helping artists like Jennifer Lopez to develop brands of their own, Hilfiger is now the creative director at Artistix. “[Brytiago] took our runway to the next level,”Hilfiger said in a statement. Considering recent decisions, I suspect he has at least one Latinx person on his creative team, or is just refreshingly in tune with the times. Hopefully both.
In 2017, J Balvin became the first Latino ambassador for New York Men’s Fashion Week. Though artists like him, Maluma and Cardi B, grace the frontlines of fashion shows around the world time and time again, perhaps this is the beginning of a new and well overdue kind of representation on fashion’s largest stages. Other designers should take note.