Raul Lopez’s Fall 2025 collection for Luar, El Pato, emerges as both a personal manifesto and a cultural reclamation, steeped in the designer’s unique narrative as a Dominican-American artist growing up amidst New York’s turbulent streets. The collection is, in many ways, a triumph over the weight of history, taking a term once used to degrade and ridicule gay men—the slur “pato”—and transforming it into an emblem of defiance, joy, and unapologetic identity. More than just a collection, El Pato is a sartorial exorcism, an act of liberation that both reflects and redefines the cultural forces that shaped Lopez’s coming-of-age in the shadow of the AIDS crisis and his own complex relationship with queerness.
Presented in the Financial District during New York Fashion Week, the runway itself became a battleground for identity and expression. The boldness of the setting—set against a backdrop of Lopez’s signature Ana bags, which littered the space like silent witnesses to his personal journey—emboldened the narrative of the show. The collection’s visual language spoke volumes, from the constricting hoods that accentuated stereotypically queer gestures—limp wrists, exaggerated movements—as a form of empowerment, to the flamboyant suiting that reimagined the corporate world through a queer lens. Lopez’s work here is not merely about challenging aesthetics; it is a conscious intervention into the narratives of identity, gender, and power.
What Lopez achieves in El Pato is a rare fusion of high fashion and raw, visceral emotion. His tailoring, often associated with a luxurious maximalism, takes on the weight of history and cultural critique. The opening look—a white crocodile-embossed suit with one shoulder exposed and nipped at the waist—speaks to both the fragility and strength of queerness in public and private spaces. The exposed shoulder is a subtle, yet striking symbol of vulnerability, while the sharp tailoring conveys strength, as though the garment itself is both shielding and revealing. In this deft balance of hardness and softness, Lopez explores a rich, complex emotional terrain: the necessity of pride while acknowledging the scars of a painful past.
The collection is imbued with lavish textures, none more potent than the opulent use of feathers. From the meticulously crafted black feathered coat—collaboratively designed with Schiaparelli’s atelier, a deliberate nod to couture craftsmanship—to the campy, almost theatrical inclusion of feathered headpieces, Lopez revels in excess as both a critique of the minimalist modernist paradigm and an embrace of the extravagant excesses that have long been central to queer culture. These garments, lavish in their exuberance, are a reclamation of what was once deemed over-the-top or “bad taste.” Here, they become a form of radical self-expression, the flamboyance that once marginalized now wielded with defiant authority.
Sartorially, Lopez continues to push the boundaries of what high fashion can be, leaning into his own expertise as a finalist for the 2025 Woolmark Prize. His wool tailoring was not just a showcase of his technical prowess but a statement in itself. The introduction of sport-inspired pieces, such as the quilted gray wool jacket and coordinating tech-driven trousers, adds an unexpected layer of futurism to his lexicon. These garments, though modern in their aesthetic, speak to a sense of nostalgia—of a time when street-wear and high fashion first began to coalesce, signalling Lopez’s masterful ability to navigate the tensions between tradition and innovation.
Yet it is Lopez’s continued exploration of cultural storytelling through fashion that elevates El Pato from mere spectacle to a cultural commentary. The inclusion of the Ana bags, luxurious yet rooted in the intimacy of Lopez’s family heritage, represents a deeply personal element in a collection that is simultaneously a social commentary on the shifting tides of LGBTQIA+ visibility. These bags, named after Lopez’s matriarchal figures—his mother, grandmothers, and sisters—are vessels not just of fashion, but of memory and identity. The new iterations of these bags, including a plush gray-and-white fur version carried by ballroom icon Stephanie Milan, are not merely accessories, but symbols of endurance and legacy. Milan, whose own life story inspired the fictionalized character in Pose, embodies Lopez’s narrative of survival, resilience, and reinvention.
In a moment of raw emotional expression, Lopez also included the shirt that read, “I Talk Shit About You in Spanish,” paired with a voluminous feathered headpiece—a piece that verged on vulgarity, yet encapsulated the essence of Lopez’s entire collection: the subversion of shame. This shirt, with its audacious, almost irreverent message, is a reminder of the ways in which language has been weaponized against communities of color and queer individuals. Lopez reclaims this weapon, wielding it not as a tool of harm but as a sharp-edged rejoinder to those who would seek to silence him.
In the world of contemporary fashion, where spectacle often overshadows substance, Lopez’s El Pato is a masterclass in how to merge the personal with the political, the luxurious with the defiant. This collection is not merely an aesthetic exercise; it is an act of radical self-expression that confronts societal norms with every step. It is a bold assertion that flamboyance, excess, and queerness have always been, and will continue to be, integral to the cultural fabric of fashion. Lopez’s work, at its core, is a declaration: I will not be erased, I will not be diminished, and I will live unapologetically in every gesture and every stitch. El Pato is the victory of living out loud—and it is nothing short of revolutionary.
Cody Rooney is the Editor in Chief and senior contributor at liminul.
He is a PhD candidate, digital content specialist, writer, editor, multi-media artist, and photographer.