Paolina Russo isn’t just building a label; it’s building a community around one, in an industry that usually runs on exclusivity.&nbsp;That choice, more than any single garment, is probably why the work holds up: every collection starts with people first.

Paris Fashion Week Men’s runs on a particular kind of exhaustion; appointments stacked on appointments, conversations that turn into tomorrow’s headlines before they’ve finished happening.
Sitting down with&nbsp;Paolina Russo and co-founder Lucile Guilmard cuts through that rhythm. There’s no performance to it. They laugh easily and finish each other’s sentences.
Founded in London in 2021 by Central Saint Martins graduates Paolina Russo and Lucile Guilmard, Paolina Russo has quickly emerged as one of fashion’s most compelling independent labels. Drawing from Russo’s suburban Canadian upbringing and Guilmard’s childhood in the French countryside, the duo combines traditional craft—knitwear, quilting, macramé—with technical experimentation, sportswear, and their signature illusion knits.
The industry took notice early. In 2023, the label was shortlisted for both the LVMH and International Woolmark prizes, won the inaugural Zalando Visionary Award, and debuted at Copenhagen Fashion Week. Collaborations with adidas Originals, Converse, Roblox, and Dover Street Market have since expanded its reach.
Yet despite these markers of success, Russo and Guilmard rarely speak in those terms. Ask about innovation, and they return to making things together; ask about growth, and they talk about listening. Ultimately, the conversation always comes back to people

Paolina Russo has become known for pushing knitwear technically. But what’s the idea underneath the garments? 
Paolina Russo: More than anything, the brand stands for community. Lucile and I started this as friends, but building the label turned us into family, and everyone who’s joined the studio 78 since has become part of that too. We call the Paolina Russo wardrobe a uniform for belonging. We want people to feel like they have a place here.
Lucile Guilmard: It comes from how we both grew up. Paolina in suburban Canada, me in the French countryside; they’re very different places, but with the same texture of community. When you live somewhere small, people become everything. You play local sports together, make quilts together, build things together. That shaped how we think about fashion now.
You’ve been showing in Copenhagen since the beginning. How has your idea of success there changed?
LG: Copenhagen has become family. We arrived knowing no one, right after winning the Zalando Visionary Award, and slowly found people who believed in what we were doing. Now, every season feels like returning to a creative community, not just another fashion week stop.
PR: We’ve also grown into ourselves. Early on, we were figuring everything out as we went. Now we’re more confident—not because it’s gotten easier, but because we know who we are as designers and as people. Running an independent label never feels fully secure. But being secure in yourself and the people around you counts for a lot.
Where did this season start for you?&nbsp;
PR: A quilt! Specifically, a sunburst quilt, which reminds me of home. Local quilting guilds where I grew up made these, and that image became the emotional starting point for the collection.
LG: What I love about the sunburst pattern is that it starts with one star and expands outward into many smaller ones, which together make something bigger. That’s how we see the brand: a community built from individual “stars” that add up to something brighter than any one person alone.
Your collections move between real experimentation and real restraint. How do you know when to push further versus when to hold back? 
PR: This season was less about chasing something new and more about refining what already defines us; the illusion knits, the denim, the color work we’ve spent years developing. Sometimes innovation isn’t adding more; it’s understanding what’s already working and letting it evolve.
LG: We also wear our own clothes every day, so we’re constantly asking what’s missing. Which silhouette do we wish existed? Which cut would make someone feel more themselves? The collection grows out of those questions; it’s built for real life first, the runway second.

How do you think about authenticity, working in an industry that runs on trend cycles and constant content? 
PR: I think we’re coming out of a period where everything had to be bigger, louder, more performative. But the moments that actually stay with you are the quiet ones—studio conversations, relationships, memories nobody else sees. That’s part of why we started filming our own vlogs: to document those moments for ourselves, not to turn them into content.
LG: Authenticity is built through consistency. A brand develops an identity the same way a person does—by returning to certain rituals and values over time, not by reinventing itself every season.
PR: And honestly, we’re nerds about this. We like researching techniques, testing machines, studying construction. There’s no point pretending to be something cooler than that. Being ourselves has worked better.
For someone in the Philippines buying their first Paolina Russo piece, especially given the climate. Where should they start? 
PR: The illusion knit dresses. People assume knitwear means heavy, but ours is breathable and built to move with the body.
LG: The illusion pieces are where the brand began; effortless, colorful, and I think they’ll resonate with how much Filipinos embrace color.
Your Filipino heritage is part of your story. How has it shaped the brand’s design language? 
PR: My mother taught me to be resourceful. If we didn’t have fabric, she’d tell me to use curtains instead. Nothing was ever impossible, and that comes straight from my Filipino family’s ability to make something extraordinary out of very little. We didn’t have many resources when we started the brand either. Some of our earliest pieces were made from old sneakers, because that’s what we had. It’s the same instinct as cooking adobo—from the simplest ingredients, something rich can come out.
LG: It’s also about looking at what’s around you and asking how to transform it. Creativity isn’t about having more; it’s about seeing more in what already exists.
Has working with Filipino creatives shifted how you see your own work? 
PR: Yes. A Filipino-Canadian friend visited recently and immediately recognized things in our work that echoed Filipino craftsmanship: the color, the textiles, the attention to handmade technique. Those connections show up instinctively, even before you notice them.

How do you keep cross-cultural inspiration from tipping into appropriation? 
LG: The key is collaboration, which means listening—respecting where someone’s coming from without claiming ownership of their story. It’s not about absorbing someone else’s perspective; it’s letting different perspectives sit alongside each other.&nbsp;
PR: Lucile and I come from completely different backgrounds, but our experiences overlap emotionally; we both searched for belonging, both built community through making things. That’s what collaboration should do: remind you that even across different cultures, the underlying humanity isn’t so different.
LG: No one creates alone. Every collection is the result of a lot of people contributing knowledge and generosity. It really does take a village.
Is knitwear a technique for you, a storytelling tool, or something bigger than both?
PR: All of it. It started as a technical obsession: how far a single thread could be pushed into something sculptural and unexpected. Over time, it became our language for telling stories. When we get interested in something, we go all the way in: study it, test it, repeat it until we understand its limits.
LG: That’s the magic of it; you start with almost nothing, a single yarn, and build a whole garment. Every choice matters: the yarn, everything downstream. I trained in womenswear, not knitwear, so working alongside Paolina has been an education in itself.
PR: Knitting is one of the oldest crafts in the world, and there are still techniques nobody’s found yet. That’s what keeps it interesting.
LG: It’s also one of the most democratic crafts; anyone can learn it. You can knit on a train. You can’t make a pair of jeans on the subway. Knitwear belongs to everyone.
As independent designers, what’s been the hardest lesson in balancing creative ambition against the commercial realities of running a label? 
LG: Commercial instinct starts with listening—to customers, retailers, friends, production partners. The moment you stop listening is the moment you stop evolving.
PR: We design from our own lives, so our needs changing is usually what pushes us into a new category. Before we made denim, I hadn’t worn trousers in almost ten years; I never felt comfortable in them. So we set out to make jeans that made everyone in the studio feel good, regardless of body shape. We all tried samples, argued about proportions, adjusted fit, and landed on something that worked for the whole room, not just one person. That’s the process now: we don’t start with trend; we start with real life.
LG: Confidence is probably the biggest luxury we design. If someone puts on our clothes and feels more like themselves, we’ve done the job.

If you were writing the first page of advice for a designer just graduating—what goes on it? 
LG: Work with people you genuinely love. Protect those relationships. And remember, fashion is about people, not ego.
PR: I’d add: take care of yourself. This industry has a reputation for burning people out, and it’s earned. Creativity doesn’t survive constant exhaustion. We train together as a studio, do yoga, share meals, check in on each other; we run it like a marathon, not a sprint.
LG: Fashion asks a lot of you, but that’s not a reason to sacrifice yourself for it. Looking after your team is part of the creative process, not separate from it.
Is there a collaboration with the Philippines you’d still like to make happen?
PR: Definitely! I want to visit the province my Lolo came from. There’s a textile weaving tradition there, and I’d want to learn directly from the artisans: technique, story, the rhythm of the work itself. For me, collaboration isn’t about producing a product somewhere else; it’s exchanging knowledge. One of our interns, Paola, who is half-Filipino and half-Italian, spent time in the Philippines working with artisans on woven bags, and we’ve talked about building something together, like designing alongside those communities rather than just sourcing from them.
LG: We’d like to spend more time in Asia generally. It’s full of extraordinary craft, and it deserves to be experienced firsthand rather than from a distance.
What would you tell a Filipino designer trying to build something globally recognized without losing what makes it theirs?
LG: Build your community first. Talk to the people who actually believe in your work. It’s easy to get so focused on impressing the industry that you forget the real relationship is between designer and wearer.
PR: Agreed. Early on, we spent too much time thinking about retailers and wholesale. Everything changed once we started meeting customers directly: pop-ups, events, actual conversations. That’s when we understood who we were designing for. Sometimes, your first customer is yourself. The community grows from there, and it teaches you more than any trend forecast will. Don’t lose that connection; it’s the most valuable thing you build.

The Luxury of Belonging: Paolina Russo

Recommended posts for you

Culture