Gabrielle Venguer ‘s new collection, inspired by Mexico ’68, brings together Mexican fashion, architecture, and design to bring Pedro Ramírez Vázquez’s visual legacy into the context of the 2026 World Cup.
Gabrielle Venguer is a Mexican fashion designer known for her experimental approach to textile design and for blurring the lines between fashion, art, and performance.
The idea behind his most recent exhibition began three years ago, during a visit to the home of the legendary Mexican architect and urban planner Pedro Ramírez Vázquez. There he met Ramírez’s son, who gave him access to the family archive and showed him scarves featuring prints of his father’s work, as well as some of the pieces his father designed for the 1968 Olympic Games in Mexico.
“That visit really left a lasting impression on me. Meeting him and seeing all that material was very special. Later, I started thinking about doing something for the World Cup, and I remembered that moment. I thought, ‘That’s one of the most beautiful things ever done in Mexico, and I’d like to see it return with the same energy it has.'”
Pedro Ramírez Vázquez, the industrial designer
“So I contacted him to ask if he’d be interested in collaborating,” recalls Gabrielle, who is telling me the story from her hotel room in Paris, where she has just arrived.
However, beyond discovering the architect, Venguer says she was fascinated by his work as an industrial and graphic designer. Touring the house was, in her words, “like stepping into a creative universe that went far beyond the works that are part of the Mexican collective imagination.”
“Stepping into his space is truly an experience filled with so many incredible creations. I was fascinated by his furniture, such as the tables and chairs made from a single sheet of cut steel that, when assembled in a specific way, create the three-dimensional form. I was also captivated by his glass sculptures and all his graphic work, which I’ve always loved,” she explains.
The visit to the studio also changed the way I understood Ramírez Vázquez’s creative process. He discovered, for example, Ramírez Vázquez’s interest in reimagining traditional objects such as the equipal—a traditional Mexican seat or armchair with pre-Hispanic roots—which he sought to remove from the context of bars and restaurants and give a place within contemporary design.
Op Art versus Pre-Hispanic Symbols
Another revelation was the origin of México 68’s visual identity. “Many of us thought that design was inspired by Op Art, but Javier showed me some books and explained that it actually draws on pre-Hispanic symbols. It allowed me to delve much deeper into his world, his references, and to understand how he arrived at that design.”
For Venguer, this perspective encapsulates much of Ramírez Vázquez’s legacy: deeply contemporary architecture and design that never ceased to draw on Mexican materials, symbols, and traditions to forge a highly distinctive language.
After that first meeting, the collaboration began to take its final shape. Time was running out as the World Cup approached, but the process flowed almost intuitively.
“He was showing me all the photos, and I was amazed—truly inspired by the work that had already been done. Then he asked me, ‘What’s next? How do you want to proceed?’ I told him that, if he’d let me use that pattern, I’d make some samples for us to look at.”
Venguer recalls that he was given complete creative freedom. The only condition was to uphold the high standards that defined Ramírez Vázquez’s legacy.
“He gave me free rein. He just said, ‘Promise me the finishing touches will be good. I want it to look good.’ Then I went to his house to show him the garments, and that’s how we’ve been moving forward.”
With that guiding principle, rather than attempting to reinvent a design she considers iconic, the designer chose to “reinterpret it without imposing a new interpretation,” thereby engaging in a dialogue with a visual language that is already part of the history of Mexican design.
The challenge of reinterpreting something that was already magical
“Faced with something so iconic, I didn’t want to add too much of my own touch. It was more about reinterpreting something that was already magical. They had very classic silhouettes, and I decided to incorporate those graphics into the silhouettes I’ve developed for my brand over the past six years.”
These shapes, she explains, have become Gabrielle Venguer’s signature thanks to years of experimentation with textiles, volumes, and garment construction.
“After creating collections, exploring, and experimenting, I arrived at certain silhouettes that have become iconic for my brand. I wanted to incorporate these graphics into them to pay homage to Ramírez Vázquez’s classics from within my own universe of classics.”
A Dialogue Between the Past and the Contemporary World
For Venguer, the visual language developed for the 1968 Mexico City Olympic Games remains one of the most important benchmarks in Mexican design. Rather than an exercise in nostalgia, he believes it represents a moment when the country succeeded in forging its own unique and universal graphic identity—one that has yet to be surpassed:
“I don’t think the 1968 design has been surpassed. I feel it’s one of the best things ever created in our country,” Gabrielle Venguer
That is why, when he decided to work with that legacy, he sought to establish a dialogue between the past and the present rather than simply replicating it. “It was about having this dialogue between the past and the present.”
1968 from a Contemporary Perspective
That balance also defined the photo shoot. The photo shoot took place at Pedro Ramírez Vázquez’s own home and drew on aesthetic references from the 1960s—from the makeup to the styling—though reinterpreted with a contemporary sensibility.
“I wanted it to have that vintage feel, but brought into the present. In the ’60s, a miniskirt was already considered daring; today, that idea has changed completely. That’s why we decided to pair the bodysuit with knee-high boots. It was about speaking that same language, but asking ourselves what it would mean today, in the context of the World Cup.”
Although this collection is one of the most accessible she has ever created, Venguer explains that much of her work stems from textile experimentation—a process that sometimes results in pieces that are impossible to reproduce. In her studio, located in Mexico City’s Historic Center, she handcrafts the textiles she works with. There, he has explored techniques such as flocking, even going so far as to place beans inside the material to observe how it would react over time. “There was a time when I put beans inside the flocking just to see what would happen. Suddenly, roots began to sprout, and plants grew.”
One-of-a-kind pieces of textile art
She has also created dresses woven entirely by hand using unconventional elements, such as candelabras—processes that require so many hours of work that they end up becoming unique pieces of textile art rather than garments. “For me, a piece is something I can no longer reproduce. Design, on the other hand, is when I manage to translate that research into garments that can actually be worn and produced.”
Nor was the collection created based on a set commercial strategy. Venguer acknowledges that the project has evolved as she has discovered how the public responds. The first release was a bodysuit that sparked unexpected interest. “Everyone started saying, ‘I want that swimsuit.’”
“And we didn’t even have that swimsuit in production.” That response led the studio to expand the collection with new pieces and prepare a first batch of the designs that worked best, including the printed jackets, pants, and the swimsuit itself.
Although the collection incorporates images of the Azteca Stadium and other projects by Ramírez Vázquez, Venguer clarifies that architecture is not translated literally. During the project’s development, she received historical photographs from the architect’s archive and decided to turn some of them into digital prints for pareos and skirts. But experimentation also took place in the construction of the garments.
Optical Illusions Beyond the Canvas
One example is a jacket whose lapel appears to exist visually, even though it actually disappears when touched. “The lapel is designed to be seen, but when you touch it, you discover it’s empty.” In other pieces, graphics inspired by Mexico ’68 were pleated to create new optical illusions through the movement of the fabric.
“We wanted to play with that visual effect. We printed the graphic and then pleated it so that it would change as the garment moved.”
Rather than simply reproducing a historical legacy in a basic way, the designer sought to reinterpret it through her own design language, building a bridge between one of the most iconic moments in Mexican design and a new generation of garments that engage with that past—without, of course, getting stuck in a loop.
Discover more interviews on design, photography, and architecture in AW Magazine.
