How RHUDE and Como 1907 Turned a Fourth Kit Into a Cultural Play
A luxury streetwear collab that’s more than fashion—it’s a blueprint for branding in modern football.
Italian football club Como 1907 has played just one season of top-flight football this century. But when they returned to Serie A in 2024, they’ve done so with intention, on and off the pitch.
Their fourth kit drop wasn’t just another alternate shirt; it was a black-and-gold cultural statement co-signed by RHUDE and adidas, bridging Como’s lakeside elegance with Los Angeles’s street-luxury identity. At €275 a piece, the kit wasn’t made for fans in the stands. It was built for global attention, exclusivity, and brand equity.
That’s not a mistake. It filters the audience. This isn’t about selling thousands. It’s about building desirability, building scarcity, and building cultural value. Clubs can’t just chase numbers, they have to choose positioning. And Como has clearly decided that niche prestige will serve them better than mass-market noise. In this case.
The man behind it all is Rhuigi Villaseñor, founder of RHUDE and, crucially, the club’s Chief Brand Officer. This isn’t a one-off collab, it’s the output of a wider brand strategy to position Como as a lifestyle club with transatlantic pull.
Villaseñor, born in the Philippines, raised in L.A., and now shaping football’s fashion crossover from the Italian Alps, embodies the same cultural fluidity that made this partnership possible. Under his creative direction, Como is rewriting what it means to be a small club in a global market.
What makes this collaboration sharp is its duality. Lake Como carries connotations of understated luxury, George Clooney villas, silk ties, and still water mornings. RHUDE, on the other hand, channels L.A. edge: classic muscle cars, bold tailoring, and West Coast bravado.
This isn’t a new tactic in football, but it is a refined one. We’ve seen Off-White link with AC Milan. Labrum with Arsenal. And many others in recent years.
While collaborations like Off-White and AC Milan have set a precedent for long-term, culturally embedded partnerships, RHUDE and Como 1907 are carving their own path by integrating creative leadership directly into the club's brand strategy, signalling a new model of football-fashion fusion.
In an era where clubs are desperate to grow their global reach without losing identity, this kind of collab isn’t just about merchandising. It’s storytelling.
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The adidas role here is also worth noting. They’re not overpowering the design language. They’re validating it. Just as they’ve done with Wales Bonner for Jamaica, adidas acts more like cultural amplifiers than traditional sportswear partners. That’s not easy for a brand of their scale, but it’s smart. RHUDE needed space to lead. Como needed creative trust. adidas gave both.
Zoom out and you can see the broader pattern. Football clubs are waking up to the idea that their kits aren’t just identity tools, they’re brand IP. And if used correctly, they can tell bigger stories than sponsors ever could.
As younger audiences treat football more like fashion and entertainment than pure sport, the lines will keep blurring. The question isn’t whether your club’s shirt sells. It’s whether your club’s shirt means something.
For Como, this collaboration means ambition. It means they’re not content with promotion, they want reinvention. And they’re doing it through aesthetic, through tone, through people.
That’s why Rhuigi being more than a collaborator matters. He’s not jumping in for the clout. He’s shaping the system from the inside. Which might just be the future. Not fashion brands entering football. But fashion minds being given football power.
Thanks for reading, David Skilling.
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