Picture: David Choe, RVCA ANP artist
Artists, models, athletes, and musicians have more outlets, networks and opportunities today than ever before to express themselves. Of course, we have the internet to thank, but we also have brands and companies like RVCA that bring art and lifestyle together for the greater good.
In 2001, out of his closet and from humble beginnings, the company’s founder, PM Tenore started RVCA (Pronounced “Ruca”), an action sports apparel company, first and foremost. PM also created a program to support artists and give them a platform he thought was missing, “I wanted to do something other people in the industry weren’t, and that is provide a space for artists, musicians, surfers, skaters, curators, models. That’s when I started conceptualizing the artists network program (ANP).”
If PM likes someone’s work, he shares contacts with them and invites them to do limited-edition designs in which a portion of the proceeds will go to the charity of their choice. The members of this ANP tribe have free reign of RVCA’s sprawling headquarters that feature, a recording studio, rooms filled with sewing machines and fabric swatches, and working spaces for any late night workers.
“It’s a balance of industry and art,” says PM, who claims creativity and commerce shouldn’t be mutually exclusive. For RVCA, it is about today, tomorrow and life as the big picture. It is about inspiring our generation, providing something of substance and culture and above all doing it with integrity and as a united family, a close-knit community.”
-Ashlye Vaughan