RUS debuts ‘Journals Vol. I’: a quiet homage to Japan from two sisters in Galicia

17 / 06 / 2025
POR Marisa Fatás

A Flower Is Not a Flower, RUS Spring/Summer 2025 collection, inspired by the work of Ryūichi Sakamoto, becomes the starting point for an intimate editorial journey through Tokyo’s calm, light and textures.

In 2019, sisters Pati and Inés Gutiérrez Monllor left behind careers in fashion and engineering to launch RUS, a brand committed to mindful design and emotional durability. Pati, known for her creative direction and visual diary @maggieontherocks, brings a poetic sensitivity to knitwear. Inés, with a background in industrial engineering, adds the structure and focus needed to ground such vision.

From the beginning, their work revealed a quiet resonance with Japanese aesthetics —a connection not of trend, but of temperament. That dialogue now takes printed form in RUS Journals Vol. I, the first in a series of editorial collaborations that explore the brand’s universe through new lenses. “This project is a love letter to a place that quietly shaped the spirit of RUS from the very beginning,” writes Pati in the journal’s opening pages.

Set in Tokyo, the volume offers a visual reimagining of A Flower Is Not a Flower. Photographed by Ian Lanterman, the images unfold in quiet corners of the city, where “we found moments of stillness and beauty” that contrast its usual intensity. The result is a mood piece more than a lookbook —a meditation on presence, texture and rhythm.

The story is shaped by art direction from Hugo Freijanes, styling by Erica Blume and hair and makeup by Kentaro Katsu, whose collaborative vision translates the RUS ethos into something both local and universal.

With over twenty stockists in Japan —from Isetan Shinjuku and Demi-Luxe Beams to cult retailers like 1LDK and Nid à deux— RUS already has strong roots in the country. But Journals signals something else: “a celebration of beauty, presence and the quiet power of well-made things.”

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