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SEBASTIAN HUNT and Dylan Richards Diaz have an enviable grip on some of fashion’s key constituencies. The Kiwi co-founders of LA-based brand Entire Studios have a cult following of chronically online fashion kids; ‘hauls’ of their boxy, crop-cut hoodies and puffers, accompanied by reviews of the garments’ flattering silhouette and fabric, feature regularly on my TikTok and Instagram feeds. Rappers and pop stars are return customers; streetwear news outlets often document the likes of Bad Bunny and Justin Bieber wearing Entire puffers in sherbet colourways. In late 2023, images of British pop sensation Dua Lipa leaving a New York hotel in a sidewalk-grazing Entire Studios faux fur coat went viral, setting in motion the ‘mob wife’ micro trend.
Crucially, the Kardashian-Jenner clan loves them, too: Kylie Jenner has been a key supporter since the brand’s founding in 2020, her fashion label Khy collaborating with the design duo twice last year on an outerwear and eveningwear collection (momager Kris Jenner was the face of the campaign). Basically, anyone who is anyone is wearing Entire Studios.
“We’ve always looked at the outfit more than the clothes,” says Hunt. He’s sitting next to Richards Diaz in Entire Studios’ Downtown office, one week after the LA wildfires razed parts of their adopted city (in response, the brand donated a day’s worth of worldwide sales to the Los Angeles Fire Department and 2025 Wildlife Relief Fund). They acknowledge that chatting about clothes is a welcome distraction from the tragedy that’s been unfolding around them. “We’ve been told that we do our process a little backwards,” adds Richards Diaz of their design method. “Where other people start with fabrics, we go in already knowing the final look.”
It’s an approach they won’t teach you in design school, but one that’s been shaped by the pair’s backgrounds as stylists for the Hollywood set. Having met as teenagers on Tumblr, where they’d pore over visual references from US pop star Jesse Jo Stark to clinical Prada campaigns of the early aughts, Hunt and Richards Diaz started their careers in Auckland, working in fashion showrooms and styling photoshoots for local magazines. As their profiles rose, their mutual desire to move abroad and work with the world’s best grew.
“What brought us together is that Dylan and I were doing the best [work], where we were in New Zealand,” says Hunt. Their big break came not long after they moved stateside and acquainted themselves with the West Coast fashion set – Ye (formerly Kanye West) handpicked them to work for his fashion label Yeezy. Enlisting them as ghost stylists during the brand’s peak in the mid-2010s, you could say that Hunt and Richards Diaz had a hand in shaping the most influential era of streetwear to date.
After leaving Yeezy and moving back to New Zealand briefly, Entire Studios was born (the duo refer to it as their “pandemic baby”). Born out of their desire to create a unisex brand with an accessible luxury positioning, the clothes – clean, mute neutrals designed to be layered – have the ease of a uniform. But it’s their silhouettes, which range from cocooning to carapacial, that appeal to those who find confidence in what the late fashion photographer Bill Cunningham once described as the “armour to survive the reality of everyday life”.
“When I think of someone wearing a power suit, they’re quite confident,” says Richards Diaz, who works more on the creative side of the brand. “As long as we are locking in a very strong silhouette, whether it’s in the shoulders or something, it should build this confident-looking person . . . Customers talk about the confidence that our clothes give them.” Hunt, the brand’s commercial mind, affirms the uptick of interest that comes with a Dua or Beibs stepping out in head-to-toe Entire: “We do get a strong response, especially when someone’s got a whole outfit on”.
But perhaps what makes Entire Studios so appealing is its wearability. The brand has spent the last five years – or nine collections (they call them drops) – focusing on nailing their core essentials. Puffers and sweatsuits are the hero products, often cropped at the waist, with dropped shoulders and deep inset hoods. Their treatment of colour anchors each new drop, as Hunt and Richards Diaz introduce new cuts and silhouettes, as well as new categories like denim, tailoring and eveningwear.
While working as celebrity stylists, Hunt and Richards Diaz would see thousands of pieces of clothing each season, making them especially attuned to identifying gaps in the market. “We’ve been slowly introducing [categories] in a way where now you can come to us and get your cosy clothes to wear around the house, or you can go for something more evening,” says Richards Diaz. “It’s also broken down by data,” adds Hunt, “and by looking at what the customer likes . . . making sure that whoever is buying is catered for and building an ‘entire’ wardrobe.”
Hunt and Richards Diaz represent a new breed of designer with the entrepreneurial know-how to create a one-stop shop. As other powerful stylists are creating their own brands by leveraging their names and tapping clients as ambassadors, what sets the duo apart is their ethos of letting Entire Studios go “where [the customers] want to lead us”.
Now releasing their tenth drop, which was on display in Paris during the city’s men’s fashion week in January, they’re shifting gears to show a more playful side of the brand in time for the Northern summer. T-shirts are cut from crisp cotton that structurally float on the body; shorts have long and thigh-bearing inseams so you can choose your desired silhouette; and there are matching sets of leather and denim and boxy tailoring for lightweight layering, as well as bateau necklines and plunging V-necks to expose your back or torso, whichever you’re feeling that day.
“I’m always trying to push it a little bit because I know what people think of Entire and what they see it as, with our muted colour palette,” observes Richards Diaz. “I really love to use our styling background to showcase that once you pair a garment the right way, it can actually form something quite strong without being too in your face and loud . . . We’re just trying to make everyone’s lives easier by creating a wardrobe that can intertwine with your other pieces.”
This is a touchstone of what the duo has set out to achieve: to curate the ‘entire wardrobe’, while encouraging the wearer to put their own spin on things. By their own admission, Hunt and Richards Diaz have figured out how to make something mass – in this case, essentials – feel like it has cult appeal. Because for them, growing up in New Zealand, “luxury was an exclusive thing, and that feels old school to me,” says Richards Diaz.
When ideating their collections, their first customer remains themselves: online fashion kids who want a piece of the action, drawn to voluminous outerwear that will pull your shoulders back and raise your chin until it’s parallel with the ground.
Shop drop 10 by Entire Studios here.
Opening image by Yolanda Leaney
This story appears in the March/April 2025 issue of Esquire Australia with the title “Confidence and Clout”, on sale now. Find out where to buy the issue here.
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