When Josh Allen speaks about Richard and Grace, his contemporary art-meets-fashion label, he speaks first about family. Named after his grandparents, the brand is an act of preservation—an archive stitched with memory, Southern pride, and a reverence for the people who raised him in Texas. “My grandparents taught me the value of care and endurance,” Allen says. “Richard and Grace is how I honor them and the world they prepared me to inherit.”
But Allen’s inheritance isn’t just intimate; it’s political. Growing up Black in Texas, Allen learned early that history isn’t just written in books. It’s inscribed in neighborhoods, in land, and in the bodies that carry both trauma and joy. Richard and Grace was founded on the philosophy that with chaos comes unity, a belief Allen sharpened in moments of global protest, from Black Lives Matter to Palestine. For him, chaos isn’t only disruption; it’s the condition that brings cultures and subgroups into conversation, raising awareness of shared struggles.
After a two-year hiatus from ready-to-wear to focus on art exhibitions, Allen has returned with Richard and Grace’s latest “HERO” products: a uniform kit comprised of a crisp button-down, a TEXAS tee, and staple accessories, socks and a hat—each marked with his signature “chaos” logo. The pieces serve as grounding tools, a nod to simplicity in design but layered with weighty symbolism.
“This drop is about accessibility,” Allen explains. “Uniforms have always been about identity, whether forced or chosen. I wanted to create something that connects back to Texas, to my community, to my city. It’s my way of saying: I’m still here, and this is for us.” You can shop the collection here.
The release is tied to a short film (CO2) that Allen directed this summer, one that asks: What does it mean to be free? The project focuses on the fraught reality of eminent domain, when governments or corporations claim land for “public use.” For Allen, this legal tool disproportionately undermines Black communities, eroding generational wealth and disconnecting families from their neighborhoods. Have a look at the film trailer here.
The urgency hit home when Allen learned Exxon planned to store carbon gases underground near residential neighborhoods in Texas. “The reality of carbon storage is complicated,” he notes. “It can slow climate change, but when it happens in people’s backyards, it raises real questions about safety, health, and equity.” These projects, he points out, are usually placed in remote landscapes, not communities where people live, work, and dream.
Allen’s film uses art as advocacy, forcing audiences to interrogate whether the American promise of land ownership, and by extension, freedom remains intact. “We’re told land is the foundation of the dream,” he says. “But when corporations can claim it at will, is it really ours?”
Allen’s work resists easy categorization, it is as much sculpture and cinema as it is streetwear. Yet, beneath the multidisciplinary approach lies one throughline: chaos. The “chaos” logo that adorns his latest pieces isn’t about disorder for disorder’s sake; it’s about what emerges after.
“Chaos brings people together, even when it feels like it’s tearing us apart,” Allen reflects. “I want Richard and Grace to show that unity is possible, not in spite of chaos, but through it.”
In that spirit, Richard and Grace is more than a fashion label; it’s an evolving conversation about memory, justice, and place. Whether through a TEXAS tee or a quietly devastating short film, Allen is using design to spark awareness of the systems shaping our daily lives and asking us, urgently, to imagine something freer, using chaos as a compass.
Learn more about Josh Allen’s artistic purpose and journey at richardandgrace.com
