OUR STORY
Hi! I'm Todd and together with An, we co-founded RUX in the summer of 2017 from a coffee shop in Davis, CA. The roots of our company and our vision as entrepreneurs go well beyond the summer of 2017, but we both agree the official birth began somewhere around July of that year after I returned from my first visit to Yosemite National Park.
So how did we meet? By chance of course, like most encounters. We became neighbors, after I rented a house in Davis while on a long-term business trip. Little did we know that six months later we would co-found a lifestyle apparel company.
As we continued to socialize we soon learned we had more in common than an active lifestyle, professional careers and a love of outdoor adventure. However, our story is much deeper than how we met. Having both had varying degrees of exposure to the apparel industry, and other businesses throughout our careers, we got to see the good, the bad and the ugly. We knew we could do better and we knew there was a market that fell into this under-served niche. We knew a segment of the population cared about how their clothes were made, where their clothes were made, and the values of the company and its founders. So, we identified and then united around our core values and created our brand RUX, the derivative of Ruggedness and LUXury. Our logo is symbolic of this combination.
After an extensive search for performance fabrics that met our stringent requirements for our small introductory men's line, we chose two textile producers that met these requirements. Clothing starts with high performing, high quality fabric. We then set out to design our apparel from the point of the active wearer. We wanted to add quality and functional design elements to our apparel, that were missing from other "performance apparel" brands.
We designed each garment from the point of the wearer, paying particular attention to fit, comfort and functionality. We then teamed up with a unique, talented cut and sew shop on the east coast. It was important for us to not only to design our apparel first hand, but to produce our apparel in the United States. Our sourcing, design, R&D, cutting, sewing and fulfillment are all done here in America. We are inspired by America's vast landscape and wanted our product to be truly Made in America.