VALENCIA. At the age of three, Sofía Max dressed her son so that he would be very handsome on her birthday. The boy did not feel comfortable dressed like this and she protested. But her mother insisted. What did that asshole think? Halfway through the party, the boy, Gonzalo, tired of being upset, fucked, took off his clothes and was left naked. That day, that mother understood that this kid from Tucumán had to be allowed to choose his clothes. Even though he was only three years old. That boy, despite his age, knew perfectly well what he liked and what he didn't.
Gonzalo Villamax (years ago he decided to weld his paternal surname, Villa, to his maternal surname, Max) remembers the anecdote sitting on a stool inside his Ruzafa store. He looks happy in there, surrounded by his creations, mostly genderless clothes. "Because clothes have no gender," he protests. Three years ago he left Argentina and came with his boyfriend, Marco, to Valencia. A year earlier he had visited the city to spend New Year's Eve with an Argentine friend who lived in Ruzafa. He fell in love with the neighborhood and the city. He then returned to Tucumán, where, shortly after, Marco's father passed away. That misfortune, coupled with the feeling that Gonzalo was settling in, spurred them to change continents.
Villamax had already made a career as a fashion designer. The birthday boy grew up pulling clothes out of the closet himself each day and drawing patterns he thought would be ideal for his mom. His father died when he was only five years old and his mother took care of Gonzalo and his brother, Hugo, working in a clothing store and living in Yerba Buena, a residential area of Tucumán. "It's super quiet. One of those places where people leave their doors open and spend the day in the street. Later, when I grew up, I moved to the center of Tucumán."
