Get to know Rocotito Archives, an inclusive rental fashion archive above a family’s decades-old medical scrubs shop
Ronben wears a Vaquera top and Christian Louboutin X Maison Margiela heels. Above the Pasadena scrubs shop that has been run by the same family for decades, a fashion gold mine is growing. Take a narrow staircase above, and you’ll find Ronben, the Peruvian American stylist specializing in androgynous editorial looks, amassing their secondhand and designer collection into the archival dream that is Rocotito Archives. The door was wide open when I arrived, and Ronben was at the doorway smiling. They stood in tabis and a tailored collared shirt, their eyes framed by slick 2000s-era glasses, laughing as their overly eager curly-haired dog Duffy bounded beside them. Inside, Ronben’s mother presided over the medical wear shop that she and her family have worked in for 30 years, flanked by scrubs in Easter egg hues and playful prints. She immigrated to the U.S. from the small town of Chosica, Peru, a riverside community where Ronben was born and that she left in hopes of raising her child among more opportunities — and Ronben has certainly never …
