'Everyone Who Buys Blondita Is a Baddie': Meet the It-Girl Brand Worn by Chappell Roan and Sabrina Carpenter (Exclusive)

From the "Taste" music video to the BET Awards, Angela Ruis' designs have been everywhere this year — and she's not slowing down

What do Sabrina Carpenter, Sexyy Red and Chappell Roan have in common — well, besides their thriving music careers? They all wear Blondita, and by extension, the woman behind the brand: Angela Ruis.

The Blondita owner, 30, didn't go to fashion school. She hasn't spent a cent on ads. She has no physical store, instead designing and creating each item of clothing at her Los Angeles home. Nevertheless, it-girls from far and wide — and their stylists — flock to her shop for ultra-miniskirts, ultra-specific slogan tees and everything in between.

Founded in 2018, Blondita began as a side hustle for the self-taught designer — a Depop business where she hand-painted custom denim pieces. In 2023, she decided to pour herself into the brand, giving it all the “official bells and whistles,” she tells PEOPLE. "And it's just kind of been ticking off organically, honestly, ever since."

Ruis is still wrapping her head around the way Blondita has blossomed this past year — growth she attributes to both luck and "genuineness ... just doing everything from like a really honest place."

"It kind of blows my mind,” the New York native says of her growing client list, which also includes stars like Beabadoobee, PinkPantheress, Madison Beer, Enya Umanzor and Tinashe. "How in the world did I get so lucky? I still don't know."

Related: Chappell Roan's Burlesque SNL Look Took '500 Hours' to Make — and Was Intended for a Different Performance (Exclusive)

Celeb, influencer or otherwise, the Blondita customer (or “girlie,” if you will) tends to fit a bill, according to Ruis. “First of all, she’s gorgeous,” the designer explains. “Sometimes I just look at my tagged photos [on Instagram] and I'm like, ‘Everyone who buys Blondita is a baddie.’ ”

And, much like the brand’s designs — and the celebs who wear them — the average Blondita shopper is also a riot.

“There's some humor to the customer, and wit,” Ruis says, adding that they tend to be “tapped into the culture.” In other words, Blondita is made by and for the “chronically online,” finding fashion fodder in the cool girls of both past and present.

“I love the playfulness. I love calling on our nostalgia and things we grew up with and putting a fun, new twist on it,” the L.A.-based designer says. “And just being light and girly and … being a girl is just so cool.”

Blondita is both casual and elevated, chic and kitsch, ironic and earnest. But most of all it’s referential, finding subtle yet unmistakable inspiration in it-girls of the ‘90s and 2000s. The Blondita Bubble Skirt, for example, is an ode to Mischa Barton's O.C.-era street style, while Gwen Stefani inspired the Gwen set — one of the shop’s most popular items.

“I love niche references of that time,” Ruis tells PEOPLE. “Like, that era without being conventionally Y2K."

Stefani (and more specifically, her “Cool” music video) also directly influenced the look of the Gwen set: an asymmetrical, polka-dot tie top and matching bubble miniskirt. It is perhaps the most recognizable Blondita piece — and it almost didn't make it to the site.

Related: Sabrina Carpenter Wears Dazzling Bodysuit for 2024 MTV VMAs Performance — And It Took Over 180 Hours to Make!

With polka dots low on the list of trending patterns when Ruis first designed the set, everyone, including her mom (a Fashion Institute of Technology alum and Blondita’s “secret sauce”) was a bit hesitant.

“She was like, ‘Are you sure? That's a really bold choice,’ ” Ruis recalls. “And I was like, ‘No, I'm telling you, I wanna do the polka dots.’ ” 

Taking a chance — and trusting her gut — Ruis designed and dropped the Gwen set, and received the ultimate stamp of approval: a Blondita cameo in Carpenter's “Taste" music video. The designer had an inkling that it would end up in the viral visual after the pop star’s stylist, Ron Hartleben, reached out for some pieces, but she “didn't know it for a fact," she recalls.

“When the video came out, I was literally counting down,” the designer tells PEOPLE. “And then all of the sudden, at the end, [Carpenter] pops out with it on. I was with my mom and my boyfriend and it was a fun moment with everyone that I loved. It was such an electric, like, ‘Oh, my god.’ ”

Related: Kill Bill! Psycho! All the Classic Horror Movie References in Sabrina Carpenter's 'Taste' Music Video

And the "Espresso" singer has continued her Blondita streak, sporting the Katie Bubble Skirt in her new Netflix special, which officially marks the shop’s second small-screen appearance. The first came in June, when Sexyy Red wore a custom set to the BET Awards.

Ruis not only designed two original 'fits for the “Pound Town” rapper — and provided Pinstripe Garter Skorts for her dancers — she also headed backstage at the award show to assist the performer's stylist.

“[Red] was putting glitter on herself. Ice Spice is walking by being like, ‘Good luck, Sexyy!' It was such a crazy, cool moment," the designer recalls. And, given her family tree, it was also a full-circle one.

Before Blondita, Ruis was studying to be a producer, but "hit a wall" with music. "It wasn't something that came super naturally to me," she says. Fashion, on the other hand, is in her blood.

A furniture upholsterer by trade, Ruis' late paternal grandfather spent much of her childhood hunched over a sewing machine. Her mom’s side of the family was similarly crafty.

“I grew up very handy and DIY-y,” the designer says. “My mom was an art teacher. I lived with my nonno — that's your grandfather in Italian — and he had a bridal shop in Brooklyn. So fashion was kind of always around.”

Her late maternal grandparents, who ran the dress store together, were an “American-dream business duo,” Ruis says. “They came to America and they just opened the shop and that was how they made their success. It was something that they took pride in, and it was something I always looked up to.”

All of her grandparents "unfortunately passed away before all of this," she says, referring to her career pivot into clothing design. "But I always think about that, if they would be proud."

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As for the future of Blondita? Ruis has no shortage of ideas. "I would love to make children's clothes," she tells PEOPLE excitedly, adding that — in true Y2K fashion — she also has visions of tiny dogs rocking her slogan tees.

Newly engaged to her longtime boyfriend, Ruis also has some custom looks to create: "That's the only thing I'm thinking of when it comes to my wedding: 'What am I wearing?' "

And, in a callback to her former career goals, she also wants to recruit some musically inclined mutuals for a "Blondita mixtape," a concept she loves "'cause it's not me singing, or me-centered."

"I get so shy sometimes, even with clothes — I feel like sometimes people don't even know it's me running the brand," Ruis says. "But I like highlighting other creatives and using my platform, in whatever way, to lift other people and bring other people together. I just love community."