LATINO BY DESIGN: Lansing man’s Raza label makes a cultural statement — and a fashion statement

Taken from http://www.freep.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20071014/FEATURES01/710140589 

LATINO BY DESIGN: Lansing man’s Raza label makes a cultural statement — and a fashion statement

October 14, 2007

BY ERIN CHAN

FREE PRESS STAFF WRITER

It started as a pride thing.

How could it not, with a name like Raza?

That would be “race” in Spanish, and while Robert Montalvo began Raza Clothing as a way to make money, it was also as a way to say, “This is me. This is my heritage. And I’m proud of it.”Montalvo, 35, of East Lansing has taken one of the most universal items, the T-shirt, and given it his own meaning.

The face on his T-shirts is not just any face. It’s the face of the sun god that’s the center of the Aztec calendar. The skull on his T-shirts is not just any skull. It’s the skull of the skeleton used during the Mexican holiday Día de los Muertos. The baller is not just a, well, you get it. It’s a Mayan ballplayer, tricked out in hot pink.

The Mayan and Aztec-inspired graphics link Montalvo, who is Mexican-American, to the legendary indigenous civilizations of Mexico. The shirts surprise with unexpected color combinations, like Day-Glo orange on top of military green. To those who love streetwear, they look hot.

“I look at it as wearing an art piece,” says Montalvo. “I like where the influence comes from — from deep within my culture.”

Something else has happened.

It’s not just self-aware Latinos who pick up his shirts. The T-shirts sell to skater types at Citizen in Ferndale. They sell to the hip-hoppers who hit up Northland Center. They sell to sneakerheads in 13 states and Japan.

“The guy that’s wearing it is a young hip white kid and black kids who are fashion forward,” says Montalvo. “I love the fact that there’s Hispanic heritage there, but it’s beyond just Latinos.”

A researched history

Montalvo has never been to Tenochtitlan, the capital of the Aztecs near Mexico City. He has never climbed the step pyramids of Chichen Itza, the major Mayan site on the Yucatan Peninsula. Though he hopes to travel south next summer, Montalvo has never left a sneaker print in Mexico.

The basis of his design for the Mayan ballplayer came out of a library book. He pulled from the Aztec sun calendar based on the images he saw growing up in Lansing and following his father to the city’s Mexican restaurants.

Still, he does not need to step across the nation’s southern border to find his identity.

“My name, the way I look,” he says, “Everything about me says Hispanic.”

Born in Lansing as the third of six kids to a Mexican-American father and an Irish-American mother, Montalvo became the creative, artsy one who was voted best dressed in high school.

“I was the guy who would always hang-dry his jeans,” says Montalvo, giving a big smile. “Everyone was like, ‘Man, what are you doing?!’ They thought I was crazy, but I had to take care of my clothes.”

X marks the inspiration

Raza’s path from creation to store shelves took some convoluted turns.

The idea began when Montalvo was a student at Western Michigan University in 1993, on his way to a double major in sociology and criminal justice. He picked up the Wall Street Journal and spotted a story about a student selling T-shirts to make money over the summer.

“I was like, ‘Oh my God! I can do that!’ ” says the 5-foot-11-inch Montalvo, who wears his hair short and his shorts long. “And I never went back.”

He noticed a whole lot of X’s popping up, a fashion reaction to “Malcolm X,” the movie released the year before.

“A lot of people were wearing Malcolm X stuff and seeing it as a symbol of pride and their background,” says Montalvo. “I was thinking, ‘We should do something to target our market. Show our pride.’ “

And so began Raza.

Much of the clothing sported a simple logo, and Montalvo sold his shirts and “hustled my hats” at Latino festivals and local malls.

He made money, sometimes several thousand dollars at a single festival, but he had no idea what he was doing on the business side. When he first started, he was just pocketing the cash.

Later, he realized he had to pay a few thousand in back taxes.

Learning the business

Seven years ago, Montalvo was pitching Raza clothing to buyers at a trade show in Chicago when a representative from Mecca USA took an interest in him — as a salesman for Mecca clothing, not Raza.

Montalvo, who was expecting a daughter, couldn’t turn down a $60,000 salary plus commission. So he put Raza on hold, learning how to sell street fashion and building his contacts.

In 2003, Montalvo left Mecca to help launch the brand A. Tiziano. Two years later, G-Unit, the brand backed by rapper 50 Cent, picked him up to manage sales for their men’s line in the Midwest.

Montalvo has spent the last couple of years as the Midwest account manager for Artful Dodger, a line of men’s street wear based in New York.

He had always wanted to get back to Raza, and when he reunited with friend Eric Stevenson, he found the opportunity.

Stevenson, 31, owns a mortgage company, US Capital Mortgage, as well as the Firm, a restaurant and club in downtown Lansing, and was able to provide financial backing and a business background.

“The original plan was to pull in and focus on a Latino base,” says Stevenson, referring to Montalvo’s first go at Raza in the 1990’s. “Because of his experience in the clothing industry, he’s developed a great product. It doesn’t matter who’s purchasing it.”

Since Montalvo relaunched Raza last year, he has picked up 70 accounts in 13 states and managed to turn a profit in 2006. Many of the stores that sell Artful Dodger, like Citizen in Ferndale and No Limits Sports in the Northland Mall in Southfield, also carry Raza.

Raza’s bright colors appeal especially to sneakerheads — people obsessed with acquiring the latest, trendiest athletic footwear — because they match their multicolored shoes.

“Color, I think that’s where my strength is,” Montalvo says, adding that he finds inspiration in things as common as ties, magazines and street signs.

He admits that he’s not the best artist and that he’s not so good at prioritizing (”My mind goes and goes and goes with so many things”), but he has a small team of graphic artists who help.

Montalvo envisions expanding Raza (www.razaclothing.com; www.myspace.com/razaclothing into items like hooded sweatshirts and sweaters. Meridian Screen Printing and Embroidery in Okemos, which prints the Mexican and El Salvadorean-made shirts he uses, already has his spring 2008 designs. Next year, he hopes to launch a women’s line.

One of a kind

The potential impact has not been lost on Montalvo.

“There’s been no real breakout of those Hispanics who are Mexican doing fashion that’s really cool. I think on the East Coast, there are some Puerto Ricans that are designers. When I think of the West Coast, the Hispanics there are mostly sewers and cutters,” he says. “In streetwear, there’s only a handful of us Hispanics. You’re gonna see a lot more. We just haven’t had the opportunity.”

Admitting he always imagined himself doing fashion in New York or Los Angeles, Montalvo stays in East Lansing because of his 6-year-old daughter, Ajah.

On the other hand, being in East Lansing also adds to his uniqueness.

“Robert has something special,” says Juan Beltran, 29, a photographer and graphic designer who works with Montalvo. “He started it with the whole Hispanic influence and he stayed true to that.”

Montalvo’s reasoning is as simple as when he began: “This is who I am.”