Speaker 1: Oh lad, dear listener, kipasor Radueskuchak Gomostan. Today we're going
Speaker 1: to bring you an episode from Classy. It's a new
Speaker 1: podcast hosted by Jonathan Menhivar, in which he explores a
Speaker 1: topic that well, a lot of people find uncomfortable. It's
Speaker 1: the issue of class. Jonathan grew up in a working
Speaker 1: class family in a suburb of Los Angeles. His dad
Speaker 1: is from Al Salvador, and as Jonathan built a career
Speaker 1: in public radio, he didn't talk about his past. And
Speaker 1: that was because of the issue of class. Now, you
Speaker 1: can't separate class from race. They often go hand in
Speaker 1: hand with the way we look, the way we dress,
Speaker 1: and so in this episode of Classy, Jonathan interviews two
Speaker 1: people of color who work in the fashion industry. One
Speaker 1: of them is Brenda Equihua, Latina designer, who has turned
Speaker 1: our beloved gobekass into a luxury fashion item. Because why
Speaker 1: should we feel guilty about wanting nice things? And who
Speaker 1: decides which things are considered nice and which things aren't.
Speaker 1: Here's Jonathan men Hevar with this episode of Classy.
Speaker 2: This episode was supposed to be about fashion. I think
Speaker 2: a lot about what our clothes say about us and
Speaker 2: what they convey to the world. What I wear has
Speaker 2: been a pretty monumental part of the class shift I've made.
Speaker 2: But then I talked to the two people who you're
Speaker 2: going to hear from today. They've both worked in the
Speaker 2: clothing and fashion industry, and those conversations they ended up
Speaker 2: being about so much more than clothes, and more about
Speaker 2: who is considered classy and who has the power to
Speaker 2: say what classy actually is. From Pineapple Street Studios, this
Speaker 2: is You Guessed It Classy, a show about the chasms
Speaker 2: between us that are really hard to talk about but
Speaker 2: too big to ignore. Your host Jonathan and Hev We're
Speaker 2: gonna get started with this guy. His name is Amichi Uguo,
Speaker 2: and I called him up because I knew he'd worked
Speaker 2: in retail, selling clothes and high end men's to wear
Speaker 2: shops across the country. I was interested in that dynamic
Speaker 2: of being a salesman and selling really fancy suits and
Speaker 2: shoes to people with a lot of money. Amichi first
Speaker 2: got into clothes when he was in college. Back then,
Speaker 2: he was experimenting a lot, and some of his clothes
Speaker 2: were pretty wild.
Speaker 3: I can describe to you one outfit that everybody always
Speaker 3: remembers I had on a horse jockey helmet. A helmet, yeah,
Speaker 3: horse jockey helmet, some mirrored aviator sunglasses, a satin gold
Speaker 3: bow tie, a dress military jacket, some corn corduroys, red sox,
Speaker 3: black pat leather shoes. I mean, if you can picture
Speaker 3: dad outfit in your what that might have looked like. Oh,
Speaker 3: I was having fun.
Speaker 2: I mean, you grew up in Houston. His family was
Speaker 2: middle class, it was mostly black neighborhood, and for college,
Speaker 2: he went to Southern University in Baton, Riuge, Louisiana.
Speaker 3: Southern University is a historically black college, and I remember
Speaker 3: sitting in the crowd, you know, at convocation and I
Speaker 3: looked to my left and every my right, and everybody's black.
Speaker 3: I look into the stands and everybody's black. I graduated
Speaker 3: on a Saturday. I start my first job following Tuesday,
Speaker 3: and I remember being in the first morning meeting and
Speaker 3: looking around. I was like, damn, it's really just it's
Speaker 3: just me now, you know, It's just I'm I'm the
Speaker 3: only black person now. And that was a different experience.
Speaker 3: That was something that like in my life I had
Speaker 3: never experienced. I think from elementary school, all the way
Speaker 3: to college. Everybody was either black or Hispanic majority.
Speaker 2: The shop Amichi was working at was fancy, the kind
Speaker 2: of place featured in GQ magazine. His coworkers there, they
Speaker 2: were welcoming, and they all had to wear a kind
Speaker 2: of uniform, a blazer and Oxford shirt. Amichi looked good
Speaker 2: in the clothes. He was wearing leather sold shoes for
Speaker 2: the first time in his life. But pretty quickly the
Speaker 2: fact that Amichi was black became a thing between him
Speaker 2: and some of the guys he was working with, not
Speaker 2: in any kind of overt way, but things would come
Speaker 2: up when they were standing around waiting for customers, Like.
Speaker 3: If we were talking about cars, right, and everybody's super
Speaker 3: into the Ferraris and porsches in and Lamborghini's, you know,
Speaker 3: and I was talking, man, I want a nineteen seventy
Speaker 3: six Cadillac Eldorado. I wanted to be silver, and you know,
Speaker 3: I'll describe my own car like what inspire me, you know,
Speaker 3: I think about like blaxploitation films and just in the neighborhood,
Speaker 3: like you grow up seeing like that was part of
Speaker 3: our culture. Was like taking these old school cars and
Speaker 3: fixing them up.
Speaker 2: I mean she would talk about the bright, shiny paint
Speaker 2: people used on the cars, the big sound systems.
Speaker 3: Those were the things that like really inspired me, Like
Speaker 3: seeing those things like, man, look like spaceship. I was like,
Speaker 3: look at that, look at the cars, like the hood
Speaker 3: of the car is super long. It's something about seeing
Speaker 3: those cars that like, really I wanted one. So to
Speaker 3: come to that group where that's talking about Ferrari and
Speaker 3: Porsche and Binzes and Rose Royce. They were what like
Speaker 3: that Cadillac? They thought it was strange. They were like,
Speaker 3: why would you want a Cadillac? And I was like, man,
Speaker 3: look at it like they didn't get it, Like they
Speaker 3: just didn't understand.
Speaker 2: And what that feel like?
Speaker 3: It's like feeling rejected a little bit. You know, you
Speaker 3: like you present something that you're excited about or that
Speaker 3: you love and then people laugh at it, and it
Speaker 3: kind of like puts you in a position where you
Speaker 3: kind of doubt yourself, you know, like is this good?
Speaker 3: Like should I not? You know, like you start to
Speaker 3: look at your opinions or your ideas and question yourself.
Speaker 3: And it was frustrating because I wanted to be myself,
Speaker 3: but you also in a sense want to be a
Speaker 3: part of the team. You know, you want to feel
Speaker 3: like the things that you think are cool that somebody
Speaker 3: else is like, I see what you're talking about. You know,
Speaker 3: they can relate to it in some way, But sometimes
Speaker 3: it felt like they wouldn't even try. Even though I
Speaker 3: learned a lot about Porsches and Ferraris and Rolls Royces,
Speaker 3: and you know, I learned a lot about it.
Speaker 2: This car thing. It wasn't just a matter of not
Speaker 2: fitting in and having his taste questioned. It's actually important
Speaker 2: to the job relating to customers, having some sort of
Speaker 2: shared understanding of the things you're into. That's how you
Speaker 2: sell clothes.
Speaker 3: In luxury fashion. A lot of your job as a
Speaker 3: salesperson when they walk in is not necessarily trying to
Speaker 3: sell them this one item, but to connect with them
Speaker 3: and make them feel like they belong here and this
Speaker 3: is where they want to buy it. And I think
Speaker 3: it was when I started having conversations with these people
Speaker 3: that I started to get a better understanding like how
Speaker 3: different we were, Like, oh yeah, me and my wife
Speaker 3: went to the country club and we were you know,
Speaker 3: played some rounds of tennis, and then we had brunch,
Speaker 3: and then we did it, and it's like, that's not
Speaker 3: a part of my brand. I don't you know, I
Speaker 3: don't know anybody who went to brunch when I was
Speaker 3: when I was growing up.
Speaker 2: Selling clothes to guys who are driving roles choices, this
Speaker 2: kind of power dynamic. I mean, you found it intimidating.
Speaker 2: He says. He kind of folded in on himself at first,
Speaker 2: but over time it went away because he developed this
Speaker 2: way to combat that feeling.
Speaker 3: You know, growing up in my community, we have a
Speaker 3: way of still being able to like find our own
Speaker 3: worth regardless of what such and such or whoever might have.
Speaker 3: You know, you can't tell me I'm not that guy
Speaker 3: because I don't have money. You may have money, you
Speaker 3: may have the cars, whatever, But I'm flyed in you.
Speaker 3: I dress better than you, I look better than you.
Speaker 3: You know, like all of these things you find to
Speaker 3: like stop, I ain't worried about, you know, what such
Speaker 3: and such has when he walks in the door. And
Speaker 3: that became like the attitude that I had to tap into.
Speaker 2: I Maye worked at this store for a few years,
Speaker 2: and then he moved to New York and started working
Speaker 2: I didn't even higher end menswear store that kind of
Speaker 2: place where you can't just walk out the door with clothes.
Speaker 2: You gotta get measured and have them all tailored and everything.
Speaker 2: This shop is a little more international. There were Asians
Speaker 2: from all over the world and some white.
Speaker 3: Guys, so it was a little bit of a mixed bag.
Speaker 3: And then again just me still the only black guy here.
Speaker 2: There weren't people actively questioning them Chie's taste, but still
Speaker 2: being the only black eye, he found himself kind of
Speaker 2: hemmed in trying to follow some unspoken rules about the
Speaker 2: way he should behave all the standard code switching that
Speaker 2: people of color often have to do in situations like this,
Speaker 2: but maybe weirder, there seemed to be these rules that
Speaker 2: the other employees in the store were following about the
Speaker 2: way they should behave around him.
Speaker 3: There were times when it was really apparent that some
Speaker 3: of my white coworkers had never worked with black people before,
Speaker 3: like they didn't know how what to do with themselves,
Speaker 3: you know, like it manifests itself as like over compensation.
Speaker 3: I mean sometimes it would be like just overpraising me,
Speaker 3: you know, like, oh, you're doing this so well, you're
Speaker 3: doing that. It's like, man, I literally just put the
Speaker 3: shoe on the shelf, like why are you doing?
Speaker 4: Like?
Speaker 3: You know.
Speaker 2: So it's in this environment that something happens one day
Speaker 2: that really shakes him achi It makes him question all
Speaker 2: the ways he's been adjusting himself to fit in.
Speaker 3: It was a really quiet day, we didn't have a
Speaker 3: whole lot going on in the shop, and this guy
Speaker 3: walks in and immediately when he walks in, everybody's ears
Speaker 3: kind of perk up because dude kind of looks like
Speaker 3: he's homeless and tells everybody he wants to get a suit.
Speaker 3: So they're like, all right, they start putting suits on him.
Speaker 3: You know, he's trying on everything. He eventually ends up
Speaker 3: with a whole kid on shirt, jacket, shoes, socks, tie,
Speaker 3: whole thing, and he puts it on. He's looking at mirror.
Speaker 3: He's like, oh yeah, man, I like it. He's like,
Speaker 3: I'll take it. And we're all kind of like because
Speaker 3: all of the clothes at this shop come unfinished. So
Speaker 3: the hem on the pants is not done, the sleeves
Speaker 3: are not done, and it looks like at this point
Speaker 3: the suit is swallowing him a little bit.
Speaker 2: I mean she is standing off to the side watching
Speaker 2: all this happen. The guy tells the salesmen that are
Speaker 2: helping him that he'll take the suit as is. He
Speaker 2: wants to walk out wearing it.
Speaker 3: So he gets up to the counter and they ring
Speaker 3: everything up, comes out to a couple thousand dollars, and
Speaker 3: he starts looking for his wallet. After we give him total.
Speaker 3: He's like patting his pockets, and we're like, oh, man,
Speaker 3: I think in the back of everybody's mind, we're like,
Speaker 3: he ain't got no wallet. And he starts patting his pockets.
Speaker 3: He's like, maybe i'll lift it in dressing room, goes
Speaker 3: back in the dressing room. There's no wallet, and we're
Speaker 3: preparing for something to happen. We're like, all right, he
Speaker 3: can't find his wallet. Like this is the point where
Speaker 3: he just like braks for the door and tries to
Speaker 3: tackle somebody, you know. So you know, we kind of
Speaker 3: get into this formation that lets him know like, you know,
Speaker 3: we're all here, we're all paying attention, we're all alert,
Speaker 3: and you can kind of see him looking around and checking.
Speaker 3: He sees somebody at the door, he sees somebody standing
Speaker 3: next to him. The guy at the counter is just
Speaker 3: kind of like waiting, like what you're gonna do, and
Speaker 3: then he just kind of pauses and says, you know what,
Speaker 3: I guess I'm just gonna come back, you know, I
Speaker 3: gotta go find my wallet, and goes back to the
Speaker 3: fitting room, takes everything off, and leaves, never comes back.
Speaker 3: That was a particularly strange like scenario for me because
Speaker 3: the guy happened to be black. I had my own
Speaker 3: you know, there was my own ideas, my own thoughts
Speaker 3: that were that were happening while this was going, and
Speaker 3: I think one of them was feeling like, oh man,
Speaker 3: why is this guy coming in here and and doing this?
Speaker 3: Why is he making us look bad? You know, That's
Speaker 3: that's what's going through my head at the time. It
Speaker 3: was unfair, that was I mean to say that, like,
Speaker 3: in hindsight, that's an unfair way to look at that,
Speaker 3: But that was that was what I was thinking at
Speaker 3: that time.
Speaker 2: Did you guys talk about it after the guy left?
Speaker 3: I think when he walked out the door, everybody just
Speaker 3: kind of stared at each other for like thirty seconds.
Speaker 3: We were just like trying to figure out exactly what,
Speaker 3: you know, what just happened. Yeah, that was something I
Speaker 3: more had to sit with on my own, and I
Speaker 3: don't I don't even think I talked to any friends
Speaker 3: about it or or really got to like hash that
Speaker 3: out with anybody.
Speaker 2: What is that making us look bad?
Speaker 4: What?
Speaker 2: What in what way were you thinking, like he's making
Speaker 2: us look bad? I think I understand, but uh, well,
Speaker 2: you know, like there's this idea in in the black
Speaker 2: community that like we always have to be on our
Speaker 2: best behavior, like we all have to be doing, you know,
Speaker 2: doing the right thing. Like you know, a white person
Speaker 2: or anybody, it doesn't have to necessarily be somebody white,
Speaker 2: but they experience like a black person, one black person
Speaker 2: or two or five, and then they say black people
Speaker 2: are this, or they behave like that, or black people
Speaker 2: are always doing this. So where I was coming from
Speaker 2: when I thought that was, you know, like this is
Speaker 2: just another strike on that you know, on that list.
Speaker 2: You know, someone who's not black experiencing a black person
Speaker 2: in this way and them putting that like, oh they
Speaker 2: black people, da da da. And this is in my mind,
Speaker 2: this may not even be what these other people were thinking,
Speaker 2: but this is just because of how I'm experiencing the
Speaker 2: world and people who look like me have experienced the world.
Speaker 2: This is what's going through my mind.
Speaker 3: I may and with all my coworkers, with all of
Speaker 3: the people that we work with, I might be the
Speaker 3: only black person they ever interact with, you know, in
Speaker 3: their life, and I just think about like those space.
Speaker 3: I think in that space, I was thinking, well, like,
Speaker 3: we're never here, so when we do show up, it
Speaker 3: needs to be in the best light.
Speaker 2: Did that make you think anything at all about the
Speaker 2: way that it's different? But in some ways you had
Speaker 2: to be on your best behavior at these places, Like
Speaker 2: you couldn't be one hundred percent authentically who you were.
Speaker 3: Yeah. Yeah, I felt like that. And maybe some of
Speaker 3: that might have been in my head too, you know,
Speaker 3: thinking that I couldn't be myself, and maybe I could
Speaker 3: have been and they would have been totally accepting of it.
Speaker 3: You know, that's quite possible. But I think at that time,
Speaker 3: I don't think I ever felt comfortable completely, you know,
Speaker 3: one hundred percent being myself because there was still a
Speaker 3: little bit of discomfort for me in being the only
Speaker 3: black guy, like being the only black person. I still
Speaker 3: feel like there were certain topics, certain subjects that I
Speaker 3: would only want to talk about with other black people,
Speaker 3: or only want to hear the perspective of certain people.
Speaker 3: I mean, like I think about that scenario that I
Speaker 3: just told you about. It's like I couldn't imagine ever
Speaker 3: having that conversation with somebody, or telling somebody about my
Speaker 3: thoughts and how I felt with somebody who wasn't black
Speaker 3: up until now, because if you don't come from that
Speaker 3: or understand why I might have thought that, it'd be
Speaker 3: hard for you to understand where I was coming from
Speaker 3: or how to rationalize what it was I was saying.
Speaker 2: I mean, chi Uu no longer works at that shop
Speaker 2: in New York. His last retail job was in twenty twenty.
Speaker 2: In some ways, he's returned to a place where he's
Speaker 2: not having to think about things like this all the time.
Speaker 2: He now runs his own brand, making sportswear for HBCUs.
Speaker 2: It's called Torch Sportswear.
Speaker 3: Where I am now, I don't think I'll ever work
Speaker 3: another retail job. I pray that I never have to
Speaker 3: work in retail again, but I know that if that
Speaker 3: day ever came, my approach would be a lot different.
Speaker 3: You know, how I would move in that space and
Speaker 3: how I would present myself would be different than I
Speaker 3: have in the past. I can't compress myself anymore.
Speaker 2: I'm never going to fully understand what it was like
Speaker 2: for Amhi in that moment, but it makes so much sense.
Speaker 2: I think you probably understand it to some degree too.
Speaker 2: But I have had experiences where the combination of race
Speaker 2: and class has made me do things that I have questioned.
Speaker 2: I'm a pretty white, passing Latino. I grew up with
Speaker 2: the culture. My first language was Spanglish, but my Spanish
Speaker 2: is pretty broken now. Sometimes people don't know I'm Latino
Speaker 2: until I tell them, Like this one time at work,
Speaker 2: someone pointed at my face after I told them, and
Speaker 2: they said, I knew there was something going on there.
Speaker 2: The thing that's happened for me, the way that I
Speaker 2: have frankly gotten a little confused, I guess when it
Speaker 2: comes to race and class, is that when I decided
Speaker 2: that I wanted a life where I could be creative
Speaker 2: and not have to do manual labor, I mostly look
Speaker 2: to white people and white culture, but like odd, dorky
Speaker 2: pockets of white culture. Like when I was a teenager,
Speaker 2: one of my first exposures to journalism, the thing I
Speaker 2: would watch whenever it was on TV was this guy,
Speaker 2: Hugh Houser. He was from Tennessee and he'd travel all
Speaker 2: over California with a microphone, doing features on things like
Speaker 2: making peanut brittle.
Speaker 1: Now we're gonna pour it out.
Speaker 2: That's right there.
Speaker 1: You go, oh look, now that's peanut brittle.
Speaker 3: That's peanut brittle.
Speaker 2: There's other stuff too. I'm an eagle Scout. I wore
Speaker 2: that uniform until I was eighteen years old. But maybe
Speaker 2: the strangest thing I got into I think I am
Speaker 2: very embarrassed to confess right now, is it. For a
Speaker 2: year or two when I was in high school, I
Speaker 2: had a subscription to Country Living magazine. I think maybe
Speaker 2: it started because I was into ram and they were
Speaker 2: from the South, or maybe I just wanted out of
Speaker 2: my house, out of my boring suburban town, and the
Speaker 2: country somehow seemed appealing. I don't know, but one day
Speaker 2: in the grocery store I picked up this magazine and
Speaker 2: I just couldn't get enough. There was feature after feature
Speaker 2: of nice, proper little houses out in the country somewhere,
Speaker 2: with everything decorated just so. I thought it was so classy.
Speaker 2: It was like Dwell Magazine if Colonel Sanders was the
Speaker 2: editor in chief.
Speaker 4: I loved it.
Speaker 2: And you know, people of color are allowed to consume
Speaker 2: whatever culture. They want all this nerdy white stuff. It
Speaker 2: influenced me deeply, still does. My daughter makes fun of
Speaker 2: me because I will watch hours and hours of that
Speaker 2: home renovation show Hometown that's basically country living on HGTV.
Speaker 2: The part of all of this that feels upsetting is
Speaker 2: that when I was looking for an escape hatch, I
Speaker 2: didn't see any examples of Latinos out there. They were
Speaker 2: there in music and film and literature, even journalism. I
Speaker 2: know that now, but they weren't on the TV. They
Speaker 2: weren't mainstream. This was all happening at a time when
Speaker 2: anti immigrant fervor was raging in California. Voters had overwhelmingly
Speaker 2: supported Prop One eighty seven, basically taking away all social
Speaker 2: services for undocumented immigrants, and kids at my school were
Speaker 2: openly talking to me about Mexicans stealing jobs and living
Speaker 2: off of welfare. At the same time, some people in
Speaker 2: my own family were calling me owero for living in
Speaker 2: the suburbs and being into the things I was into.
Speaker 2: I think, in some ways, through some combination of all
Speaker 2: of that, I internalized that Latinos didn't deserve better, that
Speaker 2: we didn't deserve nice things. Coming up, someone helps me
Speaker 2: see that we do, all right, Jonathan, back here, you're
Speaker 2: very classy host. Brenda Akihwa is a luxury fashion designer
Speaker 2: in la Her work has been featured in Vogue and
Speaker 2: The La Times. Bad Bunny and Lil nas X have
Speaker 2: worn her stuff, but it took her a while to
Speaker 2: get to that place. Her journey into the world of
Speaker 2: fashion started in high school when she applied to Parsons,
Speaker 2: the Art and Design College in New York.
Speaker 4: I'd heard of that school just through overhearing someone's conversation.
Speaker 4: That's how I heard about that fashion school.
Speaker 2: Someone at school.
Speaker 4: Yeah, someone at school. So I'm a very curious person,
Speaker 4: and that's how I've acquired. Percent of the information has
Speaker 4: been through nosiness. You know, I am a professional Chi's moosa,
Speaker 4: that's use this information for good reasons.
Speaker 2: A chismosa is a gossip and you could call Brenda
Speaker 2: a Chi's moosa. But really what she was was an observer,
Speaker 2: the trait she picked up from her mom. Brenda grew
Speaker 2: up in Santa Barbara, California. It's a town right on
Speaker 2: the beach, super affluent. Brenda was being raised by her
Speaker 2: single mom there in a Latino community that was mostly
Speaker 2: employed working for the rich, mostly white people in town.
Speaker 2: Brenda's mom cleaned houses, and sometimes Brenda would come along
Speaker 2: with her, and she'd see firsthand the way her mom
Speaker 2: was actively studying these people's lives.
Speaker 4: So my mom would always show us like, oh, look,
Speaker 4: you know, smell this perfume. It smells really good. We
Speaker 4: should get this. Or I've seen this grandma at this
Speaker 4: other lady's house, so this must be really good, you know.
Speaker 4: And so we learned through this sort of unauthorized access
Speaker 4: what good products were that we wouldn't have known otherwise.
Speaker 2: Brenda's mom would do the same at yard sales. She'd
Speaker 2: drive her rich neighborhoods and buy up all the brand
Speaker 2: name clothing they couldn't normally afford. She got brand of fancy,
Speaker 2: almost over the top stuff for coats, this pleated vintage
Speaker 2: dress from the thirties.
Speaker 4: In my world, having a crocodile alligator clutch, you know,
Speaker 4: in junior high was totally normal.
Speaker 2: Her mom would indulge in nice clothes too, living out
Speaker 2: a life where she was saying that you can be
Speaker 2: classy no matter where you come from.
Speaker 4: My mom was wearing evening gowns like to my fifth
Speaker 4: grade parties that were outside in the dusty like environment
Speaker 4: of our apartment complex, and she'd be decked out for
Speaker 4: our parties, like she was like my Beyonce, And now
Speaker 4: that I'm older, I'm like, that's so cool that she
Speaker 4: was like that because maybe in her mind she knew
Speaker 4: that she might not ever have the opportunity to wear
Speaker 4: that gown to whatever is considered acceptable.
Speaker 2: So she's Mosa Brenda. She overhears about this fashion school
Speaker 2: in New York. She applies to Parsons, she gets in.
Speaker 2: She can't afford to visit New York before she goes,
Speaker 2: really can't afford the school, but the community rallies around
Speaker 2: her to help her cover some costs, and once she's there,
Speaker 2: she's overwhelmed by the level of wealth. There are students
Speaker 2: from all over the world, and they are wealthy in
Speaker 2: a way that even growing up in Santa Barbara, she'd
Speaker 2: never seen.
Speaker 4: I had a friend who told me that, you know,
Speaker 4: back home, she'd come out of the shower and all
Speaker 4: of her clothes was already laid.
Speaker 2: Out for her, who laid out her clothes.
Speaker 4: Her workers.
Speaker 2: But the thing she really notices, the thing she struggles with,
Speaker 2: is that it Parsons all the reference points come from
Speaker 2: white culture. It's in the designers they're being taught about
Speaker 2: and the classic films they're being shown.
Speaker 4: Some of the movies were like Gone with the Wind
Speaker 4: and some like It Hot, You.
Speaker 3: Like go watch My Do Frankly might hair, I don't
Speaker 3: give a damn.
Speaker 4: And these were the things that you were supposed to know,
Speaker 4: right like the Marilyn Monroe, Catherine have Burned, you know
Speaker 4: what are considered American classic icons and movies. It was
Speaker 4: good education, Like I was happy to learn it because
Speaker 4: I didn't really have a lot of exposure to that.
Speaker 4: I mean, I did grow up watching classic films, but
Speaker 4: they were Mexican ones. They were movies with Betherin Fante
Speaker 4: and Maria Felix. And then of course we're in New York,
Speaker 4: so it was all about being chic, and it was
Speaker 4: about Calvin Klein and Donna Karen and Jill Sander, and
Speaker 4: it was about being sleek and chic and clean cut.
Speaker 2: Brenda says she was in survival mode at Parsons. She
Speaker 2: was scraping money together to buy fabric for her projects.
Speaker 2: She was basically just eating bagels with cream cheese for
Speaker 2: every meal, and on this tight budget and under stress.
Speaker 2: She couldn't make work that matched the garments she was
Speaker 2: seeing in her head. She started failing classes.
Speaker 4: And as this was happening, I remember I went on
Speaker 4: a walk one day with one of the guys that
Speaker 4: I was in class with, and I shared with him
Speaker 4: my story of how I was being failed, and he
Speaker 4: told me that he had a woman that lived with him,
Speaker 4: that cooked for him, cleaned for him, and sewed all
Speaker 4: of his projects for him. And I'm just listening to
Speaker 4: this story, thinking, our worlds are so drastically different, I
Speaker 4: can't even believe that we're being graded by the same standards.
Speaker 2: Brenda eventually finds her stride. She manages to get through Parsons.
Speaker 2: After she graduates, she gets a couple different jobs working
Speaker 2: in the industry as a designer, but she finds it
Speaker 2: working in the fashion world. It's like Parsons the Reboot.
Speaker 2: There's money, there's whiteness. She's working in fashion, but she's miserable.
Speaker 2: The people she really connects with are the pattern makers,
Speaker 2: who are working class, mostly Asian and Latino. She really
Speaker 2: values the level of skill they're bringing to the work,
Speaker 2: but still she wants to build something of her own.
Speaker 2: And then one day, she's with her family. They're driving
Speaker 2: to Six Flags Magic Mountain. Her brothers at the wheel,
Speaker 2: and she says.
Speaker 4: Turn the music down. I have an announcement. I have
Speaker 4: something I want to tell you guys. So they turn
Speaker 4: the music down and I told them I have this
Speaker 4: crazy idea. I want to make jackets and outer wear
Speaker 4: out of Golobeha blankets.
Speaker 2: Okay, Latinos, this school golobia has are these blankets that
Speaker 2: are super popular in the Latino community. They're soft, thick, plushy,
Speaker 2: and probably the most notable thing about them is that
Speaker 2: they're loud. You can get them with almost anything printed
Speaker 2: on them, Lakers logo, the Virgin Mary. A lot of
Speaker 2: them have exotic animals, tigers and lions and wolves and
Speaker 2: cheetahs and wild horses and tigers and unicorns and tigers,
Speaker 2: so many tigers. I still have some that I've had
Speaker 2: since I was a kid. They're also pretty cheap. So
Speaker 2: with this idea, the next day, Brenda goes to her
Speaker 2: studio and gets to work right away. She wants to
Speaker 2: take gobe has and turn them into something luxurious.
Speaker 4: I built a pattern, I figured out what, you know,
Speaker 4: what I need to do first and try to figure
Speaker 4: out the steps, and I knew that it logistically it
Speaker 4: was going to be a hot disaster.
Speaker 2: Okay, I understand you like have this vision, but why, like,
Speaker 2: why do you want to take this thing that is
Speaker 2: seen as cheap and kind of even like low class
Speaker 2: if people even know about it at all? Why do
Speaker 2: you want to take that and turn it into a coat?
Speaker 3: Gosh?
Speaker 4: You know, I mean it's my story. I feel like
Speaker 4: it's very much me right, Like I came from that
Speaker 4: world and then I learned all of these things, like
Speaker 4: all of like ways of seeing that were a bit different,
Speaker 4: And when I thought about the blankets, a part of
Speaker 4: me felt like, damn, I really don't want this to disappear.
Speaker 2: Is any of it at all a kind of fuck
Speaker 2: you to a culture that sort of rejected you for
Speaker 2: a while?
Speaker 3: Oh?
Speaker 4: Absolutely. My life has been a series of fuck yous
Speaker 4: at every environment that I've been in. You know, that's
Speaker 4: always been me. I've always been like with my finger
Speaker 4: out in every environment. That's why I'm like, I don't
Speaker 4: care if I belong, I'm going to be here. This
Speaker 4: is where I need to be. Growing up in Santa
Speaker 4: Barbara and going to school aut Parsons and being in
Speaker 4: the industry, it was always felt like this very curated
Speaker 4: experience by other people that didn't feel relatable to me,
Speaker 4: And I was like, how do I change that? Like
Speaker 4: this isn't right, this doesn't feel good.
Speaker 2: I'm so jealous of people like this who can walk
Speaker 2: through the world giving the bird and relying on the
Speaker 2: strength of that, that ability to deflect rich with your
Speaker 2: middle fingers like their wonder Woman's bracelets. I've tried being angry,
Speaker 2: but all it ever got me was bitterness and callouses. Instead,
Speaker 2: I've kept my middle fingers in my pockets and tried
Speaker 2: to blend in. For me, that seemed like the classiest
Speaker 2: way to get by, But I don't know. Now I'm
Speaker 2: not so sure.
Speaker 4: I'm about to try on the devotion coat.
Speaker 2: Unfortunately, I was stuck in my closet with all my
Speaker 2: lame clothes while I was talking to Brenda. But my
Speaker 2: producer Kristen was there in Brenda's studio in La surrounded
Speaker 2: by all Herkulebeha inspired clothes. Kristin pulled out a full
Speaker 2: length hooded coat. It's deep red with roses all over
Speaker 2: the front, no big gest virgin mary on the back.
Speaker 1: My gosh, thank you.
Speaker 4: Wow, Oh my gosh, oh my gosh. Like eating, but wow,
Speaker 4: I look so fine.
Speaker 3: The pockets are perfect. The moment I put my arm in.
Speaker 1: The sleeve, I felt like.
Speaker 4: Ephic like it, Like I just felt like my arm
Speaker 4: just dipped into some like comfort puddle.
Speaker 3: Yeah, that's what we try to do.
Speaker 2: Wow, these coats are so nice. Anybody who's spent winter's
Speaker 2: snuggles under golovi hus LUs after them. But I wondered
Speaker 2: how Brenda felt taking this blanket you can get for
Speaker 2: forty dollars, this working class immigrant luxury item, and turning
Speaker 2: it into coats that some of them I sell for
Speaker 2: more than seven hundred dollars.
Speaker 4: These codes don't have to be that price. I make
Speaker 4: them that price because of all the work and the
Speaker 4: details that I put into it. You know, Like we
Speaker 4: buy all of our zippers here in LA because they're
Speaker 4: the best zippers that I could find. So they are
Speaker 4: expensive because I make them more expensive than they should
Speaker 4: be through my choices. And that is my education. That
Speaker 4: is me. Like, that is how I grew up. I
Speaker 4: wanted to have nice things. I like how nice things feel.
Speaker 4: I like having them in my home. I like touching
Speaker 4: nice things. I like looking at them, so I make
Speaker 4: things that look and feel good. You know, we've never
Speaker 4: been given the authority to be the curators of style,
Speaker 4: and that's sort of what I feel like I want
Speaker 4: to do.
Speaker 2: Loudly hearing Brenda's say this, it had a profound effect
Speaker 2: on me, just hearing someone say it's okay to have
Speaker 2: nice things and that those nice things don't have to
Speaker 2: be what mainstream culture says they are. A lot of
Speaker 2: us are Latinos because we grew up with people who
Speaker 2: didn't have nice things, and because the images of Latinos
Speaker 2: that we see most often are people who are suffering
Speaker 2: and working their asses off, desperately trying to build new lives.
Speaker 2: Sometimes it feels like an abandonment to want, but I want.
Speaker 2: It wasn't immediately after this interview, but sometime in the
Speaker 2: making of this show, I put on this this old
Speaker 2: gold chain my dad had given me when I was
Speaker 2: a teenager. When he first gave it to me, it
Speaker 2: didn't feel right. It wasn't my Weddo vibe at the time.
Speaker 2: But a few weeks ago I dug the chain out
Speaker 2: of a little box in my nightstand and I put
Speaker 2: it on and it looked right. I know gold chains
Speaker 2: aren't solely the domain of latinos, just like country living
Speaker 2: isn't just for white people. But this one is. It's gold,
Speaker 2: and it's a little loud, and it looks good on me. Okay,
Speaker 2: here we are. We've been talking about class for three episodes,
Speaker 2: and man, it is even clearer to me now than
Speaker 2: when we started that class can be so sticky and uncomfortable,
Speaker 2: and you know, nobody's perfect no matter what our class
Speaker 2: background is. We are all bound to cross some lines
Speaker 2: and make mistakes, maybe even defend people. And I don't
Speaker 2: necessarily have all the answers for what to do in
Speaker 2: those situations, but I know someone who might be able
Speaker 2: to help, and he's going to answer your questions. That's
Speaker 2: on the next episode of Classy. Classy is a production
Speaker 2: of Pineapple Street Studios. It's written and produced by me
Speaker 2: Jonathan men Ivar. Our producer is Kristin Torres, Associate producer
Speaker 2: Marina Hanke, Senior managing producer Asha Saluja. Our editor is
Speaker 2: Haley Howell, Executive editor Joel Lovel. Our assistant engineers are
Speaker 2: Sharon Bardallas and Jade Brooks. Senior engineers are Mari Na
Speaker 2: Fais and bedro Lviira, fact checking by Tom Colligan. This
Speaker 2: episode was mixed and scored by Marina Pais, with additional
Speaker 2: scoring by Me. Music in this episode from Joseph Chabasan
Speaker 2: courtesy of Western Vinyl Joseph Chabasan and Vibrant Matter and
Speaker 2: Shavason and Gunning courtesy of Seance Center. Additional music from
Speaker 2: Epidemic Sound. Our artwork is by Kurt Courtney and Lauren
Speaker 2: Vira at Cadence thirteen. Marketing and promotion by Grace cohen Chen,
Speaker 2: Hillary Schuff and Liz O'Malley. Legal services for Pineapple Street
Speaker 2: Studios by Crystal Tupia at Odyssey Special thanks to Jeremy Kirkland.
Speaker 2: Jenna Wey Sperman and Max Lensky are the executive producers
Speaker 2: at Pineapple Street. The next episode will be out in
Speaker 2: a week. Make sure to listen on the Odyssey app
Speaker 2: or wherever you get your podcasts.