This story is a part of Picture’s September Picture Makers problem, celebrating among the most daring and modern artists working in style right this moment.
Eric Solis describes his images as “cyberghetto,” “movement 2000s,” “raver stylish.” Fashions sporting cargos layered with neon mesh shorts, stand among the many rims at a automobile lot, utilizing a handbag impressed by one. Remixed plaid jorts. A durag with a blinged-out butterfly bikini prime. Membership child platforms accessorized with ripped black tights. The idea: Moda sin fronteras. Solis, an L.A. native who now lives in Mexico Metropolis, the place a lot of his household is from, needed the images to inform a narrative in regards to the connection between two manufacturers — L.A.-based Planeta and Mexico Metropolis-based Wavey — and in a bigger sense, to “blur the strains between how folks understand what style is, or the way it ought to look, in each the contexts of L.A. and Mexico.”
For Solis — a multi-hyphenate who works as an architect, occasion producer, photographer, artwork director and artistic advisor, amongst different issues — this mission was a possibility to seize the dialog he sees occurring between Mexico Metropolis and L.A. by way of style and magnificence, in a method that felt expansive and never essentially confined by gender or tradition. The fashions themselves are younger people who find themselves largely from Mexico Metropolis (or reside there) spanning queer, trans and Indigenous communities that Solis met by means of style reveals. The complete workforce — from the stylist Tuzza to the hair artist Ozmar Báez — was an intentional a part of the dialog he was attempting to create by means of the garments and images, he says.
Solis was desirous about the dichotomy of the 2 communities in L.A. and Mexico Metropolis, and no less than by way of fashion, how they had been taking from one another and presenting it in new methods. He needed to take what he was seeing and current it in order that it wasn’t L.A. fashion, wasn’t Mexico Metropolis fashion, however was a hybrid of each.
The shoot acted as a catalyst for a pop-up known as “No Hablamos Inglés” that Solis is curating on Sept. 21 at Planeta’s DTLA retailer. He’s bringing the work of greater than 20 rising Mexican designers — spotlighting a scene of different, younger, queer artists who’re morphing how we take into consideration Mexican fashion — together with Palida Studios, Tlacuache Muerto and Resurrected. The title is necessary; for Solis it stands for cultural delight and neighborhood: “Typically, Mexicans on the Mexico facet really feel like they need to be taught English to raised their lives or to be higher in enterprise, however that is virtually like a saying of defiance. It’s virtually rebellious: ‘No Hablamos Inglés.’”
This mission can also be Solis’ contribution to an ongoing dialog artists have been sparking between L.A. and Mexico for years, chief amongst them artist and curator Anita Herrera. From the start, Herrera has infused her observe with the mission of discovering the connection and disconnections between L.A. and Mexico. Her ongoing sequence, “Diaspora Dialogues,” has persistently used style as a medium to discover these subjects — as has a lot of Herrera’s work; she went to style faculty and began her profession within the style trade.
Israel wears Wavey zig-zag prime, bejeweled beanie, acid cargo pants, chrome fanny pack, Planeta neon mesh shorts, Tuzza customized reflector earring.
Solis met Herrera by means of serving to with “Diaspora Dialogues” and met the founders of Planeta at one among Herrera’s exhibitions in Mexico Metropolis, “A Través de la Moda,” the place she displayed private items from her closet that drew from pictures and symbols that Mexican Individuals maintain pricey — La Virgen de Guadalupe, the Aztec calendar — “as an exploration of historical past, myths and novelties between L.A. and Mexico Metropolis,” Herrera says. Planeta, based by designers Hoza Rodriguez and Richard Resendez, has an IYKYK cult-like form of standing among the many style folks, artists and membership youngsters who put on it. Their work is finest acknowledged by the magic they do with upcycling — flannel shirts layered on prime of saggy denim change into a brand new style solely, one thing from the long run. Once they went to Mexico Metropolis for the exhibition and had been capable of see the town by means of the eyes of Solis and Herrera (Rodriguez and Herrera have been buddies since 2009, once they had been each beginning their careers within the style trade), one thing clicked. “Every thing’s unisex,” Rodriguez says of the fashion he noticed in Mexico. “And I realized that they aren’t influenced by us, we’re influenced by them.”
Wavey, a Mexico Metropolis model and retailer based by Talulah Rodriguez-Anderson in 2018, makes the form of belongings you may put on at a rave on the seaside. It’s at all times been devoted to speaking its clothes as unisex. Rodriguez-Anderson grew up in L.A. and was impressed by her visible experiences and reminiscences on either side of the border when beginning her model. The model’s retailer, in Colonia Juárez, carries this identical vitality, with its aesthetic drawing from the cargo trailers that go from Mexico Metropolis to the States. A Wavey piece borrows from Chicano silhouettes and pictures, informed by means of a Mexican streetwear lens — the latter of which Rodriguez-Anderson says is “evolving in a short time.”
Solis needed to focus on Planeta and Wavey as a result of they felt like household in his thoughts — with a shared ethos, a glance that felt prefer it was drawing from related references. “To me, they’re like siblings, they’re like cousins,” Solis says. “They kind of discuss to one another by way of their fashion.” That is proven within the styling of one of many fashions, Jorge, who wears reworked checkered Dickies shorts from Planeta pointing to an early-2000s L.A. skater aesthetic, and a blinged-out shirt with the initials “MX” from Wavey as a nod to Mexico Metropolis. “It’s a brand new aesthetic,” Solis says. “It’s not California, it’s not fairly Mexican. However it’s each, it’s one thing else.”
With the shoot, and with the pop-up, Solis says he needed to point out a “cross-section of Mexican youth, actual Mexican youth.” He selected Colonia Juárez for the placement, particularly an space that’s residence to many vehicle physique retailers, as a result of it felt true to the place these appears to be like would truly be worn. The setting and the garments are in communion with one another, Solis says. “I additionally needed to shoot it in a location that was authentically Mexican. Whereas I really feel like La Condesa, or Roma, it might really feel international, virtually.”
“For me, that shoot, once I take a look at it, it brings some kind of happiness and a few kind of reality of who we’re as Latinos, because the LGBTQ neighborhood, and as human beings,” says Planeta co-founder Rodriguez, additionally the founding father of L.A. model Hologram Metropolis. “After I see that, it makes me completely happy to know what we actually are: we’re gifted, we’re artistic, we appear to be superheroes, we’re the s—.”
Whilst an architect, Solis has at all times labored in artistic or neighborhood realms. He was on the workforce of designers for the sixth Road Bridge — and curated the artwork, pictures and structure exhibit “Nuestre Puente,” in collaboration with Estevan Oriol, in celebration of the bridge’s opening. He’s additionally one of many founders of the DTLA Proud pageant. When he moved to Mexico Metropolis, he needed to discover a solution to mix his obsession with style, artwork and tradition, and embed himself into the artistic neighborhood there as a lot as doable. Solis frequents Tianguis La Lagunilla as soon as a month, which is the place he says he got here to actually perceive Mexico Metropolis’s style youth tradition and meet among the manufacturers he’s bringing to L.A.
“Shifting to Mexico Metropolis 4 years in the past and actually beginning to perceive by dwelling right here and constructing neighborhood right here, [I realized] how our communities aren’t fairly as linked as they may very well be due to these political, coverage limitations that separate communities,” Solis says. “I’ve an entire circle of buddies right here in Mexico Metropolis which might be artists, designers. They’ve their very own manufacturers, very built-in within the artistic neighborhood right here, and lots of, virtually all of my buddies who wish to expose their model or expose themselves as artists in the US, they’ll’t — as a result of they actually can’t go.” He desires to create connections for these Mexican designers, and permit the folks of L.A. to expertise their work. As a Mexican and U.S. citizen, Solis seems like he’s capable of bridge the 2 sides — bringing Mexican designers to L.A. by means of their artistry, even when they’re not capable of come right here themselves.
The gathering of designers that Solis is bringing to his L.A. pop-up this month conjures some key phrases for him: “It’s queer as in f— you.” “Barrio bratz.” “Sin género.” “Mexa-core.” The designers embody Ese Chico, identified for its irreverent graphic T-shirts and slogan: “Locura sin piedad,” or “insanity with out piety” — Herrera included it in her “A Través de la Moda” exhibition when she introduced it to L.A. earlier this yr. One other is Squid, a model “impressed by nature” that transforms clothes by means of upcycling, airbrush and display screen printing into one-of-a-kind artistic endeavors. It was essential for Solis that the pop-up captured this second in Mexico Metropolis’s style scene, which he describes as “infinite.”
Jorge Líos of Palida Studios — a model with a method Líos describes as a steadiness of class and deterioration — is a local of Nezahualcoyotl, an space about an hour outdoors of Mexico Metropolis. The spirit of Mexico Metropolis’s street-level style scene is a mixture of “vulgar, atrevido y chido,” he says. “Como que la gente justo está desmitificando esta concept de que lo que debes de usar solamente son marcas gabachas y ya está volteando a ver marcas Mexicanas. Sobre todo, la escena está construyendo o reafirmando la identidad de ser Mexicano.” (That’s, individuals are demystifying the concept you need to solely use international manufacturers and are turning to Mexican manufacturers. The Mexico Metropolis scene is build up and reaffirming Mexican id.) Since he was a child, it was Líos’ dream to journey to L.A. or New York. He loves hip-hop and was impressed by the music tradition in each cities. The truth that he’s now touring to L.A. by means of his designs and that they’re reaching a brand new viewers that could be moved by them? “Es una locura.”
The record of L.A.’s sister cities contains Salvador, Brazil; Busan, South Korea; Berlin; and, after all, Mexico Metropolis. For Solis, it’s greater than only a connection or dialog: there are familial ties. “The shared ardour by means of style is one thing that actually connects us and actually unites us,” he says. “I’ve begun to see how style can truly construct an id that’s of neither place, however is of each locations.”
Manufacturing Eric Solis
Fashions Axel, Ellie, Genesis, Israel, Jorge, Li
Make-up Magnificence Sellers
Hair Ozmar Báez
Manufacturing help Dennis Caasi