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LOS ANGELES (KSEE/KGPE) - Tucked beside Dodger Stadium successful the bosom of Los Angeles, an appointment-only store weaves culture, craft, and individuality into each chapeau it creates.
Marquez Clásico, founded by husband-and-wife squad Gilberto and Cinthya Marquez, is reviving accepted Mexican hatmaking with a idiosyncratic interaction and heavy taste roots.
"I started making hats arsenic a mode of remembering what my Dad utilized to deterioration - keeping that representation live and keeping that trade live for a younger generation," said Gilberto. "I never got to marque my dada a hat, and to spot radical who bring their begetter successful for a customized hat, I consciousness truthful overmuch unit to marque definite that it's right."
It began successful an flat successful New York successful 2016. Gilberto had a vision, a heap of discarded hats and YouTube tutorials.
"Every time we are improving our method and our skills," said Gilberto.
But arsenic his trade grew, Gilberto was determined to maestro the Sombrero de Charro. He sought retired 1 of the past artisans who inactive makes them.
"I contacted the maestro that I knew and I said, 'Can you delight thatch maine however to marque a Sombrero de Charro? And helium said, 'Nope, I'm excessively busy.' And I kept bothering him for astir 3 years. And yet helium said, 'Okay, publication a formation and I'll thatch you,' and I took the people and past I got a certification for making Sombrero de Charro," said Gilberto.
Gilberto is present 1 of lone astir 11 radical successful the satellite with that knowledge. From lowrider fedoras, tejanas and ornate sombreros de charro, Marquez Clásico present crafts heirloom-quality pieces blending old-school Chicano aesthetics with timeless Mexican artistry.
"I anticipation that with these hats, radical spot the diverseness successful our culture, the spot successful our culture," said Gilberto. "When you deterioration a sombrero de charro, you are dressing up successful the azygous of Mexico; it's to beryllium respected, it is the astir iconic portion successful Mexican civilization adjacent to the flag."
Every chapeau begins with a speech astir identity, style, and emotion. That's wherever Gilberto's woman Cinthya steps in.
"Well, it's pyrography, you usage wood burning, and a good needle," said Cinthya. "I started with sketching, and past from determination I transitioned into burning into hats. And past from determination I took a tiny people successful tattooing and I got to larn antithetic techniques with antithetic needles, and I enactment that into the benignant of needles that I usage erstwhile I engrave hats."
Born successful Puebla, Mexico, and raised successful New York since she was 9 years old, she's engraved everything from agave to a Vicente Fernández portrait, animals, and everything successful between. Cinthya’s designs tin instrumentality 1 time to a week, to months, depending connected the design.
"What started with conscionable drafting is becoming thing bigger than I ever expected," said Cinthya. "I consciousness honored that radical spot maine with their hat. It's a chapeau that's going to past a precise agelong time, and it's going to person a portion of maine successful it, and it's going to beryllium passed down to the adjacent generation. I deliberation of that each day. I'm similar 70 years someone's going to person this chapeau and it's going to person thing of me.
"It's specified an grant that I get to bash this, and radical get to locomotion with my creation connected their hats, and it's different. It's a canvas, but my canvas it's a fedora."
This California chapeau shaper is keeping an aged contented aliveCinthya says she draws the astir inspiration from her roots.
"The biggest inspiration is being Mexican, and arsenic the maximalists that we are successful our culture. I deliberation it's what inspires me," said Cinthya. "Frida Kahlo inspired me, my grandma inspired me, my roots, the flowers, the nopal successful the garden."
From household heirlooms to personage commissions similar Madonna, each portion is custom-made, a collaboration of tradition, storytelling, and skill.
"Above all, erstwhile radical are talking astir Marquez Clasico, I anticipation that they spot what we're doing, what we're trying to do," said Marquez. "I hope it's caught successful the tone successful which it's intended, which is to correspond this aged classical civilization that goes backmost generations. and what we're doing is bringing it to a younger procreation successful a digestible manner."
From their store to planetary recognition, Gilberto and Cinthya Marquez are proving that manner tin beryllium much than style: it tin beryllium heritage.
