MINNEAPOLIS – Minnesota's rising Latino neighborhood is hungry for style that includes fashion with tradition, and a number of other designers are filling that want.
For Iván Martínez, one of many solely Latino tailors within the Twin Cities, his introduction to style got here whereas he was deployed within the Minnesota Military Nationwide Guard.
He was an infantry soldier and carrying a 50 caliber weapon was his specialty. Security was their high precedence.
“Once we had been in Kuwait these first few months, we had been patrolling and crossing borders, so that you're in a tower,” Martínez defined.
It was in that tower the place he picked up and skim his first style journal.
“Once I noticed GQ journal, I opened it out of curiosity as a result of I used to be bored. And I obtained so , I at all times favored the fashion, however I by no means favored basic menswear,” he stated.
This ignited one thing inside him. He began shopping for garments whereas he was in service.
“As soon as I had the fits, the issue was that every thing on the rack couldn't match,” he stated.
Martínez says paying a tailor to suit his fits was costly. He felt the necessity to design and manufacture fits that not solely regarded nice but additionally had nice performance.
When he returned to the USA and to Minnesota State College in Mankato, he went to work.
“Once I got here again and began running a blog, I began creating Instagram and I discovered that different Latinos had been actually gravitating in the direction of my content material,” Martínez stated.
The self-taught artist is constructing a model and plenty of are utilizing his skills as a dressmaker to appear and feel good.
“As a result of on the finish of the day, that's what they’re to me. I actually construct a personalised relationship with my purchasers,” Martinez stated.
Martínez has a number of native celebrities as purchasers. Her store is within the North Loop and she or he hopes to offer style to everybody who desires to appear and feel nice.
Reg Chapman
