DESIGNS Ethnic culture has become a fashion commodity

Trendy shirts serve as billboards for ethnic slogans.
LOS ANGELES TIMES
Leah Moss' favorite tank top is not just a cover-up, thanks to the single word -- "Mamacita" -- printed in 2-inch-high Old English lettering on a white background.
At the very least, it's a magnet for some unsolicited comments, as Moss discovered on a recent trip to New York. As she walked down the street, men did double-takes and called out, "oooh mamacita," which means "hot mama" in Spanish. But the 27-year-old Los Angeles real-estate agent loves the look of her Rodney Rodriguez tank top, and she plans to buy more.
Other women have discovered Rodriguez and his West Los Angeles-based company, Vato, Spanish slang for "homeboy." He started his company a year ago with $500, first giving away his shirts to clubgoers to generate word-of-mouth business. Now Rodriguez, 32, sells his garments in some of Los Angeles' hippest shops as well as stores in New York, Hawaii and Tokyo.
Religious images
Vato is one of a handful of new cutting-edge brands rooted in Hispanic culture. The best-selling shirt from Teenage Millionaire, a Los Angeles clothing company run by Doug Williams, 39, and Chris Hoy, 37, reads "Jesus Is My Homeboy," and features a black-and-white sketch of Christ. It, too, has a celebrity following. Religious images also come into play at the Rojas store on Melrose Avenue, where owner and designer Freddie Rojas, 31, sells a shirt that says, "I (heart) Jesus."
Sylvia Martinez, editor in chief of New York-based Latina magazine, a publication that covers fashion, beauty and issues of importance to Latinas, finds nothing wrong or offensive with the garments. "If Latinas can wear DKNY or Paul Frank or Asian-decorated T-shirts, then why can't you have Anglos or, for that matter, every ethnic group walking around with tees that say 'Chica'?"
Rodney Rodriguez, who grew up in Los Angeles, started Vato after working 13 years in retail. His business is growing -- he's hired two sales reps -- and these days he's filling orders for shops as far away as Japan.
Freddie Rojas learned how to sew pearls on a wedding gown from his grandmother and how to run a business from his parents, Amparo and Arturo Rojas, who owned a bridal shop in Los Angeles.
In the late 1990s, he designed for the label F-8 and later, Private Clothing. His garments are now in more than 200 shops across the United States and in some stores in Japan.
Profit and loss
Chris Hoy of Teenage Millionaire, a company he and his partner started three years ago, says they created the "Jesus is My Homeboy" T-shirt while talking one afternoon about his Irish Catholic upbringing in a largely Hispanic community in Los Angeles. But before the "Jesus" T-shirt put them on the fashion map, the duo invested close to $100,000 on a costume-rental business and their Teenage Millionaire shop on Melrose Avenue in Los Angeles. After a year, the shop closed, but their printed words and graphics on vintage T-shirts were sold to Fred Segal.
Still, it wasn't enough to keep them afloat. "We were down to nothing, money-wise," Hoy says. Then came Teenage Millionaire, the clothing company -- and their Jesus creation. "The shirt has taken off at Urban Outfitters, where it is one of the chain's fastest sellers.
Empowered
Helen Martinez and her husband, Chris Griffin, started San Fernando, Calif.-based Chica Inc. in 1999. Their Web site sells tops printed with the word "Chica," which means girl or girlfriend; variations include "Sweet Chica," "Spicy Chica" and "Soul Chica." In four years, sales have climbed to about $2 million annually.
But whether pride is enough to keep the shirts going beyond their current must-have appeal is anyone's guess.
Kurt Barnard, president and chief economist of Retail Forecasting, an Upper Montclair, N.J., firm specializing in consumer spending patterns and retail trends, doesn't think the trend will live "beyond a year or two."
Rodriguez and his peers know the revolving door of fashion -- even with T-shirts -- must be well-oiled with ideas.