Tribal Gear
| Private | |
| Industry | Fashion |
| Founded | San Diego, United States (1989) |
| Founder | Bobby Ruiz |
| Headquarters | San Diego, United States |
|
Key people
|
Bobby Ruiz |
| Products | Apparel and Accessories |
| Website | www.tribal-streetwear.com |
Tribal Gear, Tribal Streetwear or simply Tribal was launched in 1989 by Bobby Ruiz and his brother Joey as a Southern California lifestyle inspired clothing brand.
Bobby Ruiz started Tribal Street wear on November 20, 1989 with his brother Joey. When Bobby was looking for sponsors for a graffiti art/benefit show in San Diego, Carl Arellano, who had a silk screening business offered to sponsor the show. "It was at that point when we became friends and started to talk about him getting involved with Tribal", says Bobby.
Bobby had a concept with artwork. Both Joey and Bobby started with blank white T-shirts that they had bought from people on the streets and factories. Joey was designing tattoo graphics and Bobby started designing graphics too which they used to apply on the T-shirts. Inspired by his graffiti background Bobby wanted to use strong graphics that speak for themselves.
Most graphics were Aztec and Mayan influenced. This is how they came up with the name Tribal.
They started working with graffiti artists who made hip hop inspired graphics. Tribal’s start was rough but Bobby and Carl pulled through it and succeeded in making Tribal successful. Tribal expanded from T-shirts to apparel and accessories. Now almost 20 years after its start, Tribal Street wear is still representing the streets internationally.
Tribal Street wear is a lifestyle clothing brand that has made an impact from West to East U.S.A. and even overseas. Tribal became popular in countries like Germany and Japan where the interest in Latino culture has paved the way for California designers to sell street wear.
Bobby wanted his clothing to appeal to everyone, not just Hip Hop heads and Latinos. “We never boxed ourselves in by using one thing that we are into”, explains Bobby “We have a skate team, b-boy team, graffiti artist, and ultimate fighters”. Tribal finds inspiration in graffiti, Hip Hop music and the street culture which are characteristic of the South-Californian Latino lifestyle.
Tribal is a supporter of breaking, b-boying or commonly known as break dancing all over the world. The tough style of Tribal matches the Breakdancing aesthetics.
...
Wikipedia