BakitWhy.com had the wonderful opportunity to interview Zar Javier, owner of the very popular Pilipina/o clothing company PNOY Apparel. It is based in San Diego, California, but PNOY App has a clientele of Pilipinas/os and even non-Pilipinas/os from all over the world.
Zar, can you start by giving us a brief intro; your name, where you're from, anything you want to tell us.
- My name is Zar and I'm from PNOY Apparel. I'm originally from Iloilo, Philippines. I came here when I was five years old. We started a company called PNOY Apparel in 1999. And the philosophy of PNOY Apparel is to profess the ideology about our country: where we came from, who we are, and where we're headed as a culture.
It says on your website that PNOY Apparel was established in 1999 as “a hobby and a creative outlet to express Philippine pride and history.” Could you elaborate more on that? Exactly how did PNOY Apparel get started?
- Well, back in 1999, it was funny how we started. It was actually just sketching on a piece of paper. And then the next morning, I woke up and told my mother that I was going to start a clothing company. A couple of days later, she woke up to her kitchen filled with fabric because I bought a sewing machine and taught myself how to sew. From then on, we just branched off doing t-shirts, custom-cut jerseys, and what we do today.
How do you come up with your designs?
- A lot of our t-shirts, what we do, and what we try to announce to the kids is the issue of our culture. When we come up with a concept, we try to do it in a fashionable way, where it's not very cheesy. We wanted to be looked at almost as an art piece. We wanted anybody of any culture or any background to actually say, "Wow, that's actually an awesome shirt." Just like the 45 Colt, the Philippine 45 Colt. When somebody sees that shirt, they're like, "Wow, that's an amazing shirt. What does it mean?" And then from that point on, our culture is almost viral, as someone else tells somebody else about it.
I noticed a lot of your designs rep Pilipina/o American musical artists like Son of Ran, AJ Rafael, and Rocky Rivera. What is the connection between music and fashion, and why is it so important to you?
- Well, with us, we work very closely with those artists only because they're great people, they're very talented, and also we use them as a vessel to showcase Shirt the Kids and raise money and awareness about this charity.
Tell me more about Shirt the Kids.
- Shirt the Kids is a little charity we started in 2008. It's a very simple charity. What we do is we hold events and fundraisers to raise money for kids in the Philippines. For every $5 donated to the company, we buy a brand new shirt for a kid in the Philippines. With our logo, Sammy the Sunshine, we went there in 2008 and dropped off over 500 shirts for the kids in the Philippines. It was an amazing event. From then on, we traveled all over the country and the world - from San Diego to L.A. to New York to New Jersey and even to the U.K. And right now we're actually planning a mini tour in Hawai'i, and we're also planning one in Canada.
When is the tour in Hawai'i going to be?
- The beginning of November. It should be very interesting. We've got a few of the artists, Bambu and Geologic of the Blue Scholars, actually developing a new element in their concerts so that way the people on the islands can get a flavor of their music integrated in hip-hop from the mainland.
I also noticed you have some Igorot-inspired designs, and as a proud Igorota, I think that’s pretty cool. How’d you get that idea?
- Again, it's part of our culture. It's part of who we are as a Pilipina/o. All of those different aspects get tied in together. Sometimes we'll use the Igorot warriors. Sometimes we'll use the Moro warriors. Sometimes we'll even talk about the poverty or the politics in the Philippines. It's just one aspect of our culture that we want to try to educate kids about.
And you're wearing your latest jacket, the Veterano. Your jacket was released just a few days ago, and it's meant to honor the 250,000 Pilipina/o Americans who were World War II veterans. How did you get involved with this issue?
- We've always known that our veterans never got paid, never got their pension. We've always wanted to help out, but we didn't know where to go and what route we'd want to take it at. But after we released the Revolt last year, we were already working on a new jacket. And so there we started brainstorming and designing the next jacket, which was this. But this time around, we wanted to honor somebody in our culture. And what better way to honor somebody than the Pilipina/o veterans? It's such a powerful message that we wanted to portray. Even today, they're not receiving some of their pension. Even though the Stimulus Plan includes it for them, they still have to go through a lot of red tape in order for them to get it. Sometimes they end up passing away before they even get their money. Their widows aren't even qualified or eligible to have that money afterwards. It's our way at PNOY Apparel to be able to provide a jacket that is high-quality, very fashionable, versatile, and at the same time be able to educate the kids about what's going on in this current moment with our culture.
In case any of our viewers want to get a Veterano jacket, how could you get one?
- They can visit www.pnoyapparel.com. The Veterano is limited edition. We only made 300 pieces. 10% of all the jackets actually go to JFAV, so we're going to help out the veterans by giving them money back. It's our way of saying thank you for all of their services.
Great. Are there any last words you have for our readers?
- I wanted to say thank you for always supporting us. We've been 10+ years strong. We wouldn't be anywhere today without the people. It allows us to be creative and it allows us to go beyond our boundaries.
On behalf of BakitWhy, I'd like to thank you for all of your work for our community!
- Thank you.
