Amor Prohibido’ Collections are 90s-Inspired and Rooted in Mexican-Los Angeles Identity

Bryan Escareño is clearly from Los Angeles.

Under his fashion label, Amor Prohibido, he designs and assembles collections that capture the zeitgeist of the Mexican-American urban subculture he was raised in—and how its evolved. He tailors 90s trends to fit today’s standards and re-images styles stigmatized in times past. Changing trends reflect changing attitudes, both culturally and in vogue. In this way, as his work grows more popular, Escareño is turning his story inside out.

“I’m taking my experiences and influences and molding them into my art,” he says on the label’s website. “My goal is to inspire and push the culture forward through those experiences and influences, highlighting our perspective, our story.”

Escareño never planned to go into fashion. Originally, he went to school for business management to help carry on the family’s garage door business. Unwilling to comply with his father’s machismo at work, his time in garage doors was short-lived.

He started looking for other jobs.

“At the time, my ex-girlfriend’s mom was having a garage sale, and in that garage sale there was a really nice, old-school, vintage sewing machine, and it just called to me for some reason. I ended up buying it and teaching myself how to sew,” Escareño tells Urban Pitch.

In the beginning, he sewed to decompress, a hobby to take his mind off things, especially after long days.

Though he didn’t go to fashion school, he found a natural flow playing with the machine and wound up teaching himself how to sew. And he realized he was pretty good at it. Maybe it was because he was actively learning a craft he also enjoyed. Maybe it was because his mom learned how to sew back in Mexico and had somehow passed down a predisposition in the womb. Whatever it was, the more he sewed, the more he developed and cultivated artistic vision.

He launched his fashion label, Amor Prohibido, to share the artistry he had found in himself.

Most people think the brand name is meant to honor Selena, who released a song titled “Amor Prohibido” before her tragic passing. For Escareño, prohibited love is part of his personal journey.

Being in an interracial relationship when he launched the line heavily influenced the concept.

“At the time, my ex-girlfriend…was actually Italian and Mexican, but from the outside looking in, [she was] white. We used to live in Santa Monica and back then it was predominantly white—still is—but we’d go out and hang out and everybody would always stare at us,” Escareño tells Urban Pitch. “Just racism.”

Being questioned by his father for pursuing a less ‘traditionally masculine’ career added flame to the fire.

“My dad, bro, he’s not racist, he’s not homophobic, or anything, but he’s Mexican, old school, machismo,” Escareño goes on to say. “When I asked him for a sewing machine, he was just kinda like: ‘What are you trying to tell me, bro?’ Yo, that’s mad ignorant. Little does he know I’m back there with my sewing machine creating culture for our culture.”

Escareño felt like everything he loved—his girlfriend, his work—was prohibited. Judged. Unseen. So, he named his business Amor Prohibido in creative protest.

His collections are inspired by the colors and textures that characterized his corner of Los Angeles growing up: south of the 10, west of the 405.

“If you were Mexican wearing flannel shorts with a wife beater, you’re automatically a cholo. Period,” Escareño says. “Now, that’s like a regular outfit at Urban Outfitters. They took it already. Straight up.”

When he re-imagines cholo fashion, he approaches his designs with integrity. Like a historian, he looks through old childhood photos just to see what his parents were wearing. He remembers trips to Miller’s Outpost with his father, where even the smallest T-shirts fit him like a double-XL.

For Escareño, his job is to take what used to be deemed negative (or stigmatized) and give it runway power. When he crops and widens classic white Ts, when he cuts flannel shorts above the knee, he actively makes his subculture high fashion.

His most recent collection, Forever Yours, is an exploration of organic blues, layered jerseys, and relaxed denim. Tops fit tight around the shoulders and feature subtle stitch patterns. Casual cargo pants unravel loosely around timeless loafers.

From one look to the next, Escareño creates the culture he didn’t see on billboards growing up. Impassioned by this mission, he encourages the next generation of artists to make space for their own voices and their own stories.

“Be hungry,” he says. “It’s going to be a lot of working for free. You’re giving your time to learn this craft.”

Check out Amor Prohibido online here.