From L.A. to San Diego and back up to San Jose, a Pro Club is a sacred garment in California. From the beginning (unpacking it, breathing in the comforting chemical whiff of a new tee) to the end (retiring it with dignity once it loses its pristine snow-y white color or the collar is less snug than it once was), a Pro Club’s lifespan is filled with homages born out of love. The way we pay tribute to a Pro Club shows up in multitudes, governed by personal ritual: Customizing it with a screen print at your local T-shirt mart, waking up when the world is still quiet to crease it to sharp perfection. There’s a level of respect that comes with wearing a garment so singular. You are called to keep it beautiful — wear it every day as a salute to freshness.
Jess Cuevas, a multimedia artist who is currently a freelance art director for Nike and a brand art director at Willy Chavarria, has many memories of Pro Club throughout his life. A teenager of the ’90s, he draws deep inspiration from club kid culture, rave culture, goth culture and Latino culture — groups that share an affinity for this one shared garment, worn in different ways.
“Pro Club for me is so many different things, but my connection to it is definitely the feeling when I’ve just opened the package,” says Cuevas. The consistency, the knowledge that each time you’re going to get the same clean white tee or tank, the way the brand offers opportunities for experimentation with its wide size range (wearing an XL to the knees when you’re really a medium is a rite of passage, after all) — Pro Club gives what it needs to give.
“It’s the perfect tee,” Cuevas says. “You get it at the liquor store, you get it at the flea market, swap meet, it’s everywhere. It’s woven into the fabric of California, L.A. specifically. It’s defined decades. And so when I open it, I feel proud. You just feel like you’re clean, you’re ready to go, you’ve got that crease. Boom.”
Recently, Cuevas wanted to honor the Pro Club through a reverential shoot that could bring the iconic tee back to the source — one of the brand’s L.A. warehouses. “For a long time we’ve seen Pro Club photographed in front of liquor stores,” Cuevas says. “I think that is beautiful. It’s amazing to walk into a liquor store in L.A. and pick up a T-shirt. But I also think there’s other ways to visualize it.” When Cuevas connected with Brian Lee, the son of Pro Club’s founder who runs marketing and e-commerce for the brand, he was not only starstruck — but pleasantly surprised at the brand’s willingness to collaborate.
“The fact that Pro Club is open to seeing their pieces in a different way means a lot,” Cuevas says. He directed the shoot among the warehouse’s natural clutter — boxes and boxes with the Pro Club logo, old frames of Tupac and “The Last Supper.” It was important for him to capture the space in its natural state. “I love that work environment,” Cuevas says. “They have the setup to do a perfect backdrop and perfect lighting. But I didn’t want that. I wanted to use what’s there. Don’t clean up the desk, don’t dust anything, just let us do this.”
For the shoot, he worked with collaborator, friend and fellow artist Pablo Simental, who modeled the clothes, styled in a way that was intended for the viewer to see Pro Club anew. Deeper cut pieces like the heavyweight mechanic’s jacket were paired with patent leather dress shoes; a crisp white tank was layered over a longer, glowing white tee, creating a corset-like effect. Part of Cuevas’ own artistic practice is manipulating the proportions of subjects in images to offer a new perspective. With the shoot, he distorted the shapes of the clothing ever so slightly, creating large shapes in the pants, cinched waists, cartoonishly stretched footwear. “It almost goes back again to ’90s early Y2K drawings, JNCOs, even graffiti characters,” he explains.
If wearing a Pro Club is a sacrament, the L.A. Pro Club warehouse is a church. Cuevas describes the energy in the space as humble and hardworking, not dissimilar to the pieces they house day in and day out. Bringing it back here felt full circle for Cuevas, a way to understand where our relationship with Pro Club is going by capturing where it comes from. “I wanted to experiment with the traditional ways that we see Pro Club.”
Creative direction, styling and image distortion: Jess Cuevas
Model: Pablo Simental
Photographer: Jesse Sandoval
