Every great project begins with an idea, sometimes unusual. Santiago Fernández Pello wanted a shirt with the famous image of Leo Mattioli holding a rose next to his face, but he could not get his size. He decided to do it himself, but fine. He searched for the original image – an impossible mission – and in two months, with digital tools, he recreated the photo with the best quality he could and wore it with pride.
It was May 2020, full quarantine, a propitious time to embark on projects that the adult routine often postpones. "Someone saw it and asked me to make one for him, another one ordered me for the brother and the ball started to run. In September of that same year "Las remeras del Gordo" was presented in society, with an Instagram account and an outsourced online store, "says Santiago, who almost three years after embarking on the project already accumulates more than 12 thousand followers.
But the scheme of outsourcing production quickly hit its ceiling, because, among other limitations, it did not allow him to offer the number of sizes he wanted so that none of his customers, as had happened to him with Mattioli's shirt, would be left out.
"I did my guts, decided to start getting my hands dirty and started learning a little more about the printing process, suppliers, logistics, taxes, billing and shipping. I had gone from an internal courtyard of the building to the Dominican Park without stops, only with desire and the support of the people who love me, "he says about the moment he made the leap.
The t-shirt that started it all.
Born in the Buenos Aires neighborhood of Palermo, ten years ago Santiago fell in love with Piñeyro and stayed to live in Zona Sur. "Instagram was the strong bunker, but from my personal account on Facebook (understand me, I am a +35) I was able to get the first interested parties," he adds.
His Instagram is currently not only popular, but he created a community around the artisanal process that his shirts involve. In the process, he learned digital marketing to punches: "The key is to connect with the public, speak a language that is close to them, share internal jokes, be organic."
One of the aspects that differentiate it from other textile entrepreneurs is, precisely, that it opens the doors to the whole process and effort involved in making the designs for the prints. This is how he defines it: "Today I work as if I were a tattoo artist or a luthier." So many are the orders that the brand accumulates, that there is a waiting list of approximately 20 or 30 days.
As it happened, without intending it with his first challenge, sometimes you have to resort to digital archaeology: "We have been asked for images of audiovisual content that do not exist in high definition, or only poor quality recordings are obtained directly from the television and it is time to do magic".
His years of training in managing editing programs make the difference when it comes to saving, improving and sometimes recreating almost from scratch the designs they ask for.
The T-shirts of El Gordo in caricature version, as logo of the brand.
But deep down, the Reshirtas del Gordo also emerged as a response to the lack of diversity of sizes in the world of clothing. In his Instagram stories, Santiago often addresses this issue and the effective enforcement of the size law in Argentina.
"The law calls for an anthropometric study to measure the population so that with that information a size table can be made, but the results are unknown. This of course violates the right to dress. Surveys such as those of the NGO Anybody Arg report that six out of 10 people, regardless of size gender or age, have difficulty finding clothes," he explains.
At that point is that Santiago proposes a change, and points out that many independent brands are in the same process. "Despite the belief that making size diversity is expensive, does not sell and is harmful to brands, those who are changing paradigms are those who have fewer resources, entrepreneurs or SMEs." His shirts have twenty sizes.
In this paradigm shift, Santiago points to the big brands: "Nowadays brands that do not want to make sizes do not make sizes. There are slum cooperatives that have a diversity of sizes, so what excuse can they make that is valid for not doing so?"
Although the bulk of the activity of Las Remeras del Gordo is online, every three months it puts a stand at the Diverse Fair, whose proposal has a lot to do with that of the brand. "It is a fair that has a very important political and social role, mainly because it supports the national industry as it seeks to empower national and self-manufacturing ventures," he explains.
And he adds: "The participating brands require us to cover at least up to 130 cm at the top and 150 at the hip in lower pieces; and also seeks to be a safe space in situations of very naturalized discrimination such as lack of sizes, differentiated price or directly a horrible treatment. "
The next one will be on October 8.