Boiish Clothing

This week, The Monaga blog brings you the work of Puerto Rican photographer and puppeteer, Ricardo Muñiz (www.myspace.com/coquichuloimages).

While researching Latino designers, Ricardo came across Boiish Clothing (www.boiish.com). He was delighted to discover that Boiish was a clothing line created by a legally married, gay Latino couple from Queens. Because Ricardo’s artwork is focused on the struggles and triumphs of urban Latinos in the US, he immediately wanted to bring the story of Santos and Steve Morales to the fore-front. Hence, this layout was born.

This series was shot entirely in the Hunts Point section of the Bronx. Famed for its industrial waste, graffiti, and long history of prostitution, drug dealing and chop shops, Hunts Point is now making a revival as a cultural arts center for people of color. This series highlights the beauty of it all: Latino culture, gay pride, urban art, and, of course, beautiful clothing and beautiful models.

A little About Santos and Steve Morales of Boiish:

“Steve and I have been together for 14 years. We met through mutual friends during the summer of 1992 in New York City. In 2005, Steve and I were legally married in the State of Massachusetts, where we lived at the time. Shortly after, we moved back to New York City to launch our business.

Steve and I have been designing and managing for over 10 years, so we merged our ideas and experience to start BOIISH. BOIISH is a men's beachwear apparel clothing line that sells in the mid-to-better market. Although we have a full service web site at www.boiish.com, the bulk of our business comes from retailers and specialty boutiques that cater to metrosexual men looking for distinctive apparel.

Steve came up with the company name during a pride event. At the time, we were entertaining the idea to start a business, but we really didn't know what to do. I wanted our business to be in fashion because Steve is a very talented designer. It all came together during the Orlando Gay Days in 2004. We noticed that many men, young and mature, were acting like young boys parading around in their swimsuits and beach gear. There was an unbelievable freedom and a tremendous energy in the crowd...and the men were gorgeous everywhere you looked.

Back home we talked about the event, the swimsuits and the expression "boyish" was thrown back and forth several times. It was then that we decided to put together a beachwear collection for our business venture. Then suddenly, it hit us - the expression 'boyish' would be the name of our company because we felt it's appropriate to the market. After a minor twist on the spelling, we decided on ‘boiish’.”

BOIISH: befitting of a man and playful as a young boy.

“Models featured in this spread are Deilín Sanz, DeMarco Majors, Zion Cohen, Héctor Troncoso, Nicholas Turner, and Ryan Lawrence. Special thanks to Dave Silverberg of Elektra Laboratories.”