A T-Shirt Brand for Bronx Lovers
Shorty Hip-Hop, a character created by Anthony Cabezas that he hopes will help launch his T-shirt brand, Beond69.
Shirts made by Anthony “Beond69? Cabezas. He no longer makes shirts with the heart logo.
For a while last year, Anthony Cabezas’s most popular T-shirt design was one that declared “I?BX.” He printed 600 of them in his South Bronx studio and sold them wholesale for $10 apiece. Not long after they hit the stores, he said, thousands of cheaper ones hit the streets.
“I made $1,000 and then it was over,” he said. “Then it just took off over the five boroughs, when the stores on 27th Street and Broadway started making them and flooded the market. Those guys do everything that is popular and they sell them cheap, 3 for $10. I?BK, I?DR, everything.”
He is no longer fretting about losing that market. New York’s State’s tourism board most definitely does not ? BX, BK, DR or anything else that violates the trademark it holds on its iconic logo. The state agency recently announced that it was taking steps to warn violators to stop cranking out unauthorized shirts, bags and anything else with the heart.
“It’s not something I’m making anymore,” said Mr. Cabezas, 39. “I’m not getting emotionally involved with it. It was just something for the street.”
Instead, he is focusing on becoming a brand name. Tags emblazoned with Beond69, his logo, dangle from T-shirts with hip-hop themes and sketches. His brand started out as a different kind of tag, the kind he spray painted on walls as a teenager. Now he makes his living making drawings of fancy awnings for a sign company active in Manhattan’s pricier neighborhoods.
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