Choncordia Lima-Los Angeles

Choncordia Skateboard Co

I met Hali through a mutual friendly fabric distributor about eight years ago. He’s one of those sort of people you instantly like. Super funny, creative, intelligent,and hilarious. He constantly has me in stitches.

Hali is allot like me in he basically runs his entire business by himself. All of his graphics are his own, layouts,photography,marketing,production, literally everything. He is the epitome of an indie designer. I have been a fan of his graphics and excellent sewing skills since we met & both have only gotten better over the years.

He makes graphic t’s for men and women as well as all over print hoodies ,jackets,boxer shorts, asst accessories, and Skate Decks.

100% handmade in the USA.

Check out : Choncordia
Tell me about your company. When and where did it start?

First I need to say that It started out of necessity because nobody was making clothing for Skateboarding in Lima; Peru. I guess everything began when I sewed my first pair of pants and my first T-shirt back in 1988. I didn’t know it was going to turn into a business until some of my friends wanted me to make pants for them too, I was surprised that they actually wanted them cause at that time I made them with no pockets but more than a practical use they were looking for the “look”…. ( if that makes sense), we wanted to look like the guys from the Skateboarding videos; The colors, the fittings and the matching hats was what we were looking for, and since nobody could get them in Lima I started to make them with my Moms sewing machine. The name of our Skateboarding team was “Choncordia” so I began embroidering that in all the pants and that’s how the whole thing started.

What made you want to be a designer?

Skateboarding. Im not sure if it was what it made me wanna be a Designer but definitely being exposed to the imagery Jim Phillips was creating for Santa Cruz and V.C. Johnson for Powell Peralta in the late 80’s and the graphics Marc McKee, Sean Cliver, Evan Hecox and Andy Jenkins did during the 90’s had a big influence in me wanting to draw and create stuff. I remember carrying little pictures of those colorful 80’s graphics in my wallet when I was 14; the combination of colors and textures were so amazing to me that I wanted to re-create them and they became my world along with Skateboarding.

Did you have any formal training (IE: School, apprenticeship)?

I did went to Textile School and Design School but I never finished them and before that I broke my parents hearts when I quit studying Economics at the University. I realized what I wanted and most importantly what I loved to do very early in my life and Im grateful for that. I did learned basic and important things at the textile and design school though; Color theory, pattern making, some early Photoshop, silkscreening and all the basic stuff but never to a full. I think the most important thing I learned was that designing is like making a song, colors and shapes are like musical notes and if you get the wrong note somewhere in there the whole graphic sounds terrible. After school I learned everything else by trial and error; I think practice makes you better in whatever you do ( specially if you love what you do ) cause you will never quit doing it and you will get better and better, but even though I learned a lot, I still don’t think Im “amazing” at It, sometimes people call my drawings “Art” but I don’t consider myself an Artist cause to me Artists are out of this world super talented original crazy people that live an exciting life; nowadays people use the “Artist” tag too much and too lightly; Im just a very stubborn average guy with a chocolate problem, a sewing machine, a pen and the last version of Illustrator.

Do you have any new products coming out you would like to talk about?

Right now Im working on the 3rd Catalog and it should be ready by September. New pants, new tshirts and new jackets for Guys; Im also working on new stuff for girls and the new board series; Im having a lot of fun making the graphics by the way, I love making the clothes, sewing and silkscreening but doing the graphics is the best part.

Where can people buy your merchandise?

At www.choncordia.com, the store should be up and running this week and new stuff should be added before Christmas 🙂 so Merry Christmas !!! .