From left, Jeremy "Milhouse" Po, Christopher Defarkas, and Jonas Bevacqua of the Irvine-based LRG, Lifted Research Group in Bevacqua's office. The clothing company's designs are worn by celebrities which include Kobe Bryant, Kanye West, Reggie Bush and Quentin Tarantino. Photo by Cindy Yamanaka / Orange County Register
Jonas Bevacqua’s office isn’t normal.
On either side of the room a four-foot-tall giraffe stares down a similarly sized sleek black robot. His desk is surrounded by Star Wars lightsabers and a shelf filled with records next to a pair of turntables. A photo adorns the wall of a faceless naked woman arching her back against a giant high heel with the words “Welcome to Fantasy Island” emblazoned across.
To Jonas, LRG headquarters is Fantasy Island, and this room is where the ideas are born.
LRG, or Lifted Research Group, is an Irvine-based clothing company co-founded by Jonas Bevacqua and Robert Wright. The company is celebrating its 10-year anniversary this year, and it is debuting the spring 2010 clothing line during a runway show at Style Week OC Thursday, Sept. 24 at 7:30 p.m.
Lifted Research Group is primarily a youth brand that says its focus is supporting people who are trying to pay their rent with their passions.
LRG both supports and is supported by a community of musicians, artists and athletes that have donned the company’s clothing. According to LRG, the company’s clothes have been worn by celebrities from Kobe Bryant and Reggie Bush to Kanye West and John Legend to Quentin Tarantino and Tom Arnold.
Entrepreneur magazine reported the company had sales of $5 million in 2002 and $150 million in 2006, earning it the number 5 spot on the 500 fastest growing companies that year. They’ve had to shed around 30 employees through the recession bringing the company to a staff of 140, Jonas said, but LRG has stabilized and may see growth come 2010.
“They [the stores] can’t buy as much volume as they used to, but what they do sell is going off the shelves very quickly,” Jonas said.
Virtually all operations except for sewing are run out of a 110,000-square-foot facility in Irvine near the border of Lake Forest. There’s a skateboarding half-bowl and ramp in the warehouse along with a basketball court and a weight room. Rows and rows of boxes are tended to by casually dressed LRG staff.
“No one is really a suit-and-tie-guy. If anybody wears a suit, it’s because he wants to, not because he has to,” said Jonas.
Symbols mean a lot to Jonas and his designers at LRG. A green tree with roots extending down is one of the primary icons used throughout LRG clothing.
Roots
Jonas, who is U.S-born Vietnamese, was adopted along with six others by Helen and Joe Bevacqua. Helen and Joe, who also have one natural child, speak with the highest praise for Jonas, as they do all their children, though Jonas says he was a rebel early on and resisted all forms of authority. He took to skating and surfing rather than team sports. He didn’t do well in school and admits he was picked up by the cops a couple of times during high school for being drunk in public or violating curfew.
“If my parents or the police told me no, that sort of meant yes to me,” Jonas said. “I didn’t exactly fit in.”
The early years of Jonas’ life were spent in Long Beach, but when he got into high school his family moved to Laguna Beach. These two cultures were very different to him – the streets of Long Beach and the beaches of Laguna – and it helped shape him. His family is a veritable melting pot too. He has a black brother and sister, Filipino brother and sister, half-white-half black sister, half Jamaican-half-Spanish brother and a white brother.
“I grew up in a pretty unique environment and was exposed to a lot of different things,” Jonas said. “I didn’t feel there was a clothing company to bridge the gap between all these different things that we were into – that spoke for that melting pot of what was going on. That’s what LRG was all about.”
After high school, he tried out college.
“I did two semesters but probably showed up like three times,” Jonas said.
He drifted around California for a couple of years and spent time in San Diego, Los Angeles and San Francisco. In 1999, he decided he wanted to start a clothing company.
Jonas and LRG took root.
Jonas Bevacqua, co-founder of LRG. Photo by Cindy Yamanaka / Orange County Register
Growth
Jonas moved back in with his parents in Laguna Beach to start LRG. He worked as a valet during the day and at night he was a DJ at local clubs. His parents helped him get a computer for work.
“The only time I had ever really used a computer was in keyboarding class, which I failed miserably,” Jonas said.
He met Robert Wright while working as a DJ. Wright had a college education and experience working for O’Neill, a surf clothing brand, and he delivered all that knowledge to Jonas. They received some investor funding from Charlie Moothart and Ronnie Ghenender and LRG was born.
They started out with some sketches and ideas working out of Jonas’ bedroom as he learned how to design and get clothes made.
“I had no idea what I was doing. I knew I definitely needed to get stuff made. We put together this game plan. I had to get some hats embroidered. So I found some place local to us in Santa Ana,” Jonas said.
Eunnie Hur, a young woman who had just graduated from Berkeley, was working the front desk the day he came in to get his hats embroidered. Jonas says he knew right away. They’ve been together off and on for more than 10 years and together they have Adyn, almost 5 now.
“I had some growing up to do, a lot of growing up to do,” Jonas said.
The two have been engaged for about a month and plan to get married next year in Tuscany, Italy. Coworkers say Adyn is a mini Jonas as he skateboards around the office. He’s into Star Wars, Transformers and GI Joe.
“Yeah, so he’s pretty much into the same things as me,” Jonas said.
Though a father himself, Jonas still needs to call on his own father for help from time to time.
“One day he [Jonas] had to be with his son, and he wanted me to greet a very special person that was coming to the office. ‘Oh sure, Jonas, whatever I can do to help.’ Well, it happened to be Kobe Bryant,” said Joe Bevacqua, a Lakers fan.
The Message
Design at LRG is all about the message. Sometimes the message is about wit or humor and other times it’s about a state of mind. The “Lifted” in Lifted Research Group, for example, can reference an elevated state of mind. Some of the messages LRG delivered over the years include: Make Jeans, Not War; Underground Inventive, Overground Effective; Equipment For Life’s Journey; The Underachievers.
Travel Unravel is the latest message debuting now.
“We paired the saying ‘Travel Unravel’ with this theme because when you travel/explore you always experience and discover new things, hence ‘unravel,’” said LRG design director Jeremy Po.
One message LRG revisits from time to time holds particular personal meaning to Jonas. Adopt Children, Not Style.
“That’s my life story,” Jonas said.
Check out more stories about Style Week OC:
Click here to read about Michele Genevieve, designer of Hollywood Million Denim.
Click here to read about eveningwear designer Oday Shakar.
Click here to read about the designers preparing for Ezekiel’s “Needle and Thread” competition.
