Complex Kits: Marcelo Burlon on His LeBron James Collaboration, Being Friends with Pusha T, and "Techno-Folk" Style

The DJ behind everyone's favorite T-shirts is about to break out in a big way.

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Complex Kits: Documenting the style of the stars and personalitites who come through our office.

If you aren't familiar with Marcelo Burlon's incredibly dope T-shirts by now, then you're simply not paying attention. With a resume that spans nearly every type of creative field you can think of, the Argentina-native is about to go well beyond tees in his sartorial endeavors. Marcelo came through the office and dropped knowledge on his upcoming LeBron James collab, how he's homies with Pusha T, and what to expect from his County of Milan label.

Can you tell me what you’re wearing right now?
I’m just wearing a pair of Jordans, Cheap Monday jeans, my own T-shirt, and these sunglasses. They’re new from Milan, called Tyg Spectacles.

What are you doing for New York Fashion Week?
I’m gonna do a party with Opening Ceremony on Pier 57. It’s going to be me and Devendra Banhart playing back-to-back. Also Virgil Abloh. We’re gonna do a hip-hop, disco, and deep house set. We’re gonna make people [whispers] wet. For real.

You have a great relationship with Pusha T. Can you tell us how that started?
Last year I came to New York for Opening Ceremony’s 10-year anniversary, and I met Marcus Paul from the Sartorial Collective. We had lunch and he told me about some of his clients. He said Pusha T, and I didn't know who Pusha T was, but I knew the Clipse because I was a big Pharrell Williams fan.

We couldn’t afford to give any T-shirts to anyone but I pushed my company to launch the brand in December during Art Basel in Miami. So Marcus went to the Webster and they bought 55 pieces and they used it for the first video for Pusha T and Fabolous song “Life is so Exciting.” [Sings] “The life, the life, the life is so exciting!” After the video I said, “Hey, I’d like to do a collaboration with you, Pusha." We sent him our ideas and he loved it. We met in Paris for dinner, became really good friends, and I think we’re gonna do something together soon. 

What’s coming up for Fall ’13?
Collaboration with the Sartorial collective and LeBron James. We’re gonna do 1,000 pieces only for my website, for the Sartorial Collective store, and Pusha’s store. That’s a big one. There’s a few other big collaborations that I can’t really say.

How would you describe the style between places like Buenos Aires, New York, and Milan?
Now with globalization and the Internet and social media, you can find the people wearing the same things in all the cities. It doesn’t matter if you’re in Mumbai, or Sydney, or New York, or Patagonia. People are kinda following, maybe not the same trends,  but you can see similar style in all the cities.

I like the ideas from places in South America where they mix the folk stuff with the techno. We call them techno-folk. I think this is the right hashtag. This is what I like to do with my brand as well. All these symbols that you see on my stuff, this is from the natives of Patagonia.

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