Chris Printup, founder of the streetwear brand Born X Raised that became a staple on the Los Angeles fashion scene, died Wednesday morning at a hospital in Albuquerque, NM. He was 42 and lived in Los Angeles.
A representative for the brand said over the phone that the cause was injuries sustained in a car accident in Albuquerque on Sunday.
Mr. Printup, better known as “Spanto”, founded Born X Risen with Alex Erdman, better known as “2Tone”. The brand immediately attracted the city’s creative class to events such as the Born x Raised Sadie Hawkins Winter Formal.
“Born X Raised is like a love letter to the town I once grew up in, which is now gone,” Mr. Printup, who was Native American, said in one episode.Canvas: Los Angeles,” a documentary series about the city’s artists. “This is me. This is what I will always be. And if you don’t like it, we don’t care.”
Born June 6, 1981, in the Los Angeles neighborhood of Venice to Butch Madbone of the Seneca Nation and Cheryl Printup of the White Mountain Apache Tribe, Mr. Printup experienced poverty as a child, cycling in and out of juvenile detention and working as a drug dealer, he said in the documentary. Eventually, he said, he was incarcerated in a supermax prison, where he decided to start Born X Risen.
The label, Mr. Printup said in the documentary – part of which originated on the set of a commercial shoot – was born out of his desire to “shine the light” in the Los Angeles of his childhood, specifically Venice, before it became civilized. which he described as the opposite of Tinseltown. “I had an idea, a feeling and a feeling and I turned it into this,” she said, adding that she had never studied clothing design, or dreamed of attending fashion shows in Europe. “There was no plan, no business model.”
He briefly worked as a craftsman at the sheet metal workers’ union, Local 33, and said he started the brand as “a way to vent his frustration and anger”. In 2013, he and his partner began selling the line at the Los Angeles clothing store Union.
Shortly after launching the brand, Mr. Printup receives an award cure cancer, He took chemotherapy and lost 100 pounds and lost hair, he wrote. Post on the brand’s Instagram In December. He worked in every way during the treatment.
“What I understand is that life is hard for everyone and I want anyone to know that if you are feeling down or feeling like life has thrown you a lot of obstacles – This is right. You’ll be fine, things will get better,'” Mr Printup said in the post, adding that he has gone into recovery.
Business partner Mr Erdman described Mr Printup over the phone as a “relentless” force of nature who was friendly and loved by the people he worked with.
“If he had the strength to work every other day, he would do so,” he said.
He said Mr. Printup was in Albuquerque for a traditional Native American ceremony, and that his father had died in a car accident just two months before a similar ceremony. Born X Risen will likely hold an event in Mr. Printup’s honor, Mr. Erdman said.
“We are not going to turn down. We will not stop telling this story. We’re just going to change how we do it, because we don’t have that anymore,” Mr. Erdmann said.
Mr. Printup’s family consists of his mother; his wife, Anna Printup; a daughter, Marilyn A. Printup; Two sons, David R. Garcia and Carter Printup-Speech; three half-brothers, Cai Printup, Casey Printup and Willie Madbone; a half-sister, Zyanya Madbone; and his stepmother, Caroline Madbone, said a brand representative.
In “The Canvas”, Mr. Printup mentions that he was always plagued by self-doubt, but he persevered despite it. “When will they know I’m not good at it?” They said. “I think any intelligent person questions themselves.”
Christine Hauser Contributed reporting.
