GREATEST: DRx Romanelli

My earliest memory of Mickey Mouse, as most Californians, was visiting Disneyland with my family as a child. I grew up less than an hour from the park and have vivid memories of my brother and I scanning the park high and low in search of Mickey and Minnie each time I visited. In hindsight, I’ve been looking for Mickey for a long time now. This process evolved from me looking for the character at an amusement park to me hunting down vintage Mickey garments in order to reappropriate them for my DRx collections. 

Being able to work with Mickey Mouse represents the Holy Grail of brand collaborations for me personally. The modern-day phenomenon of product licensing for hybrid collaborations can be directly traced back to Mickey Mouse. To be able to plug into this historical timeline and be in dialogue with it all is a great honor for me.  

As important as the brand collaboration is to me, I’ve been doubly blessed in being asked to oversee storytelling on the contemporary side as well through my involvement in the Mickey: The True Original Exhibition. It’s the first project that has truly allowed me to utilize my greatest strength—the ability to span various creative roles and filter them into one cohesive moment. That’s why this project will always have a special place in my heart. 

The lab coats are a mix of authentic, vintage Mickey pieces that I’ve been sourcing for years. It’s a collection of pieces spanning the globe from  Southern California to Japan. I was able to build a large archive with enough material for the lab coats—which will each be one-of-a-kind pieces—and to also be able to wrap a giant eight-foot tall Be@rbrick in these reconstructed and recycled Mickey textiles. I was fortunate to be able to work closely with the Disney archives since the beginning of this project. Having the ability to work with this team and get educated on specific eras throughout Mickey’s history allowed me to build a proper narrative with the vintage pieces I had assembled. 

Each lab coat takes about a week to execute from the construction side, but the process is actually much longer than that. After the lengthy process of sourcing materials, I like living with that vintage for a while before deciding what gets reappropriated and what gets recycled. Once those decisions are made, multiple pieces start happening at once but the process from start to finish can take years.

The Grateful Dead lab coats is definitely one of my favorite collections I’ve ever executed. I have a similar love for the Dead as I do for Mickey. Both evoke the same emotions of adventure and happiness for me. In the same way that searching for Mickey in the park thrilled me as a child, seeing the Grateful Dead live a plethora of times gave me all of the inspiration I needed to make this collection special. Those memories had a major impact on my life and informed this collection on a deeply personal level.

Those lab coats ended up going to my friend Roma Cohen’s boutique, Alchemist, in Miami. If it makes sense, I also take on a few commissions that come  my way once people start seeing what I’m working on. In this case, I made a couple custom pieces specifically for John Mayer who has been touring with the guys via Dead & Co. and working to introduce his own modern take on the iconography built by the Dead. I connected with John on this in that I always find myself revisiting childhood memories and challenging myself to bring them back in a more relevant, contemporary way.    

Mickey’s 90th Anniversary was unique in that I was asked to play the role of curator on the project. I’m deeply involved in the world of contemporary art. As such, the word “curator” holds special weight for me. It’s a title that I’m not particularly comfortable applying to myself as I have a huge respect for curators from an educational and institutional perspective. I consider myself a facilitator more than a curator. That said, I took on the role. It was important for me to make specific selections in the project’s execution in order for it to come to life as everyone envisioned it. 

This additional responsibility did alter my approach to this project. I was able to look at it from a 360-degree perspective and see connections that I couldn’t have seen otherwise. It also allowed me the privilege of being intimately involved in organizing an important exhibition for fans around the world. At the end of the day, I realized what is important is that the end deliverable is very different from anything I’ve ever executed in the past. That’s really exciting for me. 

I was very much the dreamer. Not deconstructing, per se, but always constructing mini-worlds in my mind when I wasn’t looking at the clock, counting down the seconds to the end of the school day. I did develop a love for collecting at an early age. It started with reptiles and multiple cages. Then I moved to saltwater fish and countless tanks in my room. I couldn’t skate but had every Powell deck lined up in my room. Then came Jordans. Then came Dead tapes and Garbage Pail Kids. I loved the idea of doing the research and surrounding myself with things. My interest in going deep into subjects and exploring them is what informs me the most as an adult. I look at my cactus collection and art collection now in the same way. It inspired me as a child and inspires me as a father today. 

My first exposure to fashion was when I visited Maxfield my sophomore year of high school. Up to that point, I had been wearing sneakers and whatever local swag was available at Val Surf: Stüssy, Gotcha, Jimmy’z, the usual suspects at the time. Maxfield really opened up my eyes to what was possible and forced me to look at fashion through a different lens. 

My pops had worked on the movie Space Jam and invited me up to Nike on a trip with him to meet Michael Jordan at the campus. I also saw the Grateful Dead in Eugene. I was hooked. Two of my favorite life experiences up until then were in Oregon—that cemented it. 

I graduated from the University of Oregon with a B.A. in Sociology in 1998. It was the only major that I was interested in and could hold my attention. I moved out of the dorms halfway through freshman year and got my own apartment. My walls were adorned with Grateful Dead art and a big Michael Jordan ‘Flight’ poster. I may have had some Rick Griffin artwork as well.

Looking back on it, I wish I would have taken college more seriously. I was too lost in my own world during that time. I wanted to be out on the road traveling. I must have attended hundreds of shows in those days. I spent countless evenings chasing inspiration. Trying to catch the ultimate set, with the right crowd, in the right city, at the right time. It was more exhilarating than sitting through another lecture or another class. 

At that time, I felt like I wanted to do something with music. I was inspired by the live shows I had seen and was fascinated with tour merchandise including the collecting and trading of recorded tapes of the bands that I loved. Tape trading and making, merchandise, trading merch, etc. I knew I wanted to do something affiliated with that specific conversation.

I took a lot of that passion for music and helped put together, manage, and market the Los Angeles band IMA ROBOT. We started StreetVirus in tandem with that band. As IMA ROBOT evolved as a band and continued to tour, I stayed focused on the marketing side—StreetVirus—and continued to grow that business. I saw it as a more natural fit towards my interests and my strengths. 

I’m an eternal optimist so even the things I was wrong about, I take as positive learning experiences. They all inform who I am today. I’ve been a sponge my whole life. Taking in as much information and experience from those around me. I learned so much through trial and error throughout the years. I’ve been fortunate to have been able to take every mistake I’ve made and turn it into a teachable moment. These life lessons are how you refine and perfect your approach. It all comes down to experience and perspective. What do you expose yourself to? How often to do you push yourself outside of your comfort zone? After 20 years, I’m just now, finally, coming to a place where I consider myself fluent in this field.

As a reminder, I have a Tony Lewis art piece in my living room made out of nails and charcoal-covered rubber bands. It reads, “Remember that overnight success usually takes about 15 years.” Tony calls this work a drawing. He provides the supplies and directions on how to take care of it over time. It’s a responsibility. The rubber bands eventually break as temperatures change. I’m the caretaker of the artwork. It keeps me connected with the piece. I have a responsibility to care for it, as I have a responsibility to continue to evolve and learn from each new experience in my life. 

I’ve always had an interest in taking something that already exists and giving it new life, especially vintage. I love finding something out of a pile that once had so much energy in the marketplace and now is just a ghost of a story. Being able to breathe new life into that vintage piece, doctor it up as something new—that’s exciting to me. I’m still as interested in this rebirth, maybe now more than ever. I enjoy the act of disrupting what might feel a little cliché or tedious. If I’m able to reconstruct or reappropriate the iconography as a whole, I think it elevates the subject and deepens my passion and relationship with the brand.

The earliest pieces were made around 1999. I was making traditional leather bomber jackets that I was recycling with vintage pieces I would find at thrift stores. I incorporated patchwork color blocking, custom ribbing, Riri zippers, and dead stock satin lining in the jackets. I would make these crazy color combinations that were outrageous during that time. I was making them for myself and for my friends. Next thing I knew, I was making them for Mick Jagger for a Rolling Stones tour. His stylist at the time picked them up from a little shop called Naked. They were the ones that gave me my start. Then I made some for Madonna. At that point, I had a feeling that there was demand for what I was doing. That’s when Dr. Romanelli was born. 

I got a call from Nike asking me if I wanted to participate in a project called Reconstruct at the Nike Blue House in Marina del Rey. I made my first collection of reappropriated, recycled, vintage Nike tracksuits—some they gave me and others I had from thrifting during my four years at Oregon. Somebody from Maxfield was at the event. They showed the collection to Tommy [Perse] and bought the collection. After that, I had roughly two or three years where I literally could not keep up with demand. After that, I got my start in Japan via BEAMS. Then came Colette in Paris and Brown’s in London. It just kept growing from there. 

Around the time, I met Kanye West. He had picked up one of my Nike jackets from Colette in Paris. He got in touch with me, and we spent quite a bit of time together working on a number of customs. Right around the same time, Hirofumi Kiyonaga purchased one of my reworked Nike jackets from Browns in London, and this led to a five-year collaboration on SOPHNET & F.C.R.B. By the mid-2000s, I knew I was making an impact on a global level. 

There is definitely a set of standards that I work under. For me, it’s most important that I’m engaged culturally with the work that I’m doing. This guideline transfers to StreetVirus as a whole. In order to execute the creative deliverables we are tasked with, it’s important that we understand the projects at the most fundamental levels. The more knowledgeable I am on the cultural component of each project, the more I can challenge myself and my team creatively. Engaging with the people on the front lines, the core community, is something that is vital for me and for the agency on all levels. It ensures that our initiatives are authentic and true to the identity of the project. 

I feel like I’ve been collaborating since before the word really had meaning in the space. Without these brands, there would have been no DRx. I love working with people. Now, it’s become a normal extension of the industry, but I remember when streetwear was a blip on the radar. It was just a few of us working together as a small clique of brands and creatives. I owe a lot of my strategy and approach on collaborating to time spent at Meltdown Comics. Gaston and Nathan Cabrera both really helped to define and mold my brand through endless conversations surrounding ideas to support DRx collaborations. One particular collaboration I still think about quite a bit was my first DRx toy collaboration with SOPHNET. It was a doctor character holding scissors. The release was called “soPHDRx.” Now that SOPHNET is coming up on their 20th anniversary, I’m working on a collection of Modernica chairs that will be made from reconstructed SOPH & F.C.R.B. vintage apparel pieces that I’ve kept in my collection throughout the years. To see this collaboration come full circle almost 20 years later is amazing. It’s almost like the character with scissors is making this collection! It’s nice to see these projects come back around so many years down the line because the goal of working on these projects is to make them timeless. 

I approach the process in slightly different ways. It might be a strange analogy but I can build a strong comparison to the artworks that I hang at the agency versus the artworks that I hang in my home. I approach the artwork in the office environment from a more relatable perspective. It has to be a little more approachable, a little more familiar—challenging but not intimidating. Whereas the artwork in my home is much more personal to my idiosyncrasies and particular interests. In my home, I’m catering to an audience of one: me. In my office, I’m catering to a broader audience with broader interests. 

Without question. My older brother taught me the importance of moments. Life is a series of moments and you better start paying attention to them before they slip by. Years ago, he told me to take a breather. That I was moving too fast. Up to that point, I’d only known fast. When I slowed down a bit, I was able to recognize the importance of these moments and how they become creative exchanges. To me, these exchanges are like putting a puzzle together one piece at a time. 

My wife inspires me. My kids inspire me. My mom inspires me. My garden inspires me. Japan inspires me. Iceland inspires me. I get inspired when I see great art. I get inspired when I see great exhibitions. I’m inspired by the chase of it. I want to be inspired by a great exhibition or a great studio visit. I guess I’m still searching for Mickey around the park, so to speak. 

My dad told me, “Shots on goal, son.” You shoot enough shots and you’ll eventually score. I took it to heart.

I would definitely say it’s a culmination of everything leading up to this moment. Each project built on top of the last project and challenged me in new ways. I’ve worked with so many great people that have allowed me the freedom to explore my creative impulses, and I owe them a big debt of gratitude for allowing me that space. It’s on the trust and faith of those people that I’ve arrived at this great moment for Mickey’s 90th Anniversary. I couldn’t be more excited to present this to the world.