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Mexico's narcos adopt Lauren-style polo shirts

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  • Mexico's narcos adopt Lauren-style polo shirts

    Makes me sick.... those are not f-ing folk hero.


    Mexico's narcos adopt Lauren-style polo shirts - Yahoo! News
    Mexico's narcos adopt Lauren-style polo shirts
    AP

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    Edgar Valdez Villarreal AP – FILE - In this Aug. 31, 2010 file photo, Texas-born fugitive Edgar Valdez Villarreal, alias 'the Barbie,' …
    By MARK STEVENSON, Associated Press – 1 hr 21 mins ago

    MEXICO CITY – "Narco Polo" is the new fashion trend sweeping lower-class neighborhoods in Mexico, inspired by seven high-ranking drug traffickers who were arrested over a three-month stretch wearing open-neck, short-sleeved jerseys with the familiar horseman-with-a-stick emblem.

    The polo shirts are becoming ubiquitous in street vendors' stalls from the drug-war-ravaged state of Tamaulipas to the cradle of Mexican drug trafficking, Sinaloa.

    Demand is so high that a Mexico City street vendor named Felipe stocks several colors, and names them after the drug lord who was wearing that color at the time of his arrest.

    "This is the 'J.J'," he says, pointing to a blue one, "and this is 'La Barbie,'" indicating a green number. That was a reference to Jose Jorge ("J.J.") Balderas, who allegedly dealt drugs and shot soccer star Salvador Cabanas in the head, and to U.S.-born Edgar Valdez Villarreal, "La Barbie."

    Despite their Ralph Lauren labels, the shirts on sale on Mexico City streets for 160 pesos ($13.50) are clearly pirated goods, sold by unlicensed vendors like Felipe who don't want their full names used for fear of attracting police attention.

    But some of Felipe's customers have their first names embroidered on the back of the shirts, a service he offers for an extra fee, as a sort of dare.

    It's probably not the demographic that designers at Ralph Lauren were thinking of for their polo shirts. The company did not respond to several requests for comment about the shirts' popularity in Mexican criminal circles.

    The shirt La Barbie wore when captured appeared to be the only potentially authentic one of the bunch. The rest of the drug traffickers appeared to be wearing cheap knockoffs of the $98 to $145 Ralph Lauren "Big Pony" jerseys.

    The shirt is becoming so pervasive that it provoked public grumbling from Sinaloa Gov. Mario Lopez Valdez.

    "Now you see how these shirts like La Barbie's have become the fashion," said Lopez Valdez. While he didn't suggest an outright ban, he told a local radio station that "I think we have to close off everything that promotes criminal behavior."

    He complained that the fad glorifies traffickers.

    "Many young people want to emulate them as idols in some way ... and they want to be drug traffickers. And there are a lot of young girls who want to be the girlfriends of drug traffickers."

    But it may not be sheer adulation; wearing the shirts may also be a way for youths to thumb their noses at authority, a time-honored pastime among young people around the world.

    "To the police, it's a message that says 'I could be a drug trafficker and walk right in front of you and you can't say anything to me because I'm just wearing a shirt,'" said Oscar Galicia Castillo, a psychologist at the IberoAmerican University who studies prison inmates. "Many youths are also using it as a way of making fun of snobbish status markers."

    For Pedro, who sells snacks at a stand on a downtown Mexico City street, his light blue polo shirt just represents an indefinable sense of cool. He said the shirts had become all the rage in his tough neighborhood of Tepito, and that his wife bought him one as a surprise.

    "It looks good. It gives you class," he said. He declined to give his last name, saying police had recently caught him selling cigarettes to minors.

    In some rough barrios, a shirt that conveys a vague sense of menace and a "don't mess with me" attitude may be helpful.

    "The guys who buy them want people to think they're tough," said Cesar, a counterfeit-shirt vendor who said most of the customers at his downtown Mexico City stall are young males. "It's about putting on a look."

    For at least two decades, Mexicans have fretted about youths emulating drug traffickers, from the days when narcos favored the designs of Versace and exotic-leather boots, or marijuana-leaf insignia on belt buckles, shirts and baseball caps. But such trends remained largely regional, and were derided as tacky.

    But the new fashion trend has been helped along by a new, more urbane and sophisticated generation of drug traffickers, who dress more like Mexico's wealthier classes.

    In 2010, Vicente Zambada Niebla, the son of drug lord Vicente "El Mayo" Zambada, was arrested in an upscale Mexico City neighborhood, wearing a preppy ensemble of sports coat, designer jeans and striped cotton shirt.

    Vicente Carrillo Leyva, the son of another drug lord, was collared around the same time wearing a jogging suit emblazoned with the name "Abercrombie."

    Media coverage also can promote the trend. Newly captured capos are paraded before television cameras wearing the latest narco-fashion, often with beautiful girlfriends at their sides. Authorities allow some, like J.J., to sit down for interviews looking self-assured, fit and unrepentant.

    "My business improved. Everybody wanted to work with me," Balderas said of the notoriety he achieved while a wanted man.

    It wouldn't be the first time designers have faced an unexpected market. Uber-preppy designer Tommy Hilfiger's clothes became a must-have item for inner-city youths a few years ago.

    For Galicia Castillo, the psychologist, it's all about standing out, identifying oneself as a member of a certain sector of a crowded world, probably much the same reason people shell out $145 for the original: "That's why I wear it, so that everyone will look at me, will see that I can afford this. And I could be a narco, so don't mess with me."
    “the misery of being exploited by capitalists is nothing compared to the misery of not being exploited at all” -- Joan Robinson

  • #2
    Just another example of how pervasive the drug-trafficking "industry" has become in Mexican culture. It's a shame. It's a proud country, proud people...but hopelessly and thoroughly infected by a disease that no amount of prevention or aggressive intervention can cure. And the drug "consumers" of this country and the world have played a major part in Mexico's demise. Thinking that drug enforcement might someday gain an upper hand is being in denial...at this point we stand about as much chance of eradicating drug trafficking as we do of ridding the world of cockroaches.

    Comment


    • #3
      Maybe vaccines tailored to neutralize the effects of drugs would be useful?

      Scientists Try to Take the Fun Out of Drugs - Hit & Run : Reason Magazine

      Comment


      • #4
        yea Mexico is not the only country that does that, rap\drug\money is even bigger cult in us, for kids, just look at rap videos on line, you 'll see a lot of drugs, guns, slogans like kill cops,...etc. all out in the open,
        school kids today know a lot better who sleeps with who, and what rapper signed with what record label, that what they study in school. this disease is a lot bigger than mexico's drug fashion, and its influence, which imo drives counterfeit business thru the roof, i doubt average Mexican can afford, or would spend $$$ on original polo shirt.
        "Democracy is two wolves and a lamb voting on what to have for lunch. Liberty is a well-armed lamb contesting the vote!" B. Franklin

        Comment


        • #5
          Originally posted by Skywatcher View Post
          Maybe vaccines tailored to neutralize the effects of drugs would be useful?

          Scientists Try to Take the Fun Out of Drugs - Hit & Run : Reason Magazine
          no. wrong answer.
          it will be never ending battle , same as virus\antibiotic war we fight every day in labs.
          you will just give more reasons to drug cartels develop other drugs, and more of them.
          you can't fight ppl's addictions.
          "Democracy is two wolves and a lamb voting on what to have for lunch. Liberty is a well-armed lamb contesting the vote!" B. Franklin

          Comment


          • #6
            What about prohibition, look what it did for organized crime. I see this as a result of a similar prohibition with drugs, particularly marijuana, and pain relievers - people who are in pain will do whatever it takes to get relief. How about letting them obtain pain relief legally? If it drugs were legal, where would the drug cartels be? Some people can't be protected from themselves, the "war on drugs" has produced this situation.
            sigpic"If your plan is for one year, plant rice. If your plan is for ten years, plant trees.
            If your plan is for one hundred years, educate children."

            Comment


            • #7
              absolutely, i agree.
              "Democracy is two wolves and a lamb voting on what to have for lunch. Liberty is a well-armed lamb contesting the vote!" B. Franklin

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