Written by: Crystal Coburn

Bryan be. Espiritu: TheLegendsLeague & IdeallClothing

Just when you think you get it, you don’t. Just when you think you know him, you won’t. Welcome to TheLegendsLeague , established by Toronto’s own artist/writer/designer Bryan ‘be.’ Espiritu, and inspired by us since 1981. Don’t get it twisted though because not everyone can make it to TheLeague, and don’t be offended by his ability to disregard your insincerity with one design and one line. The onslaught is not completely intentional, nor is it his sole purpose. Because to Bryan the love for his craft and the integrity behind it is greater than any of us may ever be ready for. The complexity of his many layers is really very simple, but this doesn’t mean any of us are not smart enough to “get it.” Instead, we’re not honest enough with ourselves to be open to understanding his admissions that frighteningly question our own. So in fact, we may be smarter than is necessary to understand him.

If you were aware of Espiritu when Myspace was still the place to be you would have come across his page for TheLegendsLeague, read the welcome mat, and still been baffled by the tenants living there. As time passed and you checked back in to see what you had missed your understanding should have grown, but if it hasn’t let him clarify it for you.

“TheLegendsLeague came up from a conversation I had with Gavin Sheppard from The Remix Project…I wanted to start this site that kind of puts some shine on the people that inspired and influenced me…So TheLegendsLeague is basically the pool of individuals and experiences that have influenced me to live in the way that I’ve lived; both negatively and positively,” explains Espiritu.

That conversation was about four years ago and since then Bryan has taken off with his site running at the keyboard recording the things he’s seen, felt and heard through his expression of music, poetry, drawings, and completely candid posts.

While he could have easily done reposts on some of the coolest gadgets and fashion forward clothing other blogs already had he stayed with what was most honest to him. Which is why his number of readers continues to grow and the people that have been around since Myspace are still around.

Highlighting strong influences in the beginning such as Che Chothari, Angus Mcpherson, Bjorn Arthur without the intention of being a name dropper, Espiritu says, “I never really have a shortage of things to pull from because of the amount of things that have happened in my life, and the amount of people I have been fortunate enough to come in contact with.”

However not everything he expresses is easily understood, a reality he found harder to deal with in the beginning as he was still mostly writing for himself. “Sometimes I may put something up and you take from it what you will but you may not understand it totally…I was getting a little bit frustrated…What makes it hard is sometimes when it’s so close to [my] heart and the response to what [I’m] doing isn’t exactly as [I] meant it,” says Espiritu as he tries to explain the difficulties of being misinterpreted.

To explain how he would be able to make people understand his message better ultimately through his clothing line IdeallClothing he says, “They gotta hear you before they listen, and they gotta see you before they watch.”

“Not everyone was totally understanding the concept of TheLegendsLeague [and] I always wanted to get into the clothing thing,” says Espiritu.

It seems like every day someone is saying the same thing and wants to turn their shopping habits into a career designing clothes. It also seems like everyday people are rushing their ideas and not really designing anything worth holding onto. After a couple of trips in the washing machine it’s not just the colour that starts to fade.

Fortunately enough this is not the case for Espiritu. With TheLegendsLeague as the backbone for IdeallClothing Espiritu has been able to survive the rinse cycle, as early in the fashion game as he is. This is a rare occasion where the colour may fade, but the quality remains because it’s more about the message on the shirts than the threads holding the fabric together. As Espiritu explains, “It is really more than clothing. For those who care about that it’s always gunna be around and it’s always gunna mean something,” and because of that selling product has always been easy for him.

By making sure the pieces he creates relate back conceptually to something in his life he has been able to reach other people. Even when he first alerted Myspacers’ to meet him at a spot in downtown Toronto called China Doll to purchase a shirt of “The James’s,” which celebrated the lives of James Brown, J Dilla, and Rick James, his product flew fast.

“It felt like running legal drugs…I had a pocket full of fives and an empty pocket and people was just coming up…and buying multiples and there was only 3 shirts! But then I left with no product and a pocket full of money,” says Espiritu proudly.

Now with his online store a success nine months and counting, as well as having his clothing  stocklisted at Livestock in Toronto it’s safe to say that he’s followed his heart in the right direction.

“The thing with doing stuff that’s close to my heart is, I said this when I started Ideall…and I’ll maintain this, is that if I don’t feel like it’s right anymore, or if I don’t feel like it connects to me anymore…I’m just gunna stop. I have no plans on selling it to anybody ever even if it’s at that point where things are just great and somebody is offering to buy it. I will not do that and I won’t have designers doing random shit. I’ll end it,” says Espiritu.

So you see Espiritu is not the kind of person to take advantage of although it’s understandable that you might at first. One day you might consider his kindness to be his weakness because he’s smiling at you from ear to ear. But on another day, perhaps the day you walk into Livestock and see an Ideall t-shirt for sale, not on sale, of a blond white woman deep-throating a baseball bat with the words “Get off Ya’knees. You Ain’t From NY” beside the image you may say, “damn this guy is serious!” That’s the thing with Espiritu. One picture is not the whole picture. So pardon yourself for not getting it at first, because he’s not just fuckin’ with you.

Welcome to TheLegendsLeague.