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Lifted Research Group was founded in 1999 by Jonas Bevacqua (as shown) and Robert Wright. Jonas is Vietnamese and was adopted and raised by an Italian family. Jonas was a DJ and a valet parking attendant at the time while Robert was an emcee and designer. Jonas had all these ideas and designs in his head while Robert had the money to back it up. Together, they soon found the company known today as LRG. It first started as a little thing in Orange County but because of the innovative designs, it soon became far more popular than they had thought. The passion to design clothing for the underground urban community has lead LRG to truly become a revolutionary clothing company.
LRG began when Jonas was handing out shirts at skate parks and popular places in west side California. It has attracted the likes of many rappers such as Kanye, Bun B, Lupe Fiasco and many underground rappers as well. LRG first designed for men but in 2005, it started a female brand called Luxurie. They also do partnerships to do bmx bikes, snowboards, skateboards and accessories. LRG is mainly a brand for people that have a urban style whether they skate, surf or just want to be a notch above the others.
LRG has many logos and symbols on their clothing. They each have their own meaning as well as every piece of clothing they design. Their main logo is a tree which represents their slogan perfectly; underground inventive, overground effective. The tree’s roots represents the inventive part because that is where it all starts. Once a tree is fully grown, that is where the overground effective represents the final product. A lot of people believe the tree represents weed. The name is “Lifted” Research Group, although they claim lifted represents elevation, the ability to see above the rest, also represented by their giraffe logo. LRG has also used the slogan “Hustle Trees” on their clothing. Perhaps it is a big coincidence.
The brand definitely gives off an urban look. It mainly gives off a sense that you are into hip hop, you follow underground rappers, and you are the type that would like to work harder for what you want; “for the people that struggle to pay their rent”. They are becoming revolutionary by how big they have become in just 10 years. LRG is widely growing into a very popular brand as it was ranked #5 as one of the fastest growing industries as said by Entrepreneur magazine. They also have a limited LRG designed Sidekick by T-mobile. Innovations has lead Jonas Bevacqua to become co-owner of a very successful company of LRG.
I never realized that there was such an amazing story behind LRG. I see their clothes fairly often and I used to think of it as just another name brand of clothes, but I was obviously wrong. Im a fan of some local underground clothing companies, but most of my shopping actually comes from thrift stores
ReplyDeleteI've never really heard of LRG before, but their story seems really interesting. But, I think they would have quite the market selling to the kind of people that like that stuff. There are plenty of folk that like the rapper or "gangster" look.
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