Lifestyle
They’re fronting, they’re flexing, they’re bonding. Celebrating an immigrant family photo tradition
Artist and founder of Tlaloc Studios Ozzie Juarez, and film director-model-multidisciplinary artist Pablo Simental.
The photos are warm and grainy, some of them taken at an angle. They show four young men smiling — no, beaming. It’s 1991: The jackets are puffy, the shoes are high-top, and the hair is specific. In the photo, the men are somewhere in Beverly Hills, where, whether they realized it or not, they were manifesting a new future. Standing in front of the large glass windows of a luxury car showroom at night, butterfly doors opening up like angel wings in the background, the men in the photos feel like they’re on the precipice of something special. They’re fronting, they’re flexing, they’re bonding.
The people in the images are the elders of Image’s fashion director at large, Keyla Marquez, captured at time when they’d recently immigrated to L.A. from El Salvador. This was their ritual: After endless days working at restaurants, Marquez’s uncles, father and family friend would book it to Beverly Hills, where they’d post up in front of fancy car dealerships that sold Ferraris, Porsches and Rolls-Royces, and have photo shoots. In the moment, it was something to do, a reason to get out of the two-bedroom apartment they shared with three families, a way to take up space in this new city. It’s a photographic tradition that was familiar to photographer Thalía Gochez, whose own father came to the U.S. from El Salvador as a young teenager and also used to take pictures of himself in front of classic cars around L.A., inscribed with love notes to her mother on the back. For both sets of families, these photos were hard proof: that they were here, that they had made it.
Keyla Marquez’s uncles, father and family friend in 1991.
(Courtesy of Keyla Marquez)
This editorial is Marquez and Gochez’s re-creation of these relics left behind by the men in their family. It was brought to life with two of Marquez’s closest friends as models, whom she describes as her “babies”: artist and founder of Tlaloc Studios Ozzie Juarez, and film director-model-multidisciplinary artist Pablo Simental. The energy at the photo shoot was nothing short of familial, with Marquez, Gochez, Juarez and Simental all understanding the vision through a sort of shorthand. With the project, Marquez and Gochez honor this ritual as an art form, and cement it as a Latino immigrant tradition.
Keyla Marquez: My mom has photos laying everywhere. I opened a shoebox and on the top was [a] photo of my uncle. I was like, “¿Mami, qué es esto?” She was like, “Your dad and your uncles — because they used to all work at restaurants — after they would get done with work, on the weekends, they would go and cruise Beverly Hills and take photos in front of cars.” They would send those photos back to El Salvador and be like, “Look, this is what life in America is.” I [thought] it would be cool to do something inspired by this.
For this story, I really wanted to work with Thalía. … So much of her work is Latino, brown stories. I reached out to her and gave her the whole spiel via DM. I sent her a photo of my uncle. And then [Thalía] responded, and [was] like, “Yo, my dad used to do the exact same thing.” And then she shared a photo of her dad and was like, “My dad used to take photos in front of cars, and none of them were his and he would write things in the back of the photos, too.” Our families are so cute. Here we are, just fronting. It was meant to be.
Pablo (left) wears Louis Vuitton top, jacket, pants, Jacques Marie Mage sunglasses, Toga shoes. Ozzie (right) wears Louis Vuitton, personal jewelry, Locs sunglasses.
Thalía Gochez: I’ve always been a fan of Keyla’s work. And we both followed each other for a minute. When she DMd me, I was like, “Let me open this right away.” I was super excited when I heard the actual concept. A big part of my artistic practice is honoring lineage and honoring story through style. It’s always been important for me to go beyond fashion to create a story and highlight identity. This [project] is so aligned with what I always want to do and what I already do. Also a big inspiration for me not only is my culture and heritage, but my childhood and my upbringing. I’m constantly looking through archives, through family photographs.
My dad passed away when I was 15. He was a huge car guy. That’s how he put food on the table. He would sell really rare Porsche parts — we always had classic cars in the driveway. He was a one-man show. But before I was born, he would take a lot of photographs in front of cool cars, and it’s exactly what Keyla said, he would write things to my family back in El Salvador. It wouldn’t just be in front of cars, it would be in front of restaurants, fountains, this idea of luxury. This is such a rare shared experience. It’s a true sense of community — that word is hyperpopularized, but this right here, what we’re doing, is community-building. That’s what’s so important about art and what photography can actually do.
Thalía Gochez’s father in Los Angeles. (Courtesy of Thalía Gochez)
KM: I think it’s a ritual that a lot of immigrant families partake in. Even when we were shooting [this editorial], a lot of tourists were literally posing to take photos in front of the Louis Vuitton store. It’s still happening, it’s just a little more polished now. For my family, [it was] putting on their Sunday’s best and just going and taking photos in front of places selling the American dream. It’s their definition of luxury. Especially Beverly Hills — in El Salvador, you think it’s so elegant and so unattainable, that’s where all the rich people live. Then you go, and it’s not what you think it is, but you still want to sell this image and this idea, and it’s like, “What are the places that we can go and take photos of?” The stores and the car dealerships. I think it’s letting people know that “look, we crossed the border, and it was all worth it, because here’s this photo.”
TG: For my father, when I look at those photographs, there’s a spiritual aspect to it. He was kind of manifesting this life. He was like, “Oh, hey, look at this car. I don’t have it yet, but stay tuned.” And a lot of the cars he did [end up having]. It’s a very hard thing to leave your home country, come into a new space, and have this access to luxury. A lot of it, too, is empowering. Like, “Look, I came all the way over here. I’m in front of this amazing building, in front of this car, and I feel empowered, I feel this is mine in some way.” Even growing up, I remember going on car rides with my dad and my family through nice neighborhoods and looking at all the houses, even in Beverly Hills. Maybe he didn’t have that access to do that in his home country. But here, it’s within reach. It feels like a part of his story.
KM: I wonder what conversations they had hanging out there taking photos. Like, who brought the camera?! Who was just like, “Nos vamos ir a tomar fotos”? You see a softness in those photos that you usually don’t see in Latino men.
TG: It’s incredibly vulnerable too because, yeah, they’re manifesting, but it’s technically not theirs.
KM: My family worked a lot when they first moved here, day and night at Chinese food restaurants. They lived in a two-bedroom apartment — it was three families. At night, it was like, “Let’s go out and drive around and have a moment outside from our apartment where we don’t even have space.” They had to go out to have a moment to bond with the other men in the family. It was mostly just not having resources and using the sidewalk as a resource to hang out.
Pablo wears Balmain top, jacket, pants, Jacques Marie Mage sunglasses, Toga shoes.
Ozzie wears Gucci, personal jewelry, Tecova boots.
TG: There was definitely a lack of space to explore your imagination, so they created their own little spaces. Backtrack to when [my dad] was in his 20s, he was a huge storyteller. When he was trying to pick up my mom, he would take pictures of himself and write novels about it and send it to her. When I look back at his life, and how he moved, he was very much an artist. He would take the most beautiful portraits of my mother. I also wanted to ask who took these photos of him. Would he do a timer? He was a very solo man, so I need to know more. Maybe one day I’ll have that privilege of learning that.
KM: I come from a very religious family, where people just pray for you nonstop. [Seeing these photos], it was like our prayers had been answered. Crossing a border was really hard back then, and everyone in my family did it. [It was like] all those extreme, super dangerous things were not in vain. Every time [family members from El Salvador] come here, they’re like, “Take us to all the places that you sent us photos of.” [We take] the family to the Hollywood sign, [to] Rodeo. When I first started making good money, I took my mom to the Gucci store to buy some shoes. That’s a big deal for immigrant families. Never in a million years did my mom think she would be buying something from a store on Rodeo.
TG: I feel like we’re not normally allotted that opportunity. I think [my family’s perspective] was that they thought he was just rich.
KM: They all think we’re rich. Like, “They’re millionaires in America.”
TG: Obviously, [my dad] wasn’t [rich] in our perspective, but he was earning and had access to even just clothes, food, resources that they didn’t have access to. So in their eyes, he was this success.
KM: It’s important to let the world know how much value there is in these stories. When you bring in some of these brands that are not accessible to the world — some of the looks that I got are probably not even going to get made to be sold in stores, there’s so much exclusivity in that world — for me, it’s like bridging that gap. I can bring in that world because of the agency that I have in this world. And I can bring in my community and my friends, and bring in this memory from my family. Bringing all these things together and retelling this story, that’s such a superpower. I can’t wait to see how many people are going to be like, “My family used to do that, too.” I was in the car coming home [from the shoot] and I was just crying because I’m so grateful and blessed that I get to do this. An immense feeling of gratitude and love that I get to tell these stories.
TG: For me, it was important to honor my father. Honor what he used to do. A lot of the blessings I have today in my life are because of him, because he did dream, because he did create those spaces for himself. I am reaping the benefits from his labor, from his resilience, from his tenacity, from his ambition. He came to America at 14 years old with $10 in his pocket. And now, I’m able to support myself fully financially from my art and that’s such a privilege. I wouldn’t have been able to do that if he didn’t didn’t lay down the foundation. So a big part of this project for me was just to honor him and the rituals he used to do.
KM: That’s the goal with everything that I do: the ripple effect it causes. What is it going to inspire a younger me to do? I wish I had seen someone like me growing up.
Production Mere Studios
Models Ozzie Juarez, Pablo Simental
Grooming Carla Perez
Styling Assistant Deirdre Marcial
Pinstripe Art Diana Ramirez
You want to see some real fashion ingenuity? Watch the N.F.L. draft.
I’m not saying it’s all good, but where else are you going to see someone in a double-breasted suit made by a company better known for making yoga pants? Or an Abercrombie & Fitch suit jacket so short that it exposes the belt loops on the pants beneath?
On the whole, the style on display at the N.F.L. draft last night was very overeager senior formal: a lot of suits in colors beyond basic blue. The quarterback Ty Simpson wore a custom suit by the athleisure label Alo, which, I have to say, looked better than I would have envisioned had you said the words “Alo Yoga suit” to me.
I thought it might have been from Suitsupply, but the conspicuous “Alo” pin on his right lapel put that idea to rest. Simpson, smartly, unfastened that beacon before appearing onstage as the 13th pick to the Los Angeles Rams. He had, perhaps, satisfied his contractual obligations by that point.
Earlier in the evening, as the wide receiver Carnell Tate threw up his arms in exaltation after being picked fourth by the Tennessee Titans, his cropped Abercrombie & Fitch jacket revealed a swatch of rib cage. He looked like a mâitre d’ who had just hit the Mega Millions.
During the N.B.A.’s extended fashion awakening, its draft has become a sandbox for luxury brands to cozy up to would-be endorsers. The Frenchman Victor Wembanyama broke a kind of cashmere ceiling when he wore Louis Vuitton to go first overall in the 2023 N.B.A. draft.
The N.F.L. draft has none of that. The brands you see are often not brands at all, but custom tailors that reach the league’s neophytes through a whisper network among players. The draft is also a platform to raise the curtain on longer-term brand deals that better suit these rookies. We may, for instance, never see Simpson in a suit again. Nearly every photo from his time at Alabama shows him in a T-shirt or hoodie. It makes sense for him to sign with Alo.
Football is the most mainstream of American cultural entities. And it’s one that still hasn’t, in spite of the league’s best efforts, taken off overseas. Few players, save some quarterbacks and a tight end who happens to be engaged to a pop star, feel bigger than the game itself. If you’re a new-to-the-league linebacker, you’ll most likely never harness the star power to grab the attention of Armani, but you might have just the right pull for Abercrombie.
The N.F.L. draft is therefore one of the few red carpets where the brands worn by the athletes may also be worn by those watching at home. How many people watching the Oscars will ever own clothes from Louis Vuitton or Chanel? People may comment online about Lady Gaga wearing Matières Fécales to the Grammys, but how many of those fans and viewers could afford to buy clothes from it?
The Japanese designers changing fashion
Yesterday, I published a deep dive into how a newish crop of Japanese designers are soaking up all the attention in men’s fashion right now. This was a piece I was writing in my head long before I sat down and finally started typing. I remember sitting at a fashion show in Paris over a year ago — I believe it was Dior — and being asked by my seatmate if I’d made it over to a showroom in the Marais to check out A.Presse. That Tokyo-based brand is now part of a vanguard of Japanese labels that, on many days, seems to be all anyone in fashion wants to talk about. I spent months talking with designers, store owners and big-time shoppers to make sense of why these brands have kicked up so much buzz and, more than that, what makes their clothes so great. You can read the story here.
Other things worth knowing about:
Thirty years ago, comedian and actor Tig Notaro didn’t have a clear direction in life, so she followed some childhood friends who wanted to get into entertainment to Los Angeles. Secretly wanting to do stand-up, Notaro decided to try her luck at various outlets in town, which became the start of her successful career.
“I stayed on my friends’ couch near the Hollywood Improv on Melrose, and a couple months later, got my own studio apartment in the Miracle Mile area,” Notaro says. “I love all the options for everything in L.A. — the entertainment, the restaurants. I like to stay active. So many people love the hiking options in Los Angeles, and I’m one of them.”
In Sunday Funday, L.A. people give us a play-by-play of their ideal Sunday around town. Find ideas and inspiration on where to go, what to eat and how to enjoy life on the weekends.
Notaro appears in Season 3 of Apple TV’s “The Morning Show” and is a series regular on Paramount+’s “Star Trek: Starfleet Academy,” as she was on “Star Trek: Discovery.” She’s also a touring stand-up comic and hosts “Handsome,” a comedy podcast, with Fortune Feimster and Mae Martin. The trio will be taping a live show May 4 at the Wiltern with the cast of Netflix’s “The Hunting Wives.” The live shows include interviews, but also “incorporate some ridiculous things,” she says. For example, upon hearing that some of the hosts always wanted to learn to tap dance, Notaro “hired a tap instructor to come to our live show in Austin and teach us how to tap dance in front of the audience.”
Notaro lives near Hollywood with her wife, actor Stephanie Allynne, their 9-year-old fraternal twin boys, Max and Finn, and three cats, Fluff, Linus and Skip. When she’s not touring, her ideal Sundays include sampling vegan restaurants, wandering through bookstores or museums, and doing something physically active with the family.
This interview has been lightly edited and condensed for length and clarity.
6 a.m.: Up with the kids
Because we have active children, we still wake up at 6 a.m. or 6:30 a.m. on Sunday, but there’s not as much of a rush to get going. Stephanie and I will often have coffee and chat in the living room together. I love that part of the day. Stephanie may cook breakfast, but Max and Finn are pretty self-sufficient and can make certain little meals for themselves. Max is really starting to take an interest in cooking, so he’d make breakfast for himself. Our family is vegan, but he eats eggs, so he makes himself an egg sandwich with avocado a lot of times.
9 a.m.: Daily morning walk
After breakfast, we usually have a morning walk around our neighborhood. That’s a daily thing I like to do, regardless of what’s going on. Now that I’m not touring as much, tennis is back on the schedule. So I’d go to Plummer Park in West Hollywood and play for a while, then join the family for lunch.
11:30 a.m.: Hike with a side of chickpea sandwich
I love Trails, a cafe in Griffith Park, where you can eat outdoors. It serves simple food, and has good vegan options. I usually get their chickpea salad sandwich. The food there is great. Afterward, we’d visit Griffith Observatory, where there’s lots to see. There are lots of great trails in the park, so we’d go for an hour hike before leaving.
3 p.m.: Browse the shelves for rock biographies
Bookstores are fun, so we’d head downtown for the Last Bookstore, which is in a historic building with lots of vintage books. I really love all things plant-based, and I’m a very big music fanatic. So I love to look for vegan books, nutrition books, rock biographies and autobiographies. It’s just fun to browse around the stacks.
If we didn’t go to the bookstore, we’d probably go to LACMA. Our sons are huge fans of art and want to go for each new exhibit. They love Hockney, Basquiat and Picasso, to name a few.
4 p.m.: Cuddle with cuties at a cat cafe
We’d then make a quick stop at [Crumbs & Whiskers], a kitten and cat cafe on Melrose for coffee, snacks and to pet the cats. It’s best to make reservations in advance. There’s cats all around the place that need to be adopted. You can visit and pet them, or find a new roommate. I’d love to take some home, but we already have three.
5:30 p.m. Italian or sushi, but make it vegan
We’re an early dinner family. One restaurant we like is Pura Vita in West Hollywood. It’s the greatest vegan Italian food, and for non-vegans, nobody ever knows the difference. It’s the first 100% plant-based Italian restaurant in the United States. They make an incredible kale salad and I love the San Gennaro pizza. It’s got cashew mozzarella, tomato sauce, Italian sausage crumble and more.
Then there’s Planta in Marina del Rey. It’s right on the harbor and you can sit outside and look at the boats coming in and out. They have sushi, salads and other plant-based entrees. They’ve got a really great spicy tuna roll that’s made out of watermelon. They are magicians.
Or there’s Crossroads Kitchen in West Hollywood. They play the best classic rock, and the atmosphere is upscale, fine dining. The appetizers that we always get are called Moroccan Cigars, which are vegan meat substitutes fried in a rolled batter. I really like the grilled lion’s mane steak, their mushroom steak with truffle potatoes, or the scallopini Milanese, that has a chicken or tofu option. I get the chicken with arugula on top. I always love to have a decaf espresso with dessert, which is either a brownie sundae or banana pudding.
7:30 p.m.: Comfort watch or word games
After dinner, the kids often like to watch an episode of “Friends,” a show that all ages enjoy, sports or “The Simpsons.” Or we’d play a game where each of us will add a word to a sentence and create a weird or funny long sentence until one of our sons says period. Then they’ll try and remember the whole sentence and repeat it back.
9:30 p.m.: Bubble bath then bed
The boys usually go to bed at 8:30 p.m. and bedtime for us is 9:30 p.m. Stephanie and I would read or chat. I like to take a bubble bath, if people must know. The best Sundays for me mean finding a good balance of relaxing and being active. I feel very lucky that my family and I can do those things together.
When Marian Sherry Lurio and Jonathan Buffington Nguyen met at a mutual friend’s wedding at Higgins Lake, Mich., in July 2022, both felt an immediate chemistry. As the evening progressed, they sat on the shore of the lake in Adirondack chairs under the stars, where they had their first kiss before joining others for a midnight plunge.
The two learned that the following weekend Ms. Lurio planned to attend a wedding in Philadelphia, where Mr. Nguyen lives, and before they had even exchanged numbers, they already had a first date on the books.
“I have a vivid memory of after we first met,” Mr. Nguyen said, “just feeling like I really better not screw this up.”
Before long, they were commuting between Philadelphia and New York City, where Ms. Lurio lives, spending weekends and the odd remote work days in one another’s apartments in Philadelphia and Manhattan. Within the first six months of dating, Mr. Nguyen joined Ms. Lurio’s family for Thanksgiving in Villanova, Pa., and, the following month, she met his family in Beavercreek, Ohio, at a surprise birthday party for Mr. Nguyen’s mother.
Ms. Lurio, 32, who grew up in Merion Station outside Philadelphia, works in investor relations administration at Flexpoint Ford, a private equity firm. She graduated from Dartmouth College with a bachelor’s degree in history and psychology.
Mr. Nguyen, also 32, was born in Knoxville, Tenn., and raised in Beavercreek, Ohio, from the age of 7. He graduated from Haverford College with a bachelor’s degree in political science and is now a director at Doyle Real Estate Advisors in Philadelphia.
Their long-distance relationship continued for the next few years. There were dates in Manhattan, vacations and beach trips to the Jersey Shore. They attended sporting events and discovered their shared appreciation of the 2003 film, “Love Actually.”
One evening, Mr. Nguyen recalled looking around Ms. Lurio’s small New York studio — strewed with clothes and the takeout meal they had ordered — and feeling “so comfortable and safe.” “I knew that this was something different than just sort of a fling,” he said.
It was an open question when they would move in together. In 2024, Ms. Lurio began the process of moving into Mr. Nguyen’s home in Philadelphia — even bringing her cat, Scott — but her plans changed midway when an opportunity arose to expand her role with her current employer.
Mr. Nguyen was on board with her decision. “It almost feels like stolen valor to call it ‘long distance,’ because it’s so easy from Philadelphia to New York,” Mr. Nguyen said. “The joke is, it’s easier to get to Philly from New York than to get to some parts of Brooklyn from Manhattan, right?”
In January 2025, Mr. Nguyen visited Ms. Lurio in New York with more up his sleeve than spending the weekend. Together they had discussed marriage and bespoke rings, but when Mr. Nguyen left Ms. Lurio and an unfinished cheese plate at the bar of the Chelsea Hotel that Friday evening, she had no idea what was coming next.
“I remember texting Jonathan,” Ms. Lurio said, bewildered: “‘You didn’t go toward the bathroom!’” When a Lobby Bar server came and asked her to come outside, Ms. Lurio still didn’t realize what was happening until she was standing in the hallway, where Mr. Nguyen stood recreating a key moment from the film “Love Actually,” in which one character silently professes his love for another in writing by flashing a series of cue cards. There, in the storied Chelsea Hotel hallway still festooned with Christmas decorations, Mr. Nguyen shared his last card that said, “Will you marry me?”
They wed on April 11 in front of 200 guests at the Pump House, a covered space on the banks of Philadelphia’s Schuylkill River. Mr. Nguyen’s sister, the Rev. Elizabeth Nguyen, who is ordained through the Unitarian Universalist Association, officiated.
Although formal attire was suggested, Ms. Lurio said that the ceremony was “pretty casual.” She and Jonathan got ready together, and their families served as their wedding parties.
“I said I wanted a five-minute wedding,” Ms. Lurio recalled, though the ceremony ended up lasting a little longer than that. During the ceremony, Ms. Nguyen read a homily and jokingly added that guests should not ask the bride and groom about their living arrangements, which will remain separate for the foreseeable future.
While watching Ms. Lurio walk down the aisle, flanked by her parents, Mr. Nguyen said he remembered feeling at once grounded in the moment and also a sense of dazed joy: “Like, is this real? I felt very lucky in that moment — and also just excited for the party to start!”
-
New York42 minutes agoDemocrats Weigh Whether a Lawmaker’s Ethnicity Counts More Than Ideology
-
Detroit, MI1 hour agoPotential Day 3 Detroit Lions targets: 10 players to consider
-
San Francisco, CA1 hour agoKaelon Black selected by 49ers in NFL draft: Grade, analysis
-
Dallas, TX2 hours agoDallas Cowboys remaining draft selections after second and third rounds
-
Miami, FL2 hours agoHow much and where to park in Miami during a hurricane or flood threat
-
Boston, MA2 hours agoBuffalo visits Boston with 2-1 series lead
-
Denver, CO2 hours agoDenver Broncos’ Day 3 pivotal to expanding title window after only 1 draft pick so far
-
Seattle, WA2 hours ago
Neal selected by Seattle in 3rd round of NFL Draft
