For Ethnic Blend Clothing owners, Dejanelle and Thomas Boerner, representing a clothing brand like Nike was not enough, they wanted their clothing to have a personal message.
Ethnic Blend Clothing (EBC) is a local urban street-wear clothing brand designed to represent a multicultural and mixed world on T-shirts, tank tops and sweaters.
“We wanted to educate people through the clothing line. We are creating an awareness here in Sacramento,” through the Second Saturday Art Walk events called Mixture, and by wearing the brand, Boerner said.
One way the company intends to create awareness is by donating $1 of every T-shirt sold through the upcoming website to a scholarship fund specifically for high school students, who are interested in becoming artists, musicians or designers.
The ethnic blend concept was introduced in 1998 under the name Halfbreed Clothing, after marrying into a different culture, Boerner said he decided to reinvent the brand, and it changed to Ethnic Blend Clothing in 2005.
“A lot of people nowadays are either mixed or in inter-racial relationships or (part of) a blended family,” said Dejanelle Boerner, who is Filipino. Her husband is a blend of Thai, German and Italian.
The Boerners are no strangers to the area, they have owned and operated an event planning company called MXD Entertainment Group since 2000, which they use to spread the “mixed vive,” atmosphere by sponsoring events.
For the past six years, with a composition of multiple DJs, artists and sometimes fire dancers, the Second Saturday Art Walk event called Mixture, put on by MXD Entertainment Group, features Ethnic Blend Clothing and celebrates art, music and culture.
Local musician and beatboxer, Antoinette “Butterscotch” Clinton, 25, said she wears EBC tank tops when she works out.
“I really liked the message that they have because people are constantly asking me, ‘What are you?’ ” Clinton said.
Being a blend of German, Irish, African American and Native American, Clinton said that she thinks the brand is “great and groundbreaking.”
“It is cool to have a clothing brand that represents multicultural people,” Clinton continued. “I’ve never seen that before, so it is something cool and unique.”
Anthony Padilla, 34, is a local graphic designer and aerosol artist whose murals can be seen outside of the Sugar Shack Boutique and Hot Italian. The mural and billboard of the Sacramento Kings, installed on a fence at 16th and R streets, was also created by Padilla.
EBC uses silk screen printing to place their brand on cotton and polyester clothing, Padilla is one of the graphic artists that help EBC design the brand logos.
Being an ethnic blend of German, English, Spanish and Filipino, Padilla said, has allowed him to be a better person because he is not stuck in the traditional way of thinking.
Padilla said he recalls a trip to the Philippines in which he visited a museum and saw an inscription on a stone plaque explaining the ban of interracial marriages in 1905 between U.S. soldiers and Filipinos.
The plaque’s photo stated that in 1948 the law prohibiting mixed-race marriages was declared unconstitutional by the California Supreme Court.
“It is crazy to think how closed-minded the world was only 50 years ago,” Padilla wrote in an email.
Thomas Boerner said he is excited about expanding the EBC line with the launch of the website and a new clothing line for ages 10 and under called I’m Mixed!.
He said that they have started the groundwork for a trade show around the EBC and I’m Mixed! clothing lines called Texture, that plans to include local independent clothing designers and will be incorporated into Second Saturday Art Walk in October.
The Boerners said they plan to have a storefront downtown within the year, but will launch the website for purchases in mid-September called EthnicBlendClothing.com.
On Second Saturday Sept. 10, the Mixture event will have a booth on 19th and J streets in front of the Garlic Shack that will feature Ethnic Blend Clothing and three other clothing lines.
“The whole world is a big melting pot,” Padilla said. “Different races can move, and they bring with them their DNA and their culture. Bloodlines are crossing borders and boundaries, making one beautiful mixed race.”
To learn more about Ethnic Blend Clothing, visit the website by clicking here.
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