Jonas Bevacqua, who co-founded the Orange
County-based hip-hop and skateboarding clothing line known as LRG that
became an influential fashion leader, has died. He was 33.
Bevacqua was found dead inside his Laguna Beach,
Calif., home, the Orange County Sheriff’s Department said Tuesday.
Investigators were unsure how he died. An autopsy was expected to be
completed Wednesday.
Bevacqua, who co-founded the Irvine, Calif., company
with business partner Robert Wright in 1999, achieved success with
products that appealed to artists, athletes and musicians such as Kobe
Bryant and Kanye West.
LRG, or Lifted Research Group, created innovative
designs that combined urban wear with skate apparel, Hymie Betesh told
the Los Angeles Times on Tuesday. “In essence, they almost created a new
genre in sportswear,” said Betesh, chief executive of the clothing
company DrJays.com.
By 2006, LRG had annual sales of $150 million, according to a 2009 profile of Bevacqua in The Orange County Register.
Bevacqua was born Oct. 23, 1977, according to public
records, and was adopted into a family with six other adopted children
of different races and ethnicities. Bevacqua said his background helped
him succeed in the fashion industry.
“I didn’t feel there was a clothing company to bridge
the gap between all these different things that we were into — that
spoke for that melting pot of what was going on. That’s what LRG was all
about,” he told the Register.
Bevacqua is survived by his fiancee, son, parents and seven siblings, according to LRG.
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