Designer puts Brockton pride at center of emerging fashion line

BROCKTON – The front of the shirt says “BrocktonMag” in cursive. The back is a cartoon Boxer dog biting down on a newspaper, a nod to the high school’s mascot. It comes in four colors and it’s sold out.

With fewer than 100,000 residents living only a short drive from Boston, it can be hard for local culture to flourish in Brockton, with so many residents drawn to the capital’s shopping centers, concert halls and sports arenas. But the BrocktonMag shirt, with its understated embroidery, its fashionable color choices, and its association with wheely-popping ATV riders celebrated on the collective’s Instagram page, embodies a brand that’s ready to draw attention from cosmopolitan Boston toward the fast-changing former factory city.

The shirt’s designer, Fabio Cula, said Brockton has a flourishing homegrown fashion scene, where dozens of artists peddle personal brands on social media, putting out shirts, sweatshirts and hats that young people mix into their outfits alongside professional brands.

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Cula founded BrocktonMag in 2016 with two friends, Lucia Cerci and Felicia Lauture, as a way of showcasing this work to a region that turns it head toward Brockton only rarely. Cula, now 26, said he designed the BrocktonMag shirt as a way to bring attention to the social media page.

“The main thing was to change the narrative around the name Brockton,” Cula said. “I want people wearing my shirt to know I take pride in being from here.”

When the design proved popular, Cula put it on sweatshirts, hats and other apparel, collaborating with a stable of friends – one of them an architect-in-training, another a tattoo artist – to put out new pieces.

Sold in small runs that customers order by sending Cula a message on social media, the Brockton-themed garments are hard to come by. If you miss a pre-order, it could be months before Cula is convinced to print another set. Shy about marketing his work as upscale "streetwear," Cula charges less than many of his contemporaries, with the last t-shirt coming out at $30.

Cula's latest design, with a revamped Boxer dog logo and a United Nations-style emblem on the back saying “Brockton Worldwide,” will run in several colors as a t-shirt and sweatshirt. He’s taking orders until July 7.

Cula, born in Portugal to Cape Verdean parents, has lived in Brockton since 2003, when his family followed an aunt to the city in search of better economic prospects.

Interested in fashion, Cula instead focused his energy in high school on soccer, playing midfield for Brockton High’s varsity team. His parents worked at an airplane parts factory and an Amazon shipping center, jobs that eventually paid for a house on Tribou Street but left Cula without much cash to develop an evolving sense of style.

“Besides sports, I didn’t have an outlet to be creative,” Cula said. “Maybe some other kids did, maybe their parents were financially better off and they could do something private. I didn’t have anything to help me fuel my ideas, or to help me push my creative side.”

Cula briefly studied business at Massassoit Community College, taking an indefinite hiatus after his first season of college soccer ended. He found a job teaching at a school for developmentally disabled students in Brockton, putting in time during his off hours to develop BrocktonMag’s online presence.

Despite the name, a print magazine remains an aspiration for the group, with the bulk of their publicity channeled through Facebook, Instagram and Snapchat these days. The live art showcases BrocktonMag organized have been put on indefinite hold during the coronavirus pandemic.

Fashion, meanwhile, has remained an active creative medium for Cula. He produces clothes in small lots of less than 100, usually selling out the entire order before the apparel leaves the printing shop where it’s manufactured in Pawtucket, Rhode Island. Cula invests only the money he can secure in pre-orders, citing a reluctance to overextend himself financially with such a small business.

But he’s frequently asked to reprint popular runs of his clothing and, a few times a year, he obliges, creating a buzz on social media when it comes time to take orders.

Cula has flirted with the idea of printing larger runs of BrocktonMag shirts, and shopping the stock around at local streetwear boutiques like Banks & Brancos or Johnny Soles.

But while fashion gives Cula a way to contribute to an arts scene he wants to grow in Brockton, and he talks of plans for new socks and women’s shorts to keep the BrocktonMag brand from “seeming lazy,” Cula said his most pressing ambitions lie elsewhere.

“What I really want is a building,” he said, describing a storefront where BrocktonMag’s presence on social media could become a physical reality, with space for artists to produce music videos, paint pictures, design clothes and showcase their work.

In a city that’s struggled to make use of the commercial space left behind by a long-departed shoe industry, Cula knows there’s room.

“Every day I drive through Brockton I’m looking at abandoned places,” he said. “I’m thinking, 'Wow, that could be it, that could be it, that could be it'.”

Staff writer Ben Berke can be reached at bberke@enterprisenews.com