Meet Cori Rios of Airizona Wear in Phoenix

Today we’d like to introduce you to Cori Rios.

Cori, before we jump into specific questions about the business, why don’t you give us some details about you and your story.
I would have to say my story and my love for the desert started at a very young age. I was lucky enough to grow up adjacent to a beautiful little hidden mountain range around the North mountain area where me and my sister spent almost all of our free time wandering around, building forts and collecting all types of rocks and desert findings. That desert wanderlust stuck with me throughout pretty much my entire life and has instilled a deep love for Arizona and all of the southwest. That love for the desert only seemed to grow the older I got.

Starting around the age of 13 I fell in love with the guitar. I couldn’t put it down and became influenced by Flamenco style guitar & Desert rock. I loved anything that sounded like it came from the desert, it was something I could identify with. Moving forward in life, I decided to chase the musician dream after a short stint at NAU in Flagstaff studying Visual Communications. Eventually, I formed my current music project The Hourglass Cats and decided we were going to be a Sonoran Rocknroll, Desert Reggae & Hip Hop collective. With the band, we ended up doing a lot of traveling all over Arizona, CA, Southwest & parts of Mexico. During those travels, I had started to amass a large collection of Arizona shirts. You know those weird gas stations in the middle of nowhere that sell kind of tacky, but awesome Arizona shirts? Yeah like those.

Eventually, it had pretty much taken over my whole wardrobe. During one of the many Mexico trips the band has taken to go play down in Rocky Point, I lost my all time favorite Arizona shirt. I was so bummed about not being able to ever find the shirt again that I was inspired to start making my own Arizona shirts. A few months later I came up with the idea for Arizona Wear. At first, I started the idea just strictly to make clothes for myself and give the extras away as gifts for friends & family but the shirts started to catch on so much that I decided to take it to the next level and that lead to what it is now.

We’re always bombarded by how great it is to pursue your passion, etc – but we’ve spoken with enough people to know that it’s not always easy. Overall, would you say things have been easy for you?
I would say that things have worked out better than I could have expected. I wouldn’t say that it has been a smooth road, but I also didn’t expect to take my closet idea to where it is right now. The first year I was pretty much just giving away everything I made to my friends so it was more of a passion project than anything. It wasn’t until we linked up with Kevin & Nate over at Open Mind Emporium that things started to take off. They told me they wanted to open up a shop in one of the malls and I jumped at the opportunity. Open Mind Emporium opened up shop in Scottsdale Fashion Square mall and became the only local art/ apparel shop in that whole mall. The first month at the shop I had tripled my sales for the whole year prior. The store also allowed me to see what people liked and how to present my art & apparel in a way where the typical consumer would be interested in it. Eventually, Kevin was nice enough to teach some of the local brand owners how to do some of the printing and embroidery themselves and that changed the game for us.

Tell us more about the business.
Airizona Wear is a Sonoran inspired art, apparel & lifestyle brand for all the adventurous desert dwellers out there. It’s clothing that can be worn while adventuring the desert on a hike, Snowboarding up north or dancing the night away at a music festival. Our custom brand apparels are each hand dyed or bleached to create unique one of kind shirts, hats or beanies for one of a kind people. We also offer a wide collection of Arizona inspired local art ranging from stickers to Polaroid art to small and large spray paint canvases.

One thing that sets us apart from most apparel brands is we also offer a line of what we call “upcylced clothing.” A collection of vintage and thrift apparel that we have gathered and added our personal touch of bleach or dye to give it a unique spin on an already unique piece of clothing.

Who else deserves credit – have you had mentors, supporters, cheerleaders, advocates, clients or teammates that have played a big role in your success or the success of the business? If so – who are they and what role did they plan / how did they help.
Airizona was made possible by my group of friends and family that have always supported me in every art project I’ve involved myself in. They’ve always lent me their valued opinion as well as helped inspire some of the art and fashion that we’ve put out. I’ve always had a lot of help from my team from designing the website, helping with social media, modeling & photographing as well as representing the clothing around Arizona and spreading the word. I would also have to give a huge shout out to Kevin over at Open Mind Redesign, he helped me get the ball rolling with this little idea I had and printed the first few rounds of shirts and eventually taught me how to print and embroider some of the shirts, hats and beanies myself. Not to mention, joining as part of the team at Open Mind Emporium at Fashion Square Mall made a huge impact on connecting our brand with customers outside of my network bubble.

Pricing:

• Custom Bleached Tshirt $25
• Upcycled Tshirt $20
• Art $5 – $45
• Southwest Bandanas $15
• Hats & Beanies $15

Contact Info:

• Website: Airizonawear.com
• Email: Airizonawear@gmail.com
• Instagram: @airizonawear
• Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/AirizonaWear/
• Twitter: https://twitter.com/airizonawear

Image Credit:
All Photos are mine except for
Sedona Blue Bleach – Lawrence Fung
& Key board Player sunglasses – Dee Ann Deaton

Suggest a story: VoyagePhoenix is built on recommendations from the community; it’s how we uncover hidden gems, so if you or someone you know deserves recognition please let us know here.