From the blended Spanish Colonial Revival and Art Deco architecture of the historic Hotel de Anza to the bustling sounds of designers scrambling to get their looks on point, the first-ever San Jose Day Fashion Showcase was a spectacle to remember.
People move to San Francisco to be free. People move to San Jose to be innovative. No matter where you land, fashion in the Bay has always been led by personal style and the communities that live here. In planning this fashion showcase, graphic designer, Muralist, and co-director of San José Day, Jorge “J.Duh” Camacho, wanted to bring a fresh element to this annual event.
J.Duh’s industry connections in San Francisco gave him the sense that the city was disconnected from other parts of the Bay Area, but also inspired him. For San José Day, he imagined a collaboration among fashion designers from across the South Bay and beyond. The final showcase featured San Francisco Fashion Designer Nolan Kenji, San Jose Fashion Designers Henry Manolis, Ramona Rebel, SewKali, and Coldwater Collective, alongside Students from the West Valley College Cilker School of Art and Design. Through creative collaboration, J.Duh brought designers together to share ideas, coordinate, and create a rhythmic showcase for fashion lovers.
The event started with a photo walk led by San Jose Shooters, beginning at Foto Express and ending at the De Anza Hotel. The evening moved into a VIP cocktail hour that got attendees into the spirit for a spectacular show. For the main event, emcee Josue Ramirez, owner of the local vintage shop and gallery space Vago Super, kicked off the show, stating, “The real gems are by and for the people of San Jose.” Ramirez led the audience through the show, while rounds of applause and cheering filled the Hotel courtyard. The West Valley College fashion design students received a particular buzz of excitement before and after the runway show. Following the showcase was a panel discussion with Ryan Mante and Marisela Cristina Gonzales Ginestra. The conversation, moderated by Marisela, focused on designers’ views of fashion’s impact on the community.
Marisela Cristina Gonzales Ginestra, who was born and raised in San Jose, is currently a Denim Designer at Levi Strauss and co-curator at the San Jose Museum of Quilts & Textiles. In a side conversation outside the panel, she shared what it was like as an aspiring fashionista growing up in San Jose. She agreed that San Jose has two extremes–on one end, there can be scrutiny toward individuals who express their originality and personal style, where those who dress out of the norm may receive looks and judgmental comments; on the other end, there is a desire to turn each look into a statement, where creative expression is fueled by that same tension.
Henry Manolis
Designer, Henry Manolis responded to the prompt by saying, “San Jose is a boiling pot of diversity, and because of that, fashion really works in bringing people together and sharing ideas and perspectives.” His recent collection is inspired by his latest life stage as a new father.
“Clothes can be more than materialistic; they tell stories.” -Brian Nemedez.
Coldwater, a fashion collective based in San Jose’s Japantown, was founded by three brothers who believed they could share their story through a brand. The collection they presented was inspired by their childhood experiences, going fishing with their dad. Content Magazine covered their story back in 2024, sharing the magic that runs through Coldwater’s veins.
Coldwater was originally featured in Content Magazine’s Fall 2024 issue 16.4, “Perform”
Local San Jose fashion designer Ramona Rebel runs the brand Rebel Notions and is inspired by Cultura. Deeply rooted in Chicanx Lowrider culture, Rebel’s attitude towards design is grounded in self-expression.
Cilker School of Art and Design student Jayssielisa is currently completing her final semester at West Valley Community College in Saratoga. She shared that students in their last semester taking Design II: Line Development are tasked with creating three looks for West Valley’s annual graduation fashion show, now in its fifth year. Jayssielisa viewed the San Jose Day showcase as a great opportunity, even encouraging other design students to join. Other West Valley Designers included Ellie Vogel, Clyde Elloso, Sage Jean, Christian Cordero, and Angelica Ochoa.
Clyde Elloso was originally featured in Content Magazine’s summer 2025 issue 17.3, “Perform.”
There is so much beauty in San Jose, a place where you can be different, show up in your own way, and, hopefully, inspire others to do the same. Movements like this require people to organize and support each other.
So, what does San Jose fashion look like? It looks like claiming space, sharing stories, and showing up for one another. It looks like the brilliance of the people who reside here, who push the envelope and inspire others to expand their minds through self-expression.
Image 1: Jayssielisa | West Valley College, Cilker School of Art and Design
There’s a reason why Wendy Neff and Felipe Bravo named their space Fox Tale Fermentation Project. A sip of a sour ale might include tamarind, candy cap mushrooms, or Asian pear. Elderberry, sage, grapefruit, and jasmine transform into effervescent kombuchas. Stout-like sodas feature vanilla, honeybush tea, wild cherry bark, molasses, and fermented cacao bean syrup.
Drawing from Felipe’s experience in electrical engineering and production brewing and from Wendy’s background leading Facebook’s superfoods and fermentation initiatives, the pair experiment with fermentation processes and ingredients for their eclectic menu of beers, kombuchas, mocktails, and vegan cuisine. “A big part of Fox Tale is that experimentation—trying new things and sharing them to keep people inspired and excited about food, agriculture, and what’s around us,” says Wendy.
Fox Tale’s ethos of co-creating, tinkering, and fostering community involves centering locally grown produce, collaborating with other breweries, and providing performers and artists a space to show their work. Wendy says, “It’s not just about what we’re making and doing, but it’s a space where everybody gets to do it together […] Everybody can get a little bit playful and creative with it. I think San Jose deserves to be a space where other people are doing that. It just needs to be recognized.”
A growing industry in San Jose is the creative retail world. Largely supported by San José Made and its sister company MOMENT, many local artists have turned their craft into thriving business ventures. Genevieve Santos, owner of the stationary shop Le Petit Elefant, is one of them. Deeply inspired by travel, she makes watercolor illustrations that explore themes of culture and heritage, food as a love language, and the power of place. When she’s not traveling to BTS concerts or reconnecting with her culture in the Philippines, she’s painting and making ceramics in her Japantown studio, housed just behind the MOMENT JTOWN storefront.
Genevieve credits her business’s growth to working with San José Made, a local company aimed at growing small businesses through curated craft fairs, pop-ups and micro-retail storefronts, maker meet-ups, and social media campaigns. Genevieve testifies to their impact: “[Working with them] is an incredible marketing opportunity and learning experience. We have such a vibrant artists scene because SJ Made is there to guide the growing process.”
MOMENT has multiple locations downtown, but for Genevieve the JTOWN location is a special place. She describes the neighborhood as “this beautiful blend of old and new,” where you can simultaneously discover new artists, appreciate multi-generational restaurants and businesses, and learn local history in one of the few remaining Japantowns in the United States.
“We’ve been so fortunate to have connections and relationships and the goodwill of people around us.” -Wendy Neff
Downtown San Jose’s latest brew café, Fox Tale Fermentation Project, on Santa Clara Street, is finally open. First-time business owners Felipe Bravo and Wendy Neff have endured a long road that was further delayed due to complications of the pandemic. Sitting beneath a beautiful painting of the company logo designed by local artist Brittni Paul, Felipe and Wendy look back on how they arrived here.
Bravo, a San Jose native who says he never even drank beer, had his interest sparked by a friend who introduced him to homebrewing. He fanned that flame further by shifting his focus from his graduate studies in engineering specifically toward the science of brewing: “I never thought about food or beer as a hobby, and it wasn’t until I saw [homebrewing] for the first time that I was like, oh, this seems really cool. I can probably get into this. To me, it seemed like you can really dive into it and figure out the formulas and the processes and kind of take this scientific approach,” he explains.
His master’s thesis focused on building and programming an AI system that would learn to formulate beers on its own—essentially an automated homebrewing system. “That was not working,” he says. “I had never worked in a professional beer setting. I didn’t have the professional skillset to really talk about it in the way that I wanted to. The only option I felt I had left was to quit engineering. So, in 2014, I basically went to my local brewery and asked for a job.”
Bravo moved his way up the ranks at various breweries, first working the floor, then working with packaging, and eventually moving into production. He landed at Fort Point Brewing in San Francisco as their research and development manager, where he now had the opportunity to develop some of the beer recipes.
at age 18, essentially on a whim she says, but would return home a few years later for a life reset. While home, she got a job at the Brinery in Ann Arbor, famous for their fermented products such as sauerkraut and kimchi. It was a short-lived but instrumental gig, as it sparked a passion of her own.
“I really fell in love with fermentation,” she says. “Then when I came back to California, it just stuck a whole lot more.” She landed a job at Facebook on their superfoods team, making “really amazing, unique dishes that were raw and vegan and gluten-free” to serve in their on-site restaurants. “It exploded my whole desire to help people get interesting foods and ingredients and unique flavors. [They] let me create my own fermentation program, which they had never done before. So, then I had three years of experimenting and going wild with it as much as I wanted to.”
Fermentation, whether it be with alcohol or food, is part of humanity’s long and storied history. The process of combining food preservation with exploration of flavor has created a rich history that overlaps with the development of cultures around the world. The yeasts that turn grains into beer and cabbage into sauerkraut are not so different, and modern techniques have accelerated innovation and subsequent overlap in the fields of both food and alcohol.
When Bravo and Neff met, this overlap resulted in an immediate burst of creative energy as the two batted around ideas for sour beers using pickle brine and other unusual combinations of ingredients, imagining what sorts of flavors they might produce. They also discovered that they both harbored a dream to open a space where they could build community through their fermented creations.
As the two came up with projects to experiment with together, their relationship grew as well. They started making limited runs of beers using things like mushrooms, beets, radishes, and flow-
ers, which they fine-tuned and shared with friends and local beer enthusiasts. They named their venture Fox Tale, a whimsical reference to the stories that can be found behind each collaboration.
The next step was to open their dream space, but opening during COVID was “the hardest thing I’ve ever done, for sure,” Neff says. “We’ve been so fortunate to have connections and relationships and the goodwill of people around us.”
The small space is cozy and inviting, decorated with a rotating collection of art from local artists. They serve small bites that highlight the ferments, keeping things simple so as to remain approachable. They offer a mocktail and kombucha as nonalcoholic options and hope to offer classes on fermenting and homebrewing. They want their patrons to feel welcome, and more importantly, like part of the story. And as for what’s on tap: it’s not all pickle brine and mushroom beer.
“Taking twists on familiar things is a big part of what we want to do,” Bravo explains. The menu still offers recognizable styles like IPA and lager. “It’s a little different, [but] it’s not crazy blending these concepts that are unique and pique people’s interests, trying to redefine what those styles mean and create something new.”
Though market saturation and the pandemic have been tough on small beermakers, these two entrepreneurs are taking on the challenge. They understand that support from the San Jose community will be key, and have already built much of the foundation while eager to continue earning that support. And as they talk, new ideas keep springing up—the creative energy has not subsided.
“The business is an extension of us,” says Bravo. “The goal is to incorporate as many people into this project as we can. It’s not just us. We’re always going to be putting it back into the community. We’re not totally on our own.”
The tools are few—paint, a brush, a blank wall, and an idea. Yet it is the artistry of working up close while maintaining the integrity of the larger picture that makes murals so fascinating. These transformed walls are portals that can take you to another place, another thought process, another view on life. It is through these modern tapestries that San Jose culture is expressed and defined, inviting viewers to pause to reflect on who we are as a society and what are our ideals. The following are only a few of the many wonderful murals throughout San Jose. (Article originally published in issue 7.5 ” Serve,” 2016)
1.Anno Domini Mural Collage Anno Domini, 366 S. 1st St, San Jose Produced by Anno Domini (2005–2013)
When Anno Domini moved to the SoFA District, they wanted people to be able to find them quickly and to give those unfamiliar with the gallery a hint as to what is inside. This collage of international artists’ murals signals to those entering South First Street that this is where they’ll encounter the most concentrated arts and culture spaces in the city.
(from left to right): Carolyn Ryder Cooley (New York) & Lena Wolff (California); Daniel Jesse Lewis (California); Jessie Rose Vala (New Mexico); David Choe (California); Bruno 9Li (Brazil), Klone (Israel), Adrian Lee (California); Know Hope (Israel)
2. Tribute to Rahsaan Roland Kirk Cafe Stritch, 374 S. 1st St, San Jose Produced by Cafe Stritch (2014)
This three-story mural is a tribute to Rahsaan Roland Kirk, the late jazz legend who often played multiple instruments at once. When Rahsaan Kirk’s widow saw the mural for the first time, it brought her to tears.
Artists: Roger Ourthiague and Chris Anway (California)
3. What You Are, I Once Was Brazilian Blowout Bar, 489 S. Market St, San Jose
Produced by The Exhibition District (2015)
This mural is an homage to California and a commentary on the current drought situation. The hair represents water, and the skull represents scarcity.
Artist: Stephanie Azevedo (San Jose, California)
4. Santo Market 245 E. Taylor St, San Jose Produced by Empire Seven Studios (2014)
John is a sign painter who specializes his fine artwork within a semi-impressionistic style, using an Italian Renaissance color palette. His subject matter includes surreal images of monsters and parodies of Old Masters paintings. This image is a parody of the iconic Japanese woodblock print The Great Wave off Kanagawa.
Artist: John Barrick (San Jose, California)
5. Fountain Alley Mural: Phylum of the Free Lido Night Club, 30 S. 1st St, San Jose Produced by Phantom Galleries and San Jose Downtown Association (2015)
This piece speaks to the idea of learning to cohabit as technology progresses and to the determination that it takes to exist and push forward.
Artist: Jeffrey Hemming (San Jose, California)
6. Little Moment, Nichi Bei Bussan, 140 Jackson St, San Jose Produced by Empire Seven Studios (2015)
This urban contemporary piece is left to the audience’s interpretation. It allows different people to connect on different levels by going beyond just one story or theme, encouraging viewers to use their imagination to open up numerous narratives and ideas.
Artist: NoseGo (Pennsylvania)
7. Homage, Chevron, 135 E. Santa Clara St, San Jose Produced by Anno Domini and San Jose Downtown Association (2005)
This mural is a tribute to John Carlos and Tommie Smith’s famous black power salute at the 1968 Olympics.
Artists: Paul Ulrich and Chris Duncan (California)
8. SoFA The Studio, 396 S. 1st St, San Jose Produced by SVCreates (formerly 1stAct) and SoFA District (2009)
This mural depicts the eclectic offerings of the SoFA area.
