To compile his new book, My Favorite Place on Earth, Jerry Camarillo Dunn Jr., interviewed dozens of famous people -- from Natalie Portman to the Dalai Lama -- about the places they loved most. He'll be guest blogging about his experiences here for
the next few weeks. Click here for recent posts.
Sometimes we reach a crossroads in life and take an unexpected turn that changes everything. It happened to custom clothier Manuel Cuevas - known simply as Manuel - the designer who turned Johnny Cash into the "Man in Black" and put Elvis in a jumpsuit.
"We all have one place that makes us think: Wow! What happened to me there changed my life!" he says. Coming from Mexico to Los Angeles as a tailor at age 21, Manuel soon was making clothes for Frank Sinatra and the Rat Pack. But he grew bored with tuxedos. "Some were black and some were white, but it never went anywhere from there. I thought: This isn't my idea of designing. This is just monkey see, monkey do. I need to find something different.
"In the early fifties, a girlfriend asked me to go to the Rose Parade in Pasadena . . . There were people riding horses, and I had never seen anything so flamboyant in my whole life. The colors! The glitter! The embroidery! To see macho men dressed up in clothes with flowers on them, wearing hats all adorned with rhinestones - it just freaked me out. I thought, Oh my God, that's what I want to do!
Sometimes we reach a crossroads in life and take an unexpected turn that changes everything. It happened to custom clothier Manuel Cuevas - known simply as Manuel - the designer who turned Johnny Cash into the "Man in Black" and put Elvis in a jumpsuit."We all have one place that makes us think: Wow! What happened to me there changed my life!" he says. Coming from Mexico to Los Angeles as a tailor at age 21, Manuel soon was making clothes for Frank Sinatra and the Rat Pack. But he grew bored with tuxedos. "Some were black and some were white, but it never went anywhere from there. I thought: This isn't my idea of designing. This is just monkey see, monkey do. I need to find something different.
"In the early fifties, a girlfriend asked me to go to the Rose Parade in Pasadena . . . There were people riding horses, and I had never seen anything so flamboyant in my whole life. The colors! The glitter! The embroidery! To see macho men dressed up in clothes with flowers on them, wearing hats all adorned with rhinestones - it just freaked me out. I thought, Oh my God, that's what I want to do!
Continue reading Manuel Cuevas's Favorite Place on Earth.
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