Skip To Content
JEWISH. INDEPENDENT. NONPROFIT.
The Schmooze

El Chapo Wears Jewish Fashion Designers, and You Can Too

The Barabas advertisement.

A schmatta, it’s not.

Infamous Mexican cartel boss Joaquín Guzmán — better known as El Chapo — is in the news after a widely publicized interview with Sean Penn in magazine led to his capture (again). In the days that followed, photos of the actor and the drug kingpin circulated around the world.

According to the Guardian, this was an incredible stroke of luck for two Iranian-Jewish brothers in Los Angeles. In one photo with Penn, Guzmán is wearing an ornate gray-and-blue striped button-down shirt that’s overlaid with a black paisley-ish pattern designed by the brothers’ company, Barabas.

“We’re excited because he could buy anything, he could buy Versace, any other brand, but to choose our brand, our designs!” owner Shawn Esteghbal told the paper.

The phrase “Most Wanted Shirt” touts Barabas’ homepage, which depicts the famous photo — of a mustachioed Guzman, wearing Barabas’ “Fantasy” button-down shirt shaking hands with a scruffy Penn — accompanied by a photo of an equally scruffy model sporting the shirt same shirt as Guzman, in what can safely be assumed a smaller size.

Rolling Stone has also released a video of Guzmán’s response to Penn’s questions. In it, El Chapo wears a similar shirt, also by Barabas.

Perhaps ironically, Barabas’s motto is “Good words. Good thoughts. Good deeds.”

Whether or not this unexpected publicity will advance the brothers’ mission remains a head scratcher — but it has undoubtedly been good for business: The shirt, which retails for $128, is currently on backorder.

Republish This Story

Please read before republishing

We’re happy to make this story available to republish for free, unless it originated with JTA, Haaretz or another publication (as indicated on the article) and as long as you follow our guidelines. You must credit the Forward, retain our pixel and preserve our canonical link in Google search.  See our full guidelines for more information, and this guide for detail about canonical URLs.

To republish, copy the HTML by clicking on the yellow button to the right; it includes our tracking pixel, all paragraph styles and hyperlinks, the author byline and credit to the Forward. It does not include images; to avoid copyright violations, you must add them manually, following our guidelines. Please email us at [email protected], subject line “republish,” with any questions or to let us know what stories you’re picking up.

We don't support Internet Explorer

Please use Chrome, Safari, Firefox, or Edge to view this site.