{"id":488456,"date":"2026-10-07T21:42:16","date_gmt":"2026-10-07T21:42:16","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/488456\/"},"modified":"2026-10-07T21:42:16","modified_gmt":"2026-10-07T21:42:16","slug":"l-a-based-meals-clothing-brand-creates-food-inspired-fashion","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/488456\/","title":{"rendered":"L.A.-based Meals clothing brand creates food-inspired fashion"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

With chef jackets dyed the deep hue of blueberry skins, pink pants that resemble those iconic doughnut-shop boxes and cream forager vests streaked with jagged gray stripes to evoke blue cheese, Meals<\/a> is helping you look like a snack.<\/p>\n

The locally made independent clothing line is a favorite among Angelenos with a fashion bent, the puppeteers of Bob Baker Marionette Theater, ceramicists, skateboarders and some of your favorite chefs and farmers. They come in solid colors, or patterns like banana yellow splattered with dots of just-ripe brown.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s like, how could we take these two simple things that we really love \u2014 fashion and food \u2014 and combine them together?\u201d said co-founder Sam Salad, adding, \u201cEvery wash we do is made to look like a food.\u201d<\/p>\n

Modernist vests are modeled on vintage duck-hunting garb, the forager pants are sewn with extra-deep pockets, and the garments are made to be loose but heavy enough to withstand a day in the kitchen or scavenging in the mountains.<\/p>\n

Sam Salad \u2014 who pores over restaurant reviews, keeps a copy of Jonathan Gold\u2019s \u201cCounter Intelligence\u201d at his bedside, and even adopted a last name that reflects his \u201ccomplete obsession\u201d around food \u2014 doesn\u2019t just take design inspiration from food; it also shapes how he approaches business. He looks to his favorite Korean restaurant, Kobawoo House, for lessons: He sees its specialty of boiled-pork bossam as a dish honed over decades. Why mess with perfection or offer endless items?<\/p>\n

\u201cIf you over-index,\u201d he said, \u201cyou can lose strategy.\u201d<\/p>\n

He and his romantic and business partner, who goes by Rebma Salad, began Meals Clothing in 2019 with that same goal: Offer a limited line that does its specialties well. They work with a local wash house to transpose colors and patterns that represent food. It all began with watermelon \u2014 bright yellow and green stripes resembling the rind \u2014 which is still one of their most popular patterns and is sometimes worn by fan Alex Weiser, one of L.A.\u2019s most celebrated farmers.<\/p>\n

\"Racks <\/p>\n

Racks of colorful, food-inspired work jackets, forager vests and chef pants at the Meals Clothing storefront.<\/p>\n

(Stephanie Breijo \/ Los Angeles Times)<\/p>\n

Meals garments are produced within six miles of the Highland Park storefront, beginning with fabric that\u2019s purchased in the pi\u00f1ata district. The clothing is cut and sewn blocks away, near the original location, Salad notes, of Teddy\u2019s Red Tacos. <\/p>\n

More than a decade ago he was selling denim at a shop along Abbot Kinney Boulevard. He noticed the rising star of neighboring restaurant Gjelina: the fervor for fresh produce, the lines of customers who\u2019d pay $30 for pizzas eaten while sitting on milk crates. Why not approach denim with a food vocabulary?<\/p>\n

\u201cAs a joke I started using the language of food to sell clothing,\u201d he said. \u201cI would say things like, \u2018This raw denim is super crispy, but it gets really buttery over time.\u2019 Just peppering food speak. I was doing it secretly just to amuse myself.\u201d<\/p>\n

Years later, he began dating Rebma, the fashion designer behind modernist, inclusivity-minded denim line 69<\/a>. They began designing their own fashion line together, which became Meals.<\/p>\n

Now when they eat, they see patterns and color and wonder how it could translate to linen and canvas. \u201cIt does totally change your lens about how you look at the world,\u201d Sam Salad said.<\/p>\n

They began selling at local shops and then, in late 2025, flipped a former insurance-agency office into an 800-square-foot storefront splashed with color, along with tarp and duct tape that nods to construction sites and workwear, and a shopping cart, faux-food candles and a large plushy stuffed sandwich to evoke grocery stores.<\/p>\n

Their chef fandom grew organically. Jessica Koslow stumbled upon them at another shop, Virgil Normal, resulting in a collaboration with her restaurant Sqirl. Another followed with Kismet, and another with Jon & Vinny\u2019s.<\/p>\n

\u201cA couple restaurants have asked for uniforms for their chefs and the people who work in their kitchens,\u201d Sam Salad said. \u201cIt\u2019s amazing and we\u2019re thrilled. Because I am a food outsider, I want to make garments for these people.\u201d<\/p>\n

According to one local chef-fan, Meals now comprises roughly 40% of his wardrobe.<\/p>\n

After taking on a more corporate cooking job, Estrano and former Poltergeist chef Diego Argoti was searching for more formal attire beyond his band tees and black hoodies. Early last year he stumbled on a light-green linen suit at a designer vintage shop and knew he had to have it: It turned out to be an avocado-inspired ensemble from Meals. He wore it to cook a VIP dinner series at Coachella that spring, and the clothing line became a fashion fixation. He\u2019s since purchased chef pants, forager pants, shorts and jackets in the washes and styles of watermelon, bubblegum and mustard, among others.<\/p>\n

While the price can be inhibiting for some \u2014 with chef pants priced as high as $190 and jackets as much as $210, the price of a decent knife or other cooking tools \u2014 Argoti feels the heavy usage justifies the cost for him. He also recommends shopping at the store\u2019s \u201cbruised fruit\u201d section, which sells slightly imperfect or overstock items at half price.<\/p>\n

Argoti wears Meals in the kitchen, at photo shoots and events. It\u2019s helped him develop a style in the kitchen that feels almost anachronistic to traditional chef\u2019s whites.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe\u2019re taught to wear these big coats and big pants and dress a certain way that is very uniform, very brigade, and there\u2019s no expression,\u201d Argoti said. \u201cI feel like this is kind of fun because in the same way that it is uniform, there\u2019s so much color that could also reflect seasons and reflect personality.\u201d<\/p>\n

According to Sam, there\u2019s a natural synergy to food and fashion \u2014 at the core, both are forms of art and consumption \u2014 but in Los Angeles, it\u2019s also geographical. Color and great food surround us here. Why not wear it on our sleeves?<\/p>\n

Meals Clothing can be found online<\/a> and at the storefront at 5829 N. Figueroa St. in Los Angeles, which is open Wednesday to Sunday from 11 a.m. to 6 p.m. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"With chef jackets dyed the deep hue of blueberry skins, pink pants that resemble those iconic doughnut-shop boxes…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":488457,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[27],"tags":[149054,190717,3399,190716,9952,190718,190719,413,190720,9788,48,52,51,47,50,49,20852,34092,1929,1166,77932],"class_list":["post-488456","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-los-angeles","tag-argoti","tag-chef-jacket","tag-clothing","tag-co-founder-sam-salad","tag-color","tag-denim","tag-fashion-bent","tag-food","tag-garment","tag-kitchen","tag-la","tag-la-headlines","tag-la-news","tag-los-angeles","tag-los-angeles-headlines","tag-los-angeles-news","tag-meals","tag-pattern","tag-price","tag-shop","tag-watermelon"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/488456","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=488456"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/488456\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/488457"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=488456"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=488456"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=488456"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}