Art Community is a Los Angeles brand that treats clothing as both uniform and invitation. The label was started by designer Lorenz Christopher Tomaneng with his brother Ernesto and their longtime friend Vanessa Amaranto, all born and raised in the San Fernando Valley and all from Filipino families. Their logo comes from Baybayin, a pre-colonial Filipino script. The character they use is pronounced “ma,” a sound tied to being able to do something. It is a small mark with a clear intention: to make space for artists, and to show that fashion can be a practical vehicle for that work rather than a distraction from it.
Growing up, they spent weekdays in Catholic school uniforms and weekends chasing a different kind of education. Early 2000s music videos, G-Unit CDs, trips to Old Town Pasadena, and later visits to Bodega and Dover Street Market in Los Angeles gave them a sense that a store could be more than shelves and racks. Those places showed them that the room itself could leave an imprint: sound, smell, pace, the way people moved through it. At the same time, they were quietly learning the unglamorous side of the business. Lorenz worked at Los Angeles Apparel. Ernesto did delivery runs for BTSA, driving between factories, cutters, and laundries. Vanessa worked the floor at Dover Street, eventually managing the store. They stocked shelves and dropped boxes, but they were also taking notes on pattern makers, sewers, fabric jobbers, and how a garment actually comes into being.
Art Community grew out of that mix of retail floor experience and back-of-house labor. There was no formal plan at first, just a shared sense that they wanted to be in fashion and would have to build their own path into it. Each person brought a different skill: drawing, sewing, styling, sales, and production. The brand that emerged is a ready-to-wear label with a silhouette-heavy approach. They cut and sew their garments in Los Angeles, using Japanese and Italian fabrics alongside deadstock military cloth sourced from a local dealer who buys surplus rolls from old contracts. When you see something camo or densely woven in their line, there is usually a story behind where that fabric came from and how much of it is left.
The Triptych pant is the best way to understand what they do. The first sample was a wide-leg style that felt a little too open at the hem. In the sample room, they pinned out a few inches along the side seams to tighten the opening. The pinned line looked good enough that they stopped and asked what would happen if they treated it as a feature rather than a correction. From there, they added a run of buttons so the wearer could pull the leg in or let it fall back out. The final result combines several ideas at once: one designer’s love of big, baggy pants, another’s taste for straight Japanese denim, and a third’s preference for something more tapered. Complex later described the Triptych as a pant that merges pleated slacks, jeans, and work pants into a single silhouette, which is a fair summary of how it works in practice.
That attention to shape runs through the rest of their line. The clothes are usually wide and easy, but never careless. They sample most styles in a single size, then test them on all three founders, who have different heights and builds. The goal is not to hit a conventional size run, but to get the drape right across a range of bodies. They are open about wanting people to ignore the usual rules. A woman who would normally wear a small might end up in an extra large, not as a joke but because that is the proportion that looks best. A pant that feels oversized in the waist can be set low on the hip and snapped in at the leg; a jacket that looks big on a hanger settles once it is buttoned and moving with the wearer.
The brand’s name is not just a slogan. Art Community works with dancers, musicians, painters, and other artists who wear the clothes in their own fields. Their collaboration with artist Ethan Cárdenas is one clear example, pairing his work with their silhouettes in a way that feels natural rather than forced. They talk openly about a longer-term goal: a physical “gym for artists,” a space where people can come to work, share resources, and get support. All three founders taught themselves how to navigate production and wholesale, and they want to become the kind of resource they did not have when they started.
For Nepenthes Los Angeles, the pop-up brings that story into the room. Many first encounter Art Community online through lookbooks and social posts, but seeing the garments in person changes the conversation. Customers try on a Triptych pant or a pilot cap, look once, look again, and there is a visible moment when the silhouette clicks. The brand’s roots in the Valley, its Filipino heritage, and its insistence on patient, self directed growth align closely with the store’s own ideals: clothing made to be lived in, and designers who are present in the work.
Art Community is currently holding their pop-up shop at Nepenthes Los Angeles.
