Designer Chris ‘Spanto’ Printup dies at 42
Sandra Hale Schulman
Special to ICT
Designer Chris ‘Spanto’ Printup drew from his Apache and Seneca background and his vision of streetwear in Los Angeles to create and inspire his designs. He died from injuries sustained in a car accident west of Albuquerque June 25.
His company Born X Raised, launched in 2013, amassed a cult-like following in Los Angeles and he became a local celebrity. The brand did collaborations with professional sports teams like the LA Dodgers and Rams, with items selling out in minutes. The designs were featured in The Times, Vogue, and the New York Times.
Spanto had just launched a collaboration on June 9 with Levi’s designing jackets and jeans with painted water birds embellished with studs and gemstones. Some of the ads featured Prey producer Jhane Myers and her daughter Peshawn Bread, both Comanche, and were shot in Santa Fe, New Mexico. Other photoshoots were in LA and on the White Mountain Apache Reservation in White River, Arizona.
The collection sold out within five hours and was an homage to his father, Butch, who had died in a car accident earlier in the year.
“I grew up in Los Angeles in the ’80s and ’90s, when the way you dressed was a very loud statement,” Spanto told Vogue Magazine in June, who grew up in Venice, California. “We wore our clothing like a suit of armor and a badge of courage. I keep and carry the same energy with me when I design my collections.”
Spanto grew up poor as the son of an artist and musician. His father was often homeless and played the blues on the Venice boardwalk for tips, his mother was an artist, musician and writer. But he often said he was glad to have grown up poor as it made him work harder.
In his earlier years, Spanto was in and out of jail and involved with drugs. He came up with the idea for Born X Raised while incarcerated, a project born out of his heartbreak for the way his life was turning out. After his jail stint, he printed 36 t-shirts, selling them from the trunk of his car then printing more with the proceeds.
In July 2013, soon after he launched Born X Raised, Spanto was diagnosed with terminal T-cell acute lymphoblastic leukemia. He underwent chemotherapy treatment for four years. The lengthy expensive medical bills stripped him of everything, leaving him with no money, car or a place to live.
In a remarkable comeback, he rebounded with successful designs, the latest with Levi’s as a tribute to his father.
“Specifically, he created a set of designs that offer a graphic representation of his father watching over him, something that he realizes now he had been doing his whole life, even though Spanto didn’t know it at the time,” Levi’s said in a statement.
The collection includes two versions of jeans, a trucker jacket and a graphic tee that feature versions of what Spanto called his Relative graphic.
The collection’s campaign features people from Spanto’s life, including his mom, sister, brother, extended family from the Navajo Nation, performers like actor Richard Cabral, Myers, and his Apache, Comanche and Cherokee relatives.
“He succeeded against the odds,” Jhane Myers told ICT. “Against gangs, against prison, against cancer. He was one of our subjects in the documentary that I'm producing for Universal, but it's just so sad, this caught us all off guard. I met him about a year ago. We became fast friends, we had a lot of things in common, like fighting for Native communities and Native representation. He was always ready to share his knowledge and to share whatever he's learned along the way.”
Myers says he had been going to the Native American church with his father to seek solace and healing from his cancer, and then later to heal from his father’s death.
“And then he got the Levi’s opportunity, his father passed in February, and he wanted to do something as a tribute to his father. He wanted to do something Native American church inspired, with the Waterbird, he said, ‘What do you think?’ And I said, I think that would be great.
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Peshawn Bread wears Born X Raised jeans for the Levi's campaign. (Photo courtesy of Jhane Myers)
“So, he started showing me early mockups. He knows my daughter Peshawn, who is a filmmaker/creative director, and he said I want to shoot this ad campaign all through Indian Country with people that I'm close to. He had a Native photographer, and crew. He was directing it. He was true to his word in having Native people involved in highlighting Native talent.”
Myers met Spanto through Kenneth Shirley, Navajo, a powwow dancer who had been working with Spanto for years through his company Indigenous Enterprise.
“We did a clothing collaboration and then became really good friends,” Shirley told ICT. “Then my family pretty much adopted him, just being a brother, that good old Native thing when you bring somebody around your family and then they get really close to you. You're just related.”
Shirley had sent Spanto an email in 2018 as he was working with the city of Los Angeles for the first annual Indigenous Peoples’ Day.
“I said I know you're Native. Do you want to help us out with the t-shirts? He responded and then I went to his office, and we became friends. We did a photoshoot with his shirt designs on my grandma. We were planning a powwow to do some stuff on the reservation after the collab with Levi's, my parents and me were models in the Levi's campaign too.”
“He was here a lot, but he lived in LA. He would come to my family's house as an escape from his hectic life. He was at my family's gathering for my nephew's birthday on that Sunday before he got into a car accident. That was the last day he was alive.”
Shirley marveled at the success of the jeans line.
“The Levi’s line had just come out and was completely sold out. It was a smash hit. He was super happy about how everything was received. He brought the Native American people to the front with worldwide fashion news, he was just really, really happy that he did that for our people.”
Jared Massey, a social media specialist and program assistant for United National Indian Tribal Youth, Inc., who grew up on the Fort Apache Reservation, befriended Spanto and appears in the Levi’s campaign.
Chris ‘Spanto’ Printup (left) sits next to Jared Massey (right) for the Levi's campaign in June 2023. (Photo by Tomás Karmelo Amaya)
“We spent two days on my reservation shooting for the campaign,” Massey told ICT. “One of the things that Spanto said was that it was the happiest day of his life, he was crying, saying these things to me. It hit home for me because when you're born and raised on the reservation, you lose focus of the beauty that's all around you, and you take it for granted.”
“But in that moment, he reminded me of the beauty, potential, and opportunities that are on our reservation and how much he wanted to contribute to that. That has been difficult for me to accept — he had these plans, we had plans for our reservation that were in motion for the months to come.”
Massey is still in awe of his lost friend.
“I want a lot of people to know that he was so happy around our Native American culture. He was always adamant about coming to my family's sweat and coming to ceremony, and then that was a big part of Born X Raised his company. He prayed about it, asking the creator for help. I thought that was really awesome to see a Native American breaking into these realms that we've never been before.”
Spanto leaves behind his wife Anna and three children — Marilyn, Carter and David, a sister, three brothers, his mother, stepmother, stepfather, and his grandparents. He is preceded in death by his father Butch Printup who died in February. Friends and family held a private memorial. An impromptu lowrider memorial attracted hundreds in Venice to pay tribute on July 5th.
