Raider Nation Origin Stories: Meet Gilberto Marquez, renowned hat craftsman inspired by Mexican culture

For Gilberto Marquez, being part of Raider Nation is more than just being a fan of a football team.

It's a statement.

The Southern California native grew up around Los Angeles Raiders snapback hats and Starter satin jackets taking over his neighborhood.

The bond between the City of Angels and the Silver and Black is unique, as the brash and bold style of play on the field blended into streetwear. To this day, the Shield is fashionable across the globe, even with people who've never seen the team play.

"I know the significance of the Raiders to West Coast culture, to pop culture – especially in my era," Marquez said. "The Raiders were a huge influence because of what they represented. They were the underdog and the outlaw."

Raised on Raiders football and lowrider culture, Marquez later found a way to blend those passions with his Hispanic heritage. Cowboy hats, long revered in Mexican culture as both a statement piece and a symbol of pride, became the canvas for his vision.

While traveling across Mexico teaching others the art of crafting mezcal, Marquez frequented many local markets. For the longest, he was simply a consumer.

Until a local hat store owner one day pulled him aside.

"He was like, 'Hey, do you want to see how hats are made?'," Marquez told Raiders.com. "And I walked back there and I saw handcrafted, small batch, artisanal rustic production. I just fell in love it. I was never a person who was good at drawing or painting. So I was like, 'This is going to be my artistic outlet.'"

He returned to the States with eight hats in hand. Through trial and error and the limited knowledge he retained from the store owner, Marquez took the hats completely apart and sewed them back together repetitively. He did this until he mastered hat making.

Over time, he learned how to customize both lowrider and wide-brimmed Cowboy hats, and also ventured into sombreros and artisanal hats. With continued confidence in his art, he launched Marquez Clásico.

He started the full-time customized hat company alongside his wife, Cinthya, who runs the day-by-day operations. She also helps Gilbert in designing the hats and specializes in pyrography, a freehand art style using heated tools.

As the two tirelessly made hats out of their garage, they landed their big break when they received a call from Madonna, one of the top-selling female artists of all time.

"Her personal stylist hit us up and asked us for six pieces immediately," Marquez said. "She needed them right away and we just started making them. And once I got that, that was kind of the domino effect and then we started getting a lot of exposure on social media."

The proclaimed domino effect led to them moving from their garage to a downtown Los Angeles storefront. Marquez Clásico now has 235,000 Instagram followers and has customized hats for the likes of Diplo, Ronaldo "Lazy Boy" Rodríguez, El Potro de Sinaloa and Lupita Infante.

He has also now made custom pieces for his beloved NFL team, one of which was worn by Jackson Powers-Johnson when arriving for the Raiders' Week 2 matchup against the Chargers. It also so happened to be Marquez's first NFL game attended.

"Was immediately taken back to my youth. ... When I found out there was an opportunity to design something that will represent the Raiders, I was super excited," he said.

"The Raiders culture ties into what we do because we are heavily influenced, especially in our beginning, the lowrider culture," he added. "It's definitely something that you see at a lot of the tailgates. ... At least every couple of weeks or a month, I get someone who is requesting something with very similar colors to the Raiders, just because headwear is heavily influenced by the Raiders."

Marquez may represent a modern expression of Raiders culture, streetwear and Hispanic identity, but the bond between those communities runs deep, dating back to Hispanic Football Hall of Famers Tom Flores, Jim Plunkett and Ted Hendricks winning the first Super Bowl for the city of Los Angeles in 1984.

"Raiders culture, amongst others teams but I'd definitely say more prominently, has been a part of Hispanic culture," Marquez said. "Especially where I'm from in Southern California, it is ingrained in the culture. ... It would be an impossibility for me to be a Chicano and not know about the Raiders and what they stood for."