Alright – so today we’ve got the honor of introducing you to Julio Cortez. We think you’ll enjoy our conversation, we’ve shared it below.

Julio, looking forward to hearing all of your stories today. What sort of legacy are you hoping to build. What do you think people will say about you after you are gone, what do you hope to be remembered for?

The Cortez Family hopes to show people in our day to day lives that the American Dream is Still Alive. Knowing that we come from an immigrant background we were able to overcome the stereotypes or the image people have of us by being of a Mexican decent.

Julio, love having you share your insights with us. Before we ask you more questions, maybe you can take a moment to introduce yourself to our readers who might have missed our earlier conversations?

My name is Julio Cortez, I was raised in the the Family Apparel Manufacturing Business. My mother Esther started it back in 1992. After a close out on her current job where she learned how to do patterns and sampling for clothing designers at the age of 14 years old. My mother was very determine to learn more and probably design clothing of her own. The “shop” started in a 1 bedroom apartment in Oceanside where we outgrew the place very quickly, and move into a Home where it had a garage large enough to put some sewing machines and my father made a cutting table in the back yard, but by then the small shop was making lots of clothing out of the garage that the City of Oceanside found out and forced us to close shop and move out, but My mother was determine, she knew that she could not quit.
This was the mentality that she would drill into our brains, in never giving up.
Fast forward to today. She is 57years old, and she still pushes me to strive for perfection. The discipline that my siblings and my self were taught were to maintain a goal in mind and no matter what happens, keep moving forward, Patience and perseverance will overcome any obstacle.

Can you open up about a time when you had a really close call with the business?

A story I most remember was the time that my parents had sent me, my brother and sister to Mexico. We thought we were going on a vacation, not knowing that my mom and dad where left Homeless for a weekend due to having the city of Oceanside and our home landlord kicking my family and the business out on the street, for operating illegally, all my parents were doing were providing a food and shelter for the family. Now that I am all grown up, I see the sacrifices that my parents had to go through in order to give us the better life. It was until then that I saw a change on my father that nothing could really stop us on becoming successful, because we had touch rock bottom, and there was only 1 route left to go from there. My mom never gave up on her dream, she only needed a week to pull off 2 miracles, 1 was to get approve on a home to almost no down payment, and the same for a 900 square foot building for the business. Since then every time we talk about those difficult times, we remember where we come from.

Any stories or insights that might help us understand how you’ve built such a strong reputation?

I want to believe that we develop good relationships with so many brands due to them always asking or wanting know how we started. Every time we give them the whole story, they see how genuine and humble we are. All my customers see that we are also on the ground floor, making sure the products are getting done to the quality that they are asking for, or we try to involve the customer into the process so that they can see their product getting made in front of them, in real time, and I think that’s what makes us stand out with the other factories in our industry

Contact Info:

• Website: www.edithsewing.com
• Facebook: ediths sewing

Image Credits
Frank Cortez