When they started two decades ago, few companies boasted of being Galician or of selling Galician products. In fact, when Pablo Rodríguez, founding partner and creative director of the company, and his two colleagues started their business venture of screen-printed T-shirts with messages in Galician and original designs that embodied the local culture with that peculiar touch of humour that characterises them, 39 of the 40 shops in which they presented their project turned them down.

The idea arose in 2002, when three friends with degrees in Fine Art decided to start selling their designs simply with the intention of financing a space in which to work, without even having a brand name. Their philosophy: Galician, creativity and universality. "We always try to offer a wide range of possibilities for all tastes: we have more artistic designs, more graphic models, some with more humour than others, or even for minorities, but the ones with a touch of humour, they're the ones that work best," explains Rodríguez.

The first sale was made in the Plaza de Platerías in Santiago de Compostela, to a Scottish Erasmus student who was interested in one of those first designs, that of the Padrón peppers, which he found funny because he thought it was misspelled, although it was actually intentional.

Since then, rain has poured and, like all companies, there have been many joys, but also hard times, as Pablo Rodríguez, the only one of the founding partners who remains in the company, comments: "20 years is a long time, to go up, to go down and to reflect. You can be up or down, but you're always moving".

They were young and had no work experience when they started, but they were very stubborn. Months went by and sales didn't take off, so they decided to start going to festivals, some as iconic as Celta de Ortigueira or Pardiñas and others emerging thanks to all this culture that was beginning to gain strength at that time. This was when they met their target audience and it was the people who started to want the T-shirts and ask for them, giving birth to the need to create a brand that became a reality in 2003 and materialised as their first shop opening in Pontevedra.

Those first years were a time of joy, of continuous growth, thanks in part to this breakthrough in the world of festivals. In fact, Rei Zentolo came to sell not only throughout the whole country through multi-brand shops, but also internationally and to have two more brands: their alternative t-shirt line Shirt Gigoló and Yobordo, a women's fashion brand, made 100% in Galicia and with groundbreaking designs for the time, which they even exhibited at the Cibeles catwalk and at prestigious European fashion fairs such as Bread & Butter or Prêt-à-Porter in Paris.

Over the course of these years, Rei Zentolo went through several crises, having to be constantly reinvented in order to survive and take advantage of the lessons learned at each stage, going from having a presence at Galicia's most prominent festivals through the sale of its own products to doing so by designing materials for them and other brands.

"Quality, good work, a lot of effort and a bit of luck" are some of the keys to the success of the Pontevedra-based brand, which currently has more than 20 people among its staff, including administration, design, logistics and its own two shops. According to Rodríguez, they are in a phase in which the priority is "rationalising work and effort, selecting orders and clients to be able to reach everything".

"Today big companies boast about being Galician, about making products in Galicia or communicating in Galician, and that wasn't a thing 20 years ago"

Rei Zentolo was a pioneer not only for using Galician on their T-shirts, but also for being one of the first to launch a website with an online shop in 2005, appearing in the first batch of pages with the dot.gal domain.

Pablo Rodríguez recalls that when they started "people thought that T-shirts in Galician were something just for kids who were making a fuss and had no proper outlet, and we didn't do it to make a statement, but rather because we were convinced that it would work, and also because there was no one else doing it. In Galicia we really have great things".

Celebrating an anniversary in style

To celebrate the past 20 years, Rei Zentolo has many surprises in store, some of which have already been revealed, such as the world design championship they have launched on their social networks, the reissue of their first four designs and the upcoming launch of a commemorative title with Galaxia publishing house, which will be presented throughout Galicia.

This very special book will include 20 designs discussed by 20 Galician cultural references with whom they have had a relationship at some point: writers, actors, musicians, artists... "It's an honour that Galaxia is interested in the project and welcomed the proposal so well", says Pablo Rodríguez.