Craig Sager’s jackets at Rex Fabrics

The NBA and its fans lost longtime sportscaster Craig Sager, two weeks ago he passed away at the age of 65. And down on Calle Ocho, a one-of-a-kind fabric store lost one of its most loyal customers.

Sager was best known for his outlandish suits, ties and shoes, which earned him equal amounts of praise and scorn from the NBA community, where bland, understated suits are the norm.

Since 2009, he had been wearing a piece of Miami on most broadcasts.

Sager’s eye-popping getups were the handiwork of Rex Fabrics on Calle Ocho and 37th Avenue. The family-owned store opened about 30 years ago and continues to dazzle customers from around the world with exotic and luxury fabrics found nowhere else. Editor’s note: The location of the store has been corrected.

Craig Sager

Rex, along with tailors in Houston, together made sure the sportscaster was always turning heads. After learning of Rex through a friend in the NBA, Sager became one of the store’s most discerning and reliable customers.

“He was a hunter,” store owner and president Ricardo Aldama says. “He had an eagle eye for exactly what he wanted.”

Sager would start with a pair of shoes (he had hundreds) or a belt he had in mind to wear. He would then turn to Rex to find a pattern that would match.

“Craig had a knack for choosing particular items — his ability to spot things was unmatched,” purchasing manager Pablo Zepeda says.

As Sager himself once said, “I don’t even look in the men’s section.” He found it too staid and traditional.

He would fly into Miami the night before a game just to pick up the suit for the broadcast, Aldama said.

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A Wonka Factory in a strip mall

The Aldama family moved Rex to its current location, in a Little Havana strip mall, about 25 years ago. Ricardo, half Italian and half Cuban, has turned his facility into a Wonka Factory for fabric.

It is staffed by more than 40 employees, including a doorman resplendent in red velour and a small army of attentive, uniformed women dressed all in blue serving as sales reps ready to see to your every need.

Inside, row upon row of fabrics from all over the world, with designs impossible to imagine, line the store, giving you the feeling of swimming through a technicolor ocean of textiles. Unusual music, from 1950s Italian orchestral pop to country, floats through the store, transporting you beyond the Little Havana strip mall.

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Craig Sager got his crazy suits from this Little Havana stripmall

WRITTEN BY ROB WILE

The New Tropic