Manuel Cuevas

In 2019, Cuevas was honored in an exhibit called American Currents: The Music of 2018, presented at the Country Music Hall of Fame in Nashville.

On January 24, 2014, Manuel and Maria Salinas Del Carmen were married at the Davidson County Courthouse. It was Manuel's fourth marriage.

In 2005, in an effort to design for the "average Joe", Cuevas worked with his son Manny Jr. to create a men's and women's luxury, ready-to-wear clothing line featured at New York Fashion Week in 2006. The limited-piece collection was manufactured in Italy and was the first and only time that Manuel produced any clothing outside of the United States.

After moving to Nashville, in the late 1990s, Manuel began creating his 50 State Jacket Collection as his gift back to the United States. He researched details from each of the fifty states to create the one-of-a-kind collection. The collection debuted in 2005 at the Frist Center for the Visual Arts in Nashville. Cuevas says the goal is to eventually donate each state's jacket to that state's museum after it has toured the United States and internationally as a collection.

From 1975 till 1988, Manuel Couture became a go-to designer and image maker for up-and-coming musicians in Los Angeles. "His customers seem to place a near-blind faith in Manuel putting their professional images in his hands, believing that what he whips up for them will be right. 'That's partly why I have survived as a designer all these years. People put their trust in me to create something truly unique,' he says." Throughout his North Hollywood career, Manuel worked with famed costumer Edith Head and made costumes for over 90 movies and 13 television shows, including the jeans James Dean wore in the movie Giant, and the Lone Ranger's famous mask.

Longtime friend and client Marty Stuart made his first pilgrimage to Hollywood and Nudie's in 1974. He said he'd saved up $250 and was intending on buying an outfit. When he tried on a jacket that he liked, Nudie calmly informed him it that it cost $2500. Then Manuel stepped in. "He said," Stuart remembered, "'Someday, you will walk in here and buy the whole store. But today you get a free shirt."

For The Flying Burrito Brothers' 1969 The Gilded Palace of Sin album cover, Gram Parsons commissioned Nudie and Manuel to create a suit. Visible on one lapel is the embroidered figure of a voluptuous naked woman. The green leaves featured prominently in the design on the front of the jacket are a marijuana plant, and the red-petaled flowers above them are poppies, the natural source of morphine, opium, and heroin.

In September 1965 Manuel married Nudie's only daughter, Barbara L. Cohn. They had one daughter, Morelia (born in 1968). In 1975, after Manuel and Barbara were divorced, Manuel opened his own shop, Manuel Couture, just down the street from Nudie's Rodeo Tailors in North Hollywood. Many of the friends and clients that Manuel made while working with Nudie, including Johnny Cash, Marty Stuart, and George Jones, supported Manuel and his new shop.

Manuel is attributed as being the man who put Johnny Cash in black. It was early 1956 and Johnny Cash was just about to go on tour. He called Manuel and said I would like to have nine new suits. Three months later Cash calls Manuel and says "I got the suits I ordered from you." "Good," Manuel said. "Are they all right?" Cash paused. "How come they're all black?" "They're all black," Manuel said, "but they're not all the same style, you know." "Yes," Cash said. "So?" "So, OK, let's try it." Cash tried it and kept ordering from Manuel for 40 years. "I want four of this, four of that, but you..." Cash would say. "You know what?" Manuel responded. "Black," Cash stated.

After success in making prom dresses in Mexico, Manuel moved to Los Angeles in 1951 and worked for several tailors. He was soon referred to and started working for Sy Devore, tailor to The Rat Pack. Manuel was offered $55 a fitting, which would often only take 15 minutes. Soon he was tailoring suits for elite members of the Los Angeles community including Frank Sinatra, Sammy Davis Jr., Dean Martin, Bob Hope, Don Rickles, and Joey Bishop.

In the late 1950s, Colonel Parker brought in $10,000 and a young man into Nudie's Rodeo Tailors, requesting that Nudie makes something special for him. Elvis' signature gold lamé suit was created. On the day Elvis and Colonel Parker came to pick up the suit, Manuel is quoted as saying "I wasn't thinking and thought I must press the suit and since it was a gold lamé, it wrinkled like the face of a modern Keith Richards."

Manuel first learned how to sew in 1945 from his older brother, Adolfo, in Coalcoman, Michoacan, Mexico. He stated, "I started making prom dresses when I was 13. You know that grandmothers and aunts made the prom dresses for all the kids. But I started making prom dresses that were pretty expensive, and all the girls said, 'Mommy I don't want you to make my prom dress. I want Manuel to make my prom dress!' I continued making prom dresses and in one year I made 77 dresses, then the next year I made 110, and from then on I hired people to help me sew. I made a fortune."

Manuel Arturo José Cuevas Martínez Sr. (born April 23, 1933 in Coalcomán Michoacán) is a Mexican fashion designer best known for the garments he created for prominent rock and roll and country music acts.

Manuel Arturo José Cuevas Martínez was born on April 23, 1933, in Coalcomán de Vázquez Pallares in Mexico as the fifth of twelve children of Esperanza Martínez (1911) and José Guadalupe Cuevas (1901). He attended the University of Guadalajara and majored in psychology.

Manuel's new design space (located at 1922 Broadway) was as equally historical as his designs. An old Victorian house near Nashville's Music Row was four stories; three were designated for work space with the main floor designated as a showroom and retail space. While in Nashville, with encouragement from the public, Cuevas became interested in designing for the every-day client. In 1989, with the popularity of the California Jacket worn by long-time friend and client Dwight Yoakam, Cuevas offered a limited-edition, similar version of the Hillbilly Deluxe jacket in his Nashville showroom.

After 25 years at 1922 Broadway, Manuel moved closer to downtown Nashville. Manuel American Designs opened its new 3,100-square-foot retail space located at the corner of 8th and Broadway, in September 2013.