Story Button-up

REBEL8 will release Story Button-up on June 24 at 12pm PST.

This is the full pattern. Sweat the details.

Whenever I travel, I spend a lot of time walking everywhere. I always pay attention to manhole covers. I find the designs on them quite pleasing. I’ve directed quite a few REBEL8 graphics based on them. To me, manhole covers represent REBEL8 coming from the gutter. Right below that are two teeth. When I was young, I got my two front teeth knocked out at a party. Honestly, not having real front teeth throughout high school made me hella self-conscious. I never smiled. The graffiti cans should be self-explanatory.

The Victorian house represents San Francisco, where we’re originally from. I decided to make it look vacant, because we left in 2013, and partially busted because to me, SF has been dead since the 90s/00s. The numbers on the house: 833 is for 833 Divisadero Street where I started REBEL8 with just $500 in 2003. 2415 is for 2415 Third Street, our first warehouse which I solely operated in 2006 and 2007. 1661 is for 1661 Tennessee Street, REBEL8’s last location in San Francisco before relocating to Los Angeles.

The upside-down cop car on fire represents our 2014 tradeshow booth where we actually secured an official police car and bombed it. The original concept I had for the installation was to have the car turned upside-down, but it posed some serious logistical concerns, so we ended up keeping the car upright so that my wife and I could drive it down the 110 to Long Beach. I still remember telling her to smile at the cops as a bunch of them surrounded us on the freeway. The palm tree is forever a symbol to me of Southern California. The poured out 40 and middle-finger skeleton hand means REBEL8 until death.

This is 1729 Wall Street, our first LA office/warehouse. You may have visited this spot for a REBEL8 warehouse sale. I once loved this building and felt incredibly successful to be able to run REBEL8 from it. Nowadays, I fucking despise that place. The block would turn into the zombie apocalypse each night. The zombie on the far right is taking a shit. Unfortunately, that would actually happen every few days.

Although this drop is a literal example, pretty much everything we make has a story behind it. I hate when people use the phrase "business is business" and excuse the fact that we're all emotional humans first, and doing business second. This REBEL8 shit is personal as fuck. Thanks for reading.