Alix Ross and Elijah Funk of trippy L.A. T-shirt brand Online Ceramics haven’t seen the new Ari Aster-directed horror film Hereditary. But they’re obsessed with it. “The moment that I saw that trailer and saw that A24 was behind it, I knew this movie was going to be huge,” says Alix. “I showed Elijah immediately and was like, we have to make a T-shirt for this thing.”
In fact, Alix and Elijah were so stoked on Hereditary that instead of putting out bootlegs—Online Ceramics started out making Grateful Dead lot tees—they tried to get in touch with anyone they could at the studio behind Moonlight and Lady Bird. “I was going for it,” says Alix. “I sent DMs to anybody and everybody that I thought that could help, who were probably like, ‘What the fuck.’” “I actually saw the director of another A24 film commented on one of our shirts on someone else’s Instagram, and I DM’d him and was like, ‘Yo!’” says Elijah. After a few months of working connections they finally got in touch with A24’s creative director, Zoe Beyer, and the result is two spooky collaborative tees, available today on Online Ceramics’ site to mark the film’s release.
Though most people know Alix and Elijah as Deadheads, their other true obsession is horror. “We go to every horror movie that comes out. That’s just what we do,” says Elijah, whose go-to graphic design motifs include skeletons, pumpkins, clowns and haunted wagons. Any other film studio would have smashed the cease-and-desist button on a scrappy T-shirt brand that mocked up tees with ripped film stills. A24 sent Alix and Elijah official images to use—which, in its own small way, is the reason why the N.Y.C.-based studio has shaken up Hollywood in the last five years. You’ve probably seen some of A24’s unorthodox, tongue-in-cheek marketing moves, like their guerrilla Oscars campaign for James Franco’s Spring Breakers performance that used the slogan “Consider this sh*t.” And they made waves in the fashion world around Good Time, when the Safdie brothers tapped their friends at Know Wave to design a capsule collection of movie merch.
Zoe says the Online Ceramics project is the studio’s first in a series of potential new collabs, part of a broad effort to develop an A24 audience that’s not just cinephiles, but, really, anyone who’s interested in culture. And in 2018, there’s nothing that strange about a film studio—usually the least-visible piece of the industry’s apparatus—being a brand in and of itself, just like a graphic tee can now be both an homage and an advertisement. Eventually, according to Zoe, A24 might even sell products that have nothing to do with the films they distribute.
Though there’s nothing else officially in the works yet, Zoe and Online Ceramics both expressed their desire to continue working together. That is, if Alix and Elijah like Hereditary. “If this movie isn’t dope I’m going to be so pissed,” laughs Elijah. Luckily, it’s looking good: besides the wave of critical enthusiasm, there are early rumors of a Hereditary Oscars campaign, which, if successful, would put it in the company of The Exorcist and Silence of the Lambs (the only horror film to ever win best picture). Their plan is to get a squad of friends together—all wearing the tees—to finally see the movie in L.A. this afternoon. “There’s no doubt this movie is going to be dope,” says Alix. “We had no hesitation. This is going to be sick.”
L.A. artist Sonya Sombreuil is building Come Tees into a fully-fledged fashion line.
