Hit + Run: Coming Out of the Party
If you’ve been to some of the cooler-than-cool hipster parties, music festivals or concerts in Los Angeles; Tokyo; Miami; or Austin, Texas, you may have seen Hit + Run “perform.”
Often at the center of a mob of fans and always a flurry of activity, Hit + Run has groupies and a fan base, but it isn’t a band.
Formed in 2005 by Los Angeles–based artists Brandy Flower and Michael Crivello, Hit + Run is a growing outfit of artists who screen-print custom, one-of-a-kind T-shirts using original artwork for partygoers.
With their edgy designs, devil-may-care placement, overlapping art and bright colors, the T-shirts are a far cry from a concert souvenir.
Hit + Run’s T-shirts, made on-site at more than 100 parties—including events for Levi’s, the Natural History Museum of Los Angeles County, Nike, Paper magazine, Dublab.com, Urban Outfitters and Stones Throw Records—developed a cult following.
“You could only get the T-shirts if you were at one of these parties, and there is a real interactive element to them because you can pick where the prints go and layer them, so they become sort of a badge, wearable art. People wanted them and began asking us if they could buy them online,” Flower said.
The answer was and is “no.” The custom T-shirts are still only available at parties, but Hit + Run launched a line of men’s limited-edition T-shirts featuring graphics from a rotating stable of artists in 2007. “We hadn’t planned to launch a line, but the exposure was so good and the reaction to what we were doing was so strong, we saw an opportunity for expansion,” Crivello said.
While Hit + Run is heavy on art, Crivello is putting his fashion-industry know-how into the new line. From 1999 to 2002 Crivello owned and designed Subtitle, a men’s sportswear line.
For its debut at the MAGIC Marketplace in Las Vegas, the Hit + Run crew set up its screen-printing gear on the show floor and collaborated with streetwear brands such as Crooks & Castles, Fresh Jive, Obey, 10 Deep and Hellz Bellz.
The line, produced in small batches of 100 per style in Los Angeles, sells in approximately 20 stores. The aesthetic for the “pre-fab” Hit + Run collection is dark and cheeky—screenprinted skulls, daggers, devils and guns intermingle with hand-drawn automotive tools, crosses and flowers. Wholesale prices for the T-shirts start at $15. Fall 2008 will see the addition of sweaters and long-sleeve T-shirts.
Eventually, Flower and Crivello want to expand Hit + Run into fashion knits and wovens.
For more information, call (310) 488-4506 or visit www.thehitandrun.com. —Erin Barajas
