Brainstorm! JUX first came to life in Brooklyn, New York during the winter of 2008. Roommates and BFF’s Betsi Ewing (photographer) and Elissa Ruminer (make-up artist) came up with the magic over a few too many glasses-o-wine. Both have a love affair with jewelry, lots of it, all of it, chains, diamonds, bling, charms, gold, silver, you name it, they love it. The first ideas for JUX were to design necklace-type graphics which would lay on the front of the shirt (as an actual necklace would) and then embellish the T with actual/real life/bling, giving the shirt a sort of 3d sculptural necklace on your front side kinda thang. The ideas kept a coming…
Betsi uses her photos as ideas for much of the imagery and also templates for the actual stencils. Specifically her current obsession of “photograms” has been the largest inspiration for the project. She hired an awesome college student/stencil artist named Lauren Byrne to create the necklace/chain stencils out of her photogram images. Many of the T’s are layers upon layers of paint/stencil graphics. Gold and silver are of course a favorite! Elissa who is a super talented make-up artist extroidinare prefers to free hand paint on the T’s. Elissa claims to get her best ideas in her dreams and can often be found in the early hours of the am, sitting on the couch in her undies and sketching her dream designs.
Working alongside the JUX team is artist/pre-med student/musician PJ- Phil Eichhorn. PJ is a self proclaimed science nerd and has a fetish with all things geometric in shape. This obsession comes out clearly on canvas and on his T’s. Also up in the mix is musician/designer Joanna Levine, the JUX team save the day seamstress! You rock!
Aside from the original/one of a kind/unique/gotta have em T-shirts, JUX has another featured fashion item in the works, the main attraction of the moment… How amazing would it be to wear feathers on your clothes? Very. You don’t see it often, if ever (we never have) because feathers are not washable or really so wearable. Light bulb! By attaching thin strips of velcro you can make the feathers removable! Voila! So in addition to the T’s, JUX also has American Apparel (any color/any size) hoodies which are embellished with beautiful natural feathers around the hood and on the front pockets. Sweet. Get um while they’re hot hipsters. Order Feather Hoodies online, check “Shop Till Ya Drop” link above.
Sooooo with the help, hands and motivation of some awesome friends (thanks PJ for letting us totally take over your house and use your awesome art supplies & thanks Jo for having the patience to sew velcro and glue feathers) JUX finally has it together and can be found at a local designer market near you! If you happen to live in the center of the universe AKA Brooklyn, New York. Hope to see you there!
XO!
team JUX
