Somewhere between the gallery and the merch table, Unraveled Artists has staked out its own territory. The Downtown Los Angeles collective — founded by a group of Arts District regulars with backgrounds in music, graphic design and independent publishing — operates on a simple premise: that the T-shirt is a legitimate canvas, and that the best way to support independent musicians is to put their visual identity on something people actually want to wear.
The model works like this. Unraveled Artists approaches independent musicians — mostly from the Los Angeles and broader Southern California scene — and pairs them with emerging designers, many of them recent graduates of Art Center, CalArts and Otis. The musician and designer collaborate on a concept; the result is a limited-edition run of shirts sold through the Unraveled Artists website and at a small number of curated stockists in the Arts District and Silver Lake.
The aesthetic skews graphic and print-heavy. Past collaborations have produced everything from hand-drawn portraits to abstract typographic pieces to straightforward logo work elevated by material quality and print technique. Every shirt comes with a card explaining the collaboration — who made it, what the music sounds like, where to find it.
“We wanted to solve the problem of the bad band T-shirt,” one of the founders told The Grawn. “There’s a long tradition of musicians and visual artists working together. We’re just trying to formalise that a little, and make sure both sides get something out of it.”
Unraveled Artists stages irregular pop-up events in the Arts District, typically timed to coincide with the monthly Gallery Row Art Walk. The events double as showcases for the musicians featured in each collection.