O: When did Local Celebrity come about, and why did you decide to focus on t-shirts?
J: We got a screen printing machine and lived at our grandmother’s house in San Diego and printed t-shirts out of a barn for close to a year. Urban Outfitters was our first account, and they started ordering and needed to really pick up the distribution of the production. We partnered with a production facility, and the rest is history.

O: Who comes up with the concepts for the t-shirts?
J: Primarily it’s me and my brother, but every once in a while, our designer will come up with a good concept or Andi will throw something in there.

O: How many t-shirts do you come up with per season?
J: We haven’t really been working in seasons. We’ve just been making t-shirts. Ones that sell well, we keep around. Ones that don’t, we just discontinue and replace with another one. We try to get at least 10 a month to our showroom.

O: What makes your collection unique?
J: When we started, it was very unique. We feel like we really influenced the market for humor t-shirts. But now everybody and their mother has a humor t-shirt company. So we stepped it up. It’s not so much clip art and words anymore because that’s everywhere, and we’re tired of seeing it, and we don’t want to wear it. Our shirts have more flavor than other companies. Most of our competition in the humor t-shirt market sell shirts with sexual innuendos, and they talk about getting drunk, partying, and really just the whole college lifestyle (therefore mainly targeting college kids).  We try to "rise above" that and keep our shirts clean and wearable for everybody.  We want them a little more thought provoking, confidence inspiring, and flavorful.

O: From where do you draw your inspiration?
J: Everywhere. A lot of pop culture and hip hop. Mainly, I like to draw inspiration from music. Everyone can have a Local Celebrity shirt because there’s an occasion for every one of our shirts. Music reaches everybody. We also have random personalities in our family, so we draw inspiration from each other.  

O: Describe your collection.
J: We have fleece, canvas slip on shoes, and hats that are being produced right now, and within the next few months, we’re working on producing long sleeves, thermals, and tank tops.

O: What stores are you sold in?
J: A good list of stores that we’re in are Kitson, Atrium, The Lounge, Urban Outfitters, Hollywood Stars, and Delias.

O: Who wears your t-shirts and who do you want to see in them?
J: We have DJs rocking our stuff, we’ve got Delias customers, and Hot Topic customers. We just want people to wear our stuff and feel confident. Our customer is anyone who keeps it real, anyone who’s cool, has flavor, personality, charisma.

O: From where did you get the name Local Celebrity?
J: It was pretty random. My sister actually came up with it. When it first started, it was called TheVeryBestTshirts.com. We were trying to brainstorm, and it just came to my sister I think when she was going to bed one night. We love it!

O: If your house was burning down, and you could only keep one thing in your closet, what would you keep?
J: I’d definitely rescue my dog, Champ, before I grabbed anything else.  He’s a 4 1/2 pound miniature pinscher, and I could never leave him behind.  The fire can have my clothes (I have a clothing company, so there’s plenty to go around, and I’d probably already be wearing my Local Celebrity hoodie).

O: Last words?
J: We really wish that people could get to know us because we are the best representatives for the company. That, and our t-shirts are really cool. They have flavor, personality, and it takes a really cool person to wear our stuff.