Q&A: OGBFF Is Making The Essentials For a Hot Material Girl's Wardrobe
TWO BEST FRIENDS SIT ON THE FLOOR, DRINKING WINE. They’re laughing over a Taco Bell order like it’s the funniest thing in the world. They start making graphics of it. An irreverent and eccentric clothing brand is born.
As the creators of Los Angeles-based brand OGBFF, Angela Ruis and Lauren Schiller make clothes that blend hotness and humor. OGBFF’s baby tees display slogans like “JESUS SAVES I SPEND” or “HOT PERSON AT WORK” in bold text. If you put memes in your Instagram dumps and have paparazzi photos of Britney in her “DUMP HIM” tee saved to your camera roll, OGBFF is what your dreams are made of.
OGBFF’s status as a passion project run by two friends gives it thrilling senses of authenticity and creative control. Laughing with your loved ones is one of life’s most sacred experiences, and Ruis and Schiller wanted to share that. The world is a hard place to be and we’re all just trying our best to have a good time while we’re here. Wear your heart on your sleeve; wear “FLOP ERA” on your chest. With OGBFF, we can laugh in the messiness together and look hot while doing it.
LUNA: Where did the idea to start OGBFF come from? What set you down this path?
SCHILLER: It was definitely our shared sense of humor. We had started a shitposting page on Instagram called Female Shitposters. We were making and posting memes and we thought that was hilarious. Angela has a printer, so we thought that if we ever made a meme funny enough, we could make a t-shirt out of it.
RUIS: The first design we ever did was totally by accident. We were making a video of ourselves talking about Taco Bell.
SCHILLER: Yeah. It was our vegan Crunchwrap Supreme order, and we were just saying it a million times over.
RUIS: We thought it was the funniest thing ever. We were drinking wine on my floor and we started making a bunch of graphics. The next day, we made the shirts. We were obsessed with them. We loved how they looked on us and how we felt wearing them. We decided to make more.
LUNA: What roles do friendship and community play in your creative process?
SCHILLER: Friendship, community, and feminine energy are everything to our brand. Being fun, open, and inviting are the most important things that we want to convey with everything we do. We mostly work with our friends—photographers, models, people like that. In every step of the process, we are trying to be surrounded by our friends.
LUNA: Do you have an imagined customer or audience? If so, describe them a bit.
RUIS: Material girl.
SCHILLER: Someone who walks into a room and has the fucking jokes, but needs to be poked a little bit in order to tell them. It's funny that it's written on their shirt.
RUIS: Yeah, just funny, hot people.
LUNA: There's an element of nostalgia in these designs. Are there any brands or stores that shaped your style when you were kids?
SCHILLER: It’s not really clothes for me, but I was always obsessed with celebrity culture and tabloids. Also, Limited Too and Claire’s.
RUIS: It’s also Kathleen Hanna.
SCHILLER: Yeah, music played a huge role in our developmental stages and us getting to know each other, our styles, and our senses of humor.
LUNA: How has the internet shaped the brand’s aesthetic?
RUIS: It shapes the way that we interact with our customers. Receiving their feedback happens so quickly because of apps like TikTok. We can make one shirt and post a funny TikTok of it, and it has the potential to reach 50,000 people that want that shirt. We have the ability to gauge what people like right now. We don’t always let what our audience wants determine what we create, but it is really helpful.
LUNA: What does getting dressed mean to you?
RUIS: Trying to look hot. Expressing ourselves. That's why I first loved what we were doing.
SCHILLER: When I get dressed, I love playing dress up. I don't shop at retail stores much. I mostly thrift and go to flea markets, so finding things that are seriously unique to my style is always important. I don't ever want to be wearing the same thing as someone else, and that may just be my individuality complex, but I think it's the easiest way for me to express myself.
LUNA: Where do you see OGBFF going in the next couple of years? What are your goals or dreams?
RUIS: We're excited for this year and to continue growing at the pace we are. I could see us moving more towards having more organized content, such as series that we put a lot of thought and effort into and consistently post. ASCHILLERo, media like podcasts—I don't know if we're podcasters, but things that involve other people. We want to build a platform that's not just on a piece of clothing.
LUNA: Do you have favorite graphic tees that you own or have owned?
RUIS: I really liked this one shirt we found that was bedazzled and said, “I'm funny.”
SCHILLER: Yes, that was so good. When I was 13, I was digging through my parents’ closet and I found a shirt that said “Fydollaho.” As a 13-year-old, I thought it was the most provocative, hilarious thing. I used to wear it to my rock-and-roll summer camp.
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