Some time in October of 2015, Gus realized he should or could start to sell t-shirts. He worked with a couple of people and decided to use the skeleton design, and the spooky the Lil Peep logo. Then he got permission to use the Schemaposse logo from JGrxxn. Gus was excited to be joining Schemaposse.

Gus loved Halloween and all spooky, scary themes and images--hence his choice of the skeleton theme. He asked me if he could borrow the money to pay a man in Island Park to make one hundred t shirts. I took the money out of his college account (he was taking a full load of college courses that very semester, all online), and paid the $850 for the shirts. Gus’s friend Quinn took him to the store to place the order, and then to go pick up the shirts because Gus did not have a driver’s license, or a car to drive. He needed the help of his friends. So Quinn was there to help.

Gus advertised his shirts on his Instagram and Twitter pages, and then put the t-shirts up for sale on Big Cartel. You can see all of the screenshots he saved of these here. (They were all saved on his computer.)

Gus’s friend Ian helped him get organized about keeping track of and filling orders. Gus asked me to buy padded envelopes at Staples. I also paid for at least some of the initial shipping cost to mail the orders out to Gus’s fans and supporters. I gave Gus a folder to keep all of his papers organized in so he could keep track of orders, and what had been paid in shipping costs. And he really did keep every piece of paper in there, carefully. They are all still there—every single postal receipt.

Gus hated leaving the house, so Ian had to practically hold Gus’s hand to walk him the half block over to the Long Beach Post Office to mail his t shirts. I remember looking out the window as they walked down the block, marveling at how Ian had gotten Gus out the front door in the middle of the afternoon. Gus even took a picture of himself holding some of the envelopes he mailed out. I have included that photo here, too.

Gus kept a hand-written log of all of the names and addresses he sent the t shirts and hats to. He was very proud and excited to do all of this. I think he could not really believe that people wanted to buy t-shirts from him, with his name on them—to “rep” him. It was a big deal, and we were all very proud of him. His whole family has one of these t shirts (I bought about half a dozen for Christmas presents). And several of his friends do, too. Apparently, Gus even signed some of the t-shirts and gave them out to friends in Long Beach.

I am including photos that Gus took, as well as scans of Gus’s documents, and the screenshots he took of his merchandise, and his own advertising.

The skeleton was the original the Lil Peep symbol and remained so, sentimentally, for Gus’s family. That Christmas of 2015, I bought Gus a little Day of the Dead musician figurine which he kept it on the shelf in his bedroom. When his grandmother visited him in LA in the spring of 2017, she bought him a print of a skeleton couple with a quote from a Talking Heads song, “Love me ‘til I’m dead.” And for his 21st birthday, his grandfather gave him two more Day of the Dead figurines, to celebrate the skeleton Lil Peep symbol—a family, and a “punk” skeleton couple. Those were still on the tour bus when Gus died, I know because we had given them to him when Gus had paid a very brief visit to us in Cambridge, during one of the performances—before he was whisked off to New York City for a photo shoot—and I got them back, along with his grandfather’s birthday card (which is in the November 1 Archive post) when I received some of his belongings.

Oskar and I are proud to be able to re-issue this original Lil Peep t-shirt. We are grateful to JGrxxn for permission to include the Schemaposse logo on these designs, and for many other things, as well.