Come Tees: The One-Woman Streetwear Brand Worn by Rihanna and Kanye West

Come Tees is not run by a team, an agency, or even a small studio. It is one artist, working out of Los Angeles, turning deadstock fabric and vintage workwear into pieces that Rihanna and Kanye West have both been photographed wearing, without ever chasing that attention directly.

Founder Sonya Sombreuil built the label in 2009 as an extension of her art practice, and nearly two decades later it remains defined by exactly that: a single, unmistakable creative voice rather than a brand system built to run without her.

An Artist First, a Brand Second

Sombreuil founded Come Tees in Los Angeles in 2009, and the brand has never really separated from her personal artistic practice. Her signature style, jagged lines, scribbled text, and surreal, symbol-heavy imagery, shows up as consistently on gallery walls as it does on clothing.

A One-Woman Operation

Come Tees runs as what Sombreuil herself describes as a one-woman operation, with each piece functioning as an extension of her own creative process rather than output from a design team. That structure keeps the brand small on purpose. It is a different kind of brand story than most streetwear labels tell, since scale was never really the goal.

Turning Deadstock and Vintage Into New Pieces

Sombreuil sources deadstock French terry, lightweight cotton, and pre-loved vintage garments as the raw material for nearly everything Come Tees makes, rather than ordering new fabric to spec. Vintage Dickies work shirts and chore jackets frequently become the base layer for a finished piece.

She often cuts existing garments apart and reconstructs them with raglan sleeves, vertical seams, and shortened hems, all done in her own studio. This approach overlaps closely with what many sustainable clothing brands aim for, reusing existing material rather than producing new fabric, but for Come Tees it functions primarily as a creative constraint rather than a marketed sustainability angle.

The Supreme Comparison She Can’t Escape

Sombreuil has said she admires how Supreme layers cultural nuance into what is ultimately a brand about branding itself. But according to The FADER’s interview with her, she has also been direct that she could never operate the way Supreme does, since Supreme’s founders remain anonymous while she herself is the visible, singular identity behind Come Tees.

That distinction matters for how the two brands scale. Supreme’s anonymity lets the brand exist independently of any one person. Come Tees cannot separate from Sombreuil, which caps how big the label can realistically grow without fundamentally changing what it is.

Bridging Art Galleries and Streetwear

In 2018, gallerist Bridget Donahue invited Sombreuil to mount a solo exhibition, Faith Crisis, in the back room of her Chinatown, New York gallery. The show ran alongside artist Martine Syms in the gallery’s front space, placing Come Tees squarely within a fine art context rather than a typical streetwear pop-up.

This is a clear example of artistic clothing brand positioning done through real institutional credibility rather than aesthetic borrowing. A gallery show does not sell many t-shirts on its own, but it reinforces the idea that Come Tees belongs in the same conversation as fine art, not just apparel.

Celebrity Attention Without Chasing It

Rihanna and Kanye West have both worn Come Tees, exposure most small labels would actively pursue through gifting or paid placement. Sombreuil’s limited-edition, deadstock-based production model makes large-scale seeding impractical even if she wanted it, since there is rarely enough of any single piece to distribute widely.

That scarcity is not a marketing tactic borrowed from bigger labels. It is a direct consequence of building a brand entirely around one-off and small-batch construction, which happens to produce the same kind of desirability that larger streetwear brands work hard to manufacture artificially.

What Independent Brands Can Learn From Come Tees

Come Tees shows that a brand does not need a team or outside funding to build real cultural weight. A single, consistent creative voice, applied without compromise, can carry a label further than most founders expect.

The second lesson is about being honest with the brand’s actual constraints instead of imitating a bigger model that does not fit. Sombreuil openly acknowledges she cannot run Come Tees like Supreme, and builds around that limitation rather than fighting it. The third lesson is that scarcity does not always have to be manufactured. When a brand’s production process is naturally limited, whether by deadstock fabric or a founder’s own hands, the resulting desirability is a byproduct of the process itself, not a marketing strategy layered on top of it.

Frequently Asked Questions about Come Tees