Three years ago, Hellstar experienced its watershed moment. Its 10th capsule collection since starting in 2020 had made $2 million in just 30 minutes. Yet, co-founder Sean “Seanie” Holland was frustrated.
The LA-based label had accidentally listed a T-shirt for $0 on the website, and hundreds of customers checked out with it before the team noticed the error. On top of that, Seanie kept seeing negative comments online that the brand’s sell-out was fabricated, and that Hellstar was a scam. “It just bugged me and I felt like I had to prove it was real,” says Seanie. He posted the number of orders Hellstar received on the brand’s Instagram Story, but the fans wasted no time crunching the numbers. Hellstar’s $2 million drop instantly became a part of the brand’s internet lore.
Hellstar has continued to grow at a breakneck pace since. In just six years, it has gone from two people into a 20-plus employee operation that spans across two factories in Los Angeles. The brand sits on the racks of luxury boutiques like Patron of the New and The Webster. It has racked up collaborations with Avirex, WWE, Adidas, and will debut a monumental project with Interscope Records and the Tupac Shakur Estate at ComplexCon 2026 in Los Angeles in a few weeks.
Hellstar and its recognizable design language have shaped the look of modern streetwear. With a continuous exploration into more cut-and-sew designs, ongoing Adidas partnership, and growth of its Hellstar Sports division focused on youth sports, the brand seems to be building something with unlimited potential.
Seanie has been around fashion since he was a kid. He credits his father, who dressed him in Michael Jordan Bulls jerseys and nylon track pants, for his early swag. His childhood babysitter, whom he calls his aunt, worked at Sichel Embroidery Studio in North Hollywood and now manufactures for Hellstar. Seanie recalls days at the factory’s sidewalk sales surrounded by rare jackets made for the cast and crew of ‘90s blockbuster movies like Batman and Godzilla.
Hellstar co-founders Seanie and Joseph “Juice” Pendleton first met at Burbank High as freshmen in 2010. Seanie was big into the streetwear movement happening on Fairfax Avenue at the time and took notice of Juice’s collection of T-shirts from The Hundreds and Diamond Supply Co. They immediately clicked.
Before Seanie designed real clothes, he cooked them up virtually. He spent hours on the Skate video games creating graphics for his character to wear. His first crack at actual apparel was in 2012, when he was still a high school student. He called the brand Day One, but aside from some tees and hats he made for friends and family, it fizzled out quickly. Seanie continued his pursuit of a career in fashion when he attended California State University, Northridge to study fashion design, but dropped out after two and a half years. Around this time in 2015 came his first legitimate attempt at a brand, Donna Uno. Through some friends who worked at a local recording studio in LA, he would connect with Soundcloud rappers like Lil Pump, Lucki, and Unotheactivist. He even got a promising co-sign from ASAP Bari at the height of Vlone’s popularity after a chance encounter at a cafe. It showed promise. Then, he and his girlfriend received news that they were expecting a child, and his priorities shifted. Rather than trying to get his brand off the ground, he took a job as a barista at Starbucks because of their family benefits for employees.
Donna Uno fizzled out, but Seanie still took freelance graphic design jobs to keep himself creative. Seanie got another chance at fashion when Covid hit in 2020: Juice reached out to him about starting up a new brand with the money that they accumulated from their pandemic stimulus checks. He wanted Seanie to do the graphics. Hellstar was born.
“I got goosebumps the second I read the word Hellstar. There was something about the name,” says Seanie. “The goal was to make enough money to be able to take less shifts at work. If I could make a couple hundred extra bucks a month off this, it was worth it. We had no idea what it would turn into.”
The brand hit the ground running. Seanie handled the graphics, while Juice did production. Early co-signs from stars like FaZe Banks and Young Thug helped introduce Hellstar to a bigger audience. A design that featured Dennis Rodman in his iconic lime green hair with “Hellstar” dyed into it was one of the brand’s first big hits, selling out instantly upon its release in August 2020.
“At the time, the biggest brands were probably Gallery Dept. and Chrome Hearts. The branding was very calm. We had to go in your face and change the swag up,” says Seanie.
It paid off. Hellstar’s bold, all-over flame graphic tees and acid washed sweats became the brand’s defining characteristics. They were recognizable and sought after, but also polarizing. “For some people, it’s cool. For some, it’s repulsive. Whatever it was, we changed streetwear,” says Seanie.
With the brand’s visual identity solidified, more people paid attention with each passing drop. October 2022’s Capsule Nine is when it hit a fever pitch. “Capsule Nine is my Take Care, my Days Before Rodeo,” says Seanie. Co-designed by Unathletic, who still works with the brand on graphics to this day, it featured popular items like the Hellstar Records white tee and red logo hoodie. The drop that followed in 2023, Capsule 10, famously sold $2 million in 30 minutes. The hype got so crazy that Seanie even traded a bulk order of Hellstar clothing for a Virgil Abloh Maybach. “My ‘climbing to the mountaintop’ moment was getting that car,” says Seanie. And yes, if you’re wondering, he still has it parked in his garage.
An unfortunate result of Hellstar’s rapid ascent in popularity has been the high volume of counterfeits. Despite their best efforts, Seanie called it a “whack-a-mole” situation. Once one counterfeiter is caught, another rears its head. Part of the brand’s solution has been to include a tag stitched inside of each item that will confirm its authenticity when scanned by a phone, but even the fakes come equipped with fake authenticity tags now. “I don’t even want to know the amount of money that has been made off of selling fake Hellstar,” says Seanie. “But it’s also all a promotion. Even if this kid buys the $30 tee from China, he’s still walking around with Hellstar on.”
There have also been a ton of copycat brands. While Seanie appreciates some of the young designers inspired by Hellstar’s aesthetic, he doesn’t co-sign any of them who are just blatantly ripping them off. As he does with many of the headaches that Hellstar has had to endure, Seanie has been able to find a silver lining in the rampant copycat issue.
“It just cements us in streetwear history. What we did was important. No matter what somebody’s opinion of Hellstar is, you cannot deny the influence,” says Seanie. “I don’t feel like we’ve gotten enough credit for how streetwear has looked for the past six years. I don’t think anyone’s been more influential in streetwear over the past six years than Hellstar.”
For its first ComplexCon in 2023, Hellstar had a run-of-the-mill booth in the middle of the Long Beach Convention Center. Just a year later, it commanded one of the biggest crowds at ComplexCon 2024 in Las Vegas. Its Capsule 11 release introduced cut and sew pieces like airbrushed leather jackets and embellished denim shorts into the fold. Hellstar’s booth, covered in blacklight graffiti, had a line snaked around it the entire weekend. It followed up with another banner year. Its presence at ComplexCon 2025 was in partnership with Adidas to debut a fully reimagined Superstar.
“Hate is always the loudest online,” says Seanie. “Sometimes I’m like, ‘Do people even like the brand? And then you go to ComplexCon and you’re like, ‘Okay, people really like this brand. Beyond the money, beyond the hype, it’s dope to get that confirmation that we are actually able to inspire somebody.”
For ComplexCon 2026, the brand will be launching a collection in collaboration with Interscope Records and the Tupac Shakur Estate to honor the West Coast rap legend and the 30th anniversary of the Makaveli album. While the specifics are still under wraps, Seanie says that fans can expect multiple graphic tees that take cues from coveted bootleg rap tees of the ‘90s and limited edition vinyls, but upgraded with that signature Hellstar flare.
“Being able to have the official license with Tupac, I think it’s another one of those things of being able to prove myself and show what I can do when someone trusts in me creatively,” says Seanie. “Dropping it in LA at ComplexCon, I feel like everything’s coming together how it’s supposed to.”
As polarizing as Hellstar has become in the streetwear community, the brand has only continued to grow. In March 2024, it helped Avirex celebrate its 50th anniversary with a collaborative release that included legendary rapper Juelz Santana in the campaign. The following month, it released a collection with WWE featuring T-shirts inspired by wrestling icons like John Cena and Stone Cold Steve Austin during WrestleMania weekend. Hellstar has hosted showrooms during Paris Fashion Week Men’s to showcase its latest cut and sew wares that Seanie has been working on with industry veteran, The Great China Wall founder Alfredo Settimio. It’s the brand’s furthest reach into the luxury world to date.
The biggest growth has come from Hellstar’s ongoing partnership with Adidas. The collaborative relationship kicked off with an exclusive release of the Hellstar x Adidas Superstar at ComplexCon 2025. It followed it up in February 2026 with a second colorway of its Shell Top remix alongside a desert camo colorway of the Adidas AE 2 worn by NBA superstar Anthony Edwards during 2026 NBA All-Star Weekend. The latest Hellstar x Adidas project was released in August 2026. The Megaride S2 runner covered in a tribal flame pattern is arguably the best from the Hellstar x Adidas partnership to date. According to Seanie, there’s more where that came from.
“I’ve been so excited to do Adidas stuff. I think the shoes are a really cool place for me to prove myself design-wise,” says Seanie. “Having the Hellstar logo with a partner like Adidas just stamps us. It does separate us from all the brands that we have influenced. It’s cool to see a global company like Adidas recognize our influence.”
After ComplexCon 2026, Hellstar is gearing up for the launch of Capsule 12, its first full collection since 2024. Expect it to pick up where Capsule 11 left off, but with every more experimentation and elevation.
“I’ll never abandon the streetwear aspect of Hellstar, but at the same time, I saw Virgil [Abloh] go from making Pyrex shorts to doing Louis Vuitton runway shows,” says Seanie. “I’ve seen so many comments saying, ‘This is all hype.’ Years later, we’re still in the conversation. I just want to keep it going.”
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