Hot Garbage 

Down a brightly-lit hallway at Blockfort Studios, a 6th Street gallery and shared  artist workspace, Paige and Tanner Paluzzio sit beneath a vintage yellow bike strung  up high with fairy lights. It’s an oddly whimsical place to find them, these married co-creators of screen-printed apparel brand Certified Garbage Rat. CGR is known for its  “trash” aesthetic, blending tongue-in-cheek insights with edgy urban design. “Not  everything has to be sunshine and rainbows,” Paige points out. “The name Certified  Garbage Rat means embracing your rat side.” 

The pair met while at an internship at a well-known Columbus based apparel  brand. Paige was out of Savannah College of Art and Design and Tanner from  Chicago’s Columbia College. Both were twenty-something graphic designers with an  interest in fashion. They bonded, spending evenings after work together trolling  outdoor markets filled with locally created merch. “It was inspiring,” Tanner says. “It  became our dream to create our own brand.” At the same time, they were spitballing  silly band names, saving them in a joint digital note they refer to as “The Bible.” When  it came time to get to work, Certified Garbage Rat beat out other contenders such as  the ill-fated Grump Muffin.  

But did the name inspire the brand or vice versa? 

“When we finally put pencil to paper, it was the height of COVID,” Paige says.  “We’d just moved to Ohio, we were living in an apartment we hated, and trying to learn  screen printing in the bathroom without ever leaving the house. We were working at  corporate jobs, and it was a big trend to do positive messaging tees. Like, ‘Do your  best,’ and, ‘Everything in the world is amazing.’ We asked, ‘What if we do negative  messaging tees?’”

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There’s nothing negative about their work ethic. After kicking in $500 each, they  bought ten shirts from Michael’s and a screen printing kit. Through trial, error, and a  whole lot of creativity, they started selling shirts at the local markets they once  frequented, building an early fan base, called the “Rat Pack,” through Instagram  hashtags and reels. Fans grew to friends, and the couple made an effort to always  remember names and faces—like super Rat Joe—who now collects everything CGR  puts out. As both artists evolved as printers, the company grew from bathroom to  basement and now runs out of the Rewind Press print shop at Blockfort Studios.  Rewind is also Paige’s day job, along with another sewing job for Lauren Alexander  Designs. Tanner still works full-time at the apparel company where they first met. 

While CGR isn’t large enough yet to pay all the bills, it is self-funding, and the  couple has never had to kick in their own money since that initial investment. CGR  puts out one to two drops every year, themed after mondegreens of their name.  There’s been Certified Garbage Frat (a reaction to moving to a Big Ten town), Certified  Garden Rat (“outdoorsy and floral”), and Certified Garbage Tat (inspired by traditional  tattoos). Their upcoming launch is called Certified Garage Rat, and leans heavy into  work wear inspiration.  

T-shirts were the entry point, but CGR now includes other types of apparel. In  addition to the trademark tees, fleeces like a hoodie or crew neck, a few hats, and for  the first time, a button-down dickey will be sold. The couple downplay the  sustainability of the brand, recognizing that all fashion takes a toll on the environment,  but to help the offset, they buy high quality inks and sustainably-made blanks, the  latter from a LA company whose workers make “fair pay.” “Sustainable fashion is an 

oxymoron,” Paige says, “But if you’re producing new clothes, it’s the least you can do  to bring your ideas into the world with safer practices.” Tanner agrees. “We also want  people to buy them responsibly. The shirts have jokes on them, but they aren’t jokes,”  he says. 

In the future, the couple dreams of expanding the brand beyond just clothing or  accessories into physical locations: a store front, a bar, maybe even a bowling alley.  CGR, in whatever iteration, will definitely keep them too busy to, say, grab dinner at  Basi Italian, where they held their engagement. “Are they even still open?” Paige  wonders. (Yes, it is.) “It’s been that long since we’ve been out.” For now it’s fashion over food and a shared note filled with percolating plans over simple Netflix and chill. “We will always be bouncing between a million things and trying to juggle them all because that’s what gives us joy,” Tanner says.  

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