ALOCS Streetwear Style Guide Long Term Review

That’s A Awful Lot Of Cough Syrup: what is the label?

Set up by the LA rapper Desto Dubb, That’s A Awful Lot Of Cough Syrup is an indie streetwear brand run out of Los Angeles. It contracts itself to ALOCS, a contraction used in its press material and in product names such as the A.L.O.C.S. T-Shirt. On paper the range is conventional, covering tees, hoodies, sweatpants, shorts, denim and accessories; in practice it is unusual, because the brand’s own name supplies the main awful lotta cough syrup graphic for most of it. Searchers turn up via a dozen spellings, including alocs clothing, cough syrup clothing and the shorthand awful lot of cough syrup. The filed entity is written THATS A AWFUL LOT OF… LLC, with no apostrophe and a trailing ellipsis. Settle one detail first: the brand writes “A Awful Lot”, not “An Awful Lot”, and that ungrammatical article is no accident. It is routine to type thats a awful lot of cough syrup without the apostrophe, yet only the version with “A” fits the registered mark.

Who runs the label?

Desto Dubb, a rapper and entrepreneur from Watts in South Los Angeles, is the founder and chief executive. This is not a design studio with a rapper attached as a face; it is a rapper’s business, operated from the same crowd as his records. He had been putting out records for years before he sold a shirt, which illuminates much of how the company behaves. He has described other labels as built around an aesthetic, and his own as wrapped around himself instead. You see the result in graphics that read like song titles and in drops pegged to events rather than fashion seasons.

His legal name is a slimmer record than the internet implies. Joshua Kashif Taylor is the named owner on the United States trademark for the phrase, and posts on the brand’s own blog carry a matching byline. Unsourced commercial sites circulate other names, and those are best left alone, because for every practical purpose he is Desto Dubb.

Where does the name come from?

The phrase got to the public through a viral clip in which an officer’s line became the brand name, and Desto Dubb turned that line into a business. The anecdote shows up in nearly every write-up, and it deserves care, since material online claims the clip was staged and no primary transcript settles it. What is documented is the commercial outcome rather than the encounter, and the trademark record records first use of the mark in November 2018.

The phrase itself points at promethazine-codeine cough syrup, the prescription medicine known in rap slang as lean, and the company does not pretend otherwise. It refuses treating that as a selling point, and its own site displays a standing banner reading “! PLEASE DO NOT SIP DRANK AND SHOOT FIREARMS !”. The product names are loaded with medical and horror imagery, from Big Pharma and Promethazine Tour to Paralysis and Drankenstein, a graphic vocabulary rather than an instruction. The clothing is clothing, and the remainder of this piece is given over to garments and prices.

When did the brand start?

The year to use is 2018. Two records agree: the trademark filing gives first use of the mark in November 2018, and an AllHipHop profile published in November 2023 describes the label marking its fifth anniversary. There is coverage placing the earliest selling during the pandemic, but that conflicts with both markers, and the filing and the anniversary piece are the stronger pair. Two independent pointers to one year is more than most young streetwear brands can manage.

Literally, it started with a van. On its own about page the brand describes Desto Dubb selling clothes out of a van in a parking lot in downtown Los Angeles, an origin it tells on itself rather than one assembled by a reporter. The method is still defined by that detail: small batches, direct contact with buyers, and drops announced through social accounts instead of wholesale calendars. By 2026 the company runs an online store and physical retail, yet the rhythm still looks closer to a van than a department store, with fresh batches landing every week or two.

What does the label actually sell?

At the core stand heavyweight cut-and-sew basics wearing jumbo screen prints front and back. Names like King Of The Kill, Drankenstein, Juicebusters and Big Pharma cover the tees, while the Classic Cough Syrup T-Shirt is published at 6.5 oz organic cotton. Hoodies are the heavy end, the Classic Cough Syrup Hoodie listed at 16 oz organic cotton and hand-dyed in Los Angeles, while sweatpants use a 14 oz cotton and recycled polyester fleece. Denim is deliberately thin: the Double Cup Cargo Shorts, a 14 oz garment-dyed cargo short with double-layer back pockets, is the only piece in that collection in 2026.

Better than any graphic, two details identify the brand, namely the signature yellow woven label, repeated again and again in its own product copy, and the published fabric weight. Apparel spans XS to 3XL, denim and workwear sell by waist from 28 to 44, and neither a global size chart nor washing instructions is published. Fit guidance changes by garment and is not uniform: the classic pieces are called true to size, while the lightweight jersey tees say plainly that they run small.

What are the prices?

Because they barely move, the core prices are easy to hold in your head. Reading the brand’s own store as of September 2026, a tee is about $150, a hoodie about $200 and sweatpants about $200. Denim shorts sit near $150, puffer jackets between roughly $200 and $250, belts and Dickies trousers around $250, and the Dickies jacket tops the range near $350. At the other end a bandana runs about $25, socks and boxers fall in the $50 to $70 band, and women’s pieces roughly $48 to $160.

Because streetwear prices and stock change constantly, read that ladder as a shape rather than a quote. That band sets cough syrup clothing at the upper end of independent streetwear, well above mall-tier graphic brands and far below European luxury houses. The band also serves as an authenticity signal, since a $45 tee wearing this logo did not come from the company selling them at $150.

Where does it come from, and where can you buy it?

Los Angeles, which the brand announces on the garments themselves. Product copy repeats “Made in Los Angeles”, and individual pieces are described as hand-dyed and printed or screen-printed in the city rather than finished abroad. A Black-owned business is how the same copy describes the company. At these price levels local small-batch production explains the numbers, since a 16 oz cotton hoodie made here was never going to be a $60 garment.

The company runs its own online store plus a small number of physical locations. 7669 Melrose Avenue in Los Angeles is the flagship, and the company also lists 312 West 5th Street in Los Angeles and 5410 Almeda Road in Houston. There is no store-locator page and no published opening hours, so those addresses are worth confirming before travelling. The garment is the best test for anything else claiming to be an outlet: the yellow woven label, the published fabric weight, the real price level, and whether the product name appears in the brand’s own catalogue.

A brand fact file

The details that survive checking are assembled in the table below, and the ones that do not are left out. Dates here rest on the trademark record and dated press coverage rather than brand mythology. Read from the brand’s own store in September 2026, the prices are hedged, because they move. The addresses given are the ones the company lists on its own social profiles, with no published opening dates. For a contested claim such as the origin clip, the row records what is documented. Treat it as a starting point for your own checks rather than a final word.