Golf is anti-country club, the Tom Sachs Normcore shoe, and Sprezza's first-ever collab
I *may or may not be* dropping my first ever product.
Sprezza is a new kind of newsletter exploring men’s style.
We talk about independent menswear, WTF style means, cover drops, review products, and the business of retail.
All in the details
A Sprezza collab incoming 👀
TL;DR
I’m too damn hyped to announce my first-ever collaboration with Kamakura!
Sprezza for Kamakura
Kamakura is a Japanese brand that makes insane-quality shirting at a near-perfect price point. They’ve been in the game for a while, and this summer I’m curating 3 oxford shirts for their annual Vintage Ivy Collection (all designed by Graham Marsh—co-author of Black Ivy.
The colors I chose are nostalgic; brings back to dressing up for church every Sunday.
This has been a long time coming.
I’ve always worked with products and helped brands market them, and I’ve always wanted to do something myself, and that’s something I’m going to change.
Thanks to the homie and fellow Sprezza reader Garrett Colton for introducing us in the first place!
Details…
Day: DROPS JUNE 7
Time: 11AM ET
Where: SPREZZA.XYZ FOR UPDATES
Making golf anti-country club
Well. I played my first round of golf a couple of weeks ago. I was god awful but I also had a blast.
And it made me wanna play more. Golf is fun.
And it made me want to buy stuff I’ll wear that I’ll probably never play in. Because the clothes are getting better by the month. Hypebeast just launched a popup shop in Soho amidst a big report that Bloomberg dropped about how “millnneials are saving golf.”
I’m proud to say that we were ahead of the curve on this movement…
Back to Hypebeast. They’re calling their popup shop: Hypegolf. If there was ever a word to describe where golf apparel is trending, this is it. Anti-country club.
One of the brands Hypegolf sells in the store is Puttwell, a newer brand I’ve been following. Puttwell made these custom polos exclusively for the popup, and they kinda bang. I’d wear one on the green. If you’re in Soho check it out.
But to me, the bigger theme worth monitoring is how people are taking golf, a traditionally waspy white sport, and repurposing it to be for all kinds of folks, regardless of what you look like or where you come from.
And remembering that the flex of what you’re wearing is just as important as saying you play at all. Because it speaks about rising sports-apparel influence we’re seeing on lifestyle, luxury, and streetwear.
Canadian brand on the rise: Libero
Idk what’s in the water up there but Canadian brands are balling right now!
One I’ve recently been into is Libero, founded by Adam Appugliesi. Adam’s become a friend of mine and seeing his vision for the brand and the products he makes is incredible.
Libero’s Spring Summer 2022 collection is a love letter to the brand's co-founder, Kadeem Johnson, who passed away in 2019. Shot and directed in Kadeem's hometown, London, UK, the campaign is an homage to his love for the city’s pulse in fashion, football, and heritage.
The collection is now live; check it out and cop a few pieces for me!
Tom Sachs is baaack
And he’s trying to convince us that we should… wear our shoes. Not gonna lie these ones are giving me serious Killshot meets Web3 meets I-own-a-branding-studio-in-Williamsburg vibes.
To be fair, though, the ad was fun to read.
He’s calling this the “General Purpose” shoe, something you’d wear like we’re in Normcore retrograde. And it’s probably gonna go on StockX for like $800. It’s growing on me though.
Drops June 10th.
The worst of logo slapping
I’m usually pretty ok with high-low (ish) brand partnerships, but this one really doesn’t work for me. I’m also usually fine with Balenciaga because I like their progressive thinking around fashion’s integration with culture and technology.
But this collab just sucks.
If there’s ever a signal we’ve lost the plot it’s Balenciaga remixing a b a s i c Adidas tee shirt (THAT I USED TO WEAR) by slapping their logo on it and saying it’s worth $750. And what’s worse is there are people who will pay for it. I’m a huge fan of brands with different POVs collaborating, but this is truly the worst of it.
The house slippers keep getting better
We talked about how house slippers are effectively becoming iterations of sneakers themselves, and here we have Clearweather, an outdoor shoe brand, putting their own spin on a slipper. And I have to say it looks badass. Go forth and cop.
