The Weekend Review // 012

What happened in the culture this week.

Welcome to sprezza 👋🏼 a weekly newsletter helping you understand culture through fashion and entertainment.

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Happy new year, folks. Took a hiatus to recharge and plan for 2021. We’re back on track now.

This year, my goals are to:

1. Help you connect cultural dots through the lens of clothing, art, music, and entertainment et al.

2. Launch a podcast interviewing interesting folks who are driving culture forward.

3. Build a private community that lets you connect with like-minded people around the world. More on that later.

I’m so excited for you to follow my newsletter, this year is going to be a big one!

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Today I’ll recap highlights from December and also cover what’s poppin’ in January so far… which ain’t off to a great start tbh.

December’s Hits:

• Nick Wooster goes on the record about life & money.

• Banksy’s latest masterpiece in the UK.

• Moncler acquired Stone Island for $1.4B. That’s a lot.

• Style shift: City dudes be dressing like they’re headed to the Himalayas, when they’re actually headed to Blue Bottle.

• Streetwear king, Jeff Staples, designed a shoe with a Allbirds. We didn’t hate it.

• The NBA’s most stylish team.

January…

The LeBron & Mbappe Nike Collab

The bromance LeBron James (LA Lakers) and Kylian Mbappe (PSG) share never gets old. Kylian reminds me of a younger LeBron. Both elite from a young age, both from humble beginnings, and both inspiring the next generation through their talents and voice. This collab is called The Chosen 2, where they each designed their own shoe. I love the sense of duality emphasized in their designs. The bond between basketball and soccer is only growing with partnerships like these.

A.P.C. & Fashion Sustainability

Parisian clothing brand, A.P.C., is making a leap towards sustainability with their new recycling program(me). They’re not only encouraging customers to recycle old clothing, but incentivizing them with store credit when they do. This isn’t necessarily new for higher-end or luxury brands (Gucci did a huge campaign on this last year). If anything, though, it’s becoming the new benchmark for luxury. Our earth needs more of this.

The Power of a Brand Refresh

I’d cop all these threads. That’s the power. Yesterday, Burger King revealed their new brand (albeit back to a logo variant they used from the mid 60s-late 90s).

I’m a huge fan of this refresh, because they (mostly) nailed some important factors that go into a rebrand: a) emphasis on their mobile app and franchise drive-thru updates b) how their brand manifests itself across social channels c) dope looking merch!

They also really missed the mark on merch. They could’ve re-launched the brand with Tyler, the Creator or Kerwin Frost as their models and it would’ve sold out instantly! Oh well.

Their CMO also tweeted out logo designs that didn’t make the final cut, but it’s awesome to look at their thought process BTS.

Fer Machado @fer_machado123

First round design exploration. @raphabreu and @jkrGlobal how cool is to look at that now? ❤️ #design