The Weekend Review #021: Buying a Rolex, this 100 y/o Parisian sofa, & Virgil's Nike Dunks.
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SOME MUSINGS:
What happens when you send a rookie to buy a ROLEX.
The art of designing custom furniture (photo below).
Stone Island + New Balance got plans.
Grenson Oxfords: the answer to footwear fatigue?
Can’t wait to visit this resort in Japan (I don’t apologize for the cheesy music).
WHAT I DIG:
These Wonder Mountain x The North Face hiking shorts.
Designer Stephen Kenn’s incredible home.
The Monocle Book of Italy (finally here)!
These football jerseys from Stone Island (by Jack Sharples).
The story behind this 100-year-old Parisian Loveseat
Designer F.E. Castleberry (who I wrote about this week) bought an old loveseat from a Frenchman a while back, even though it was falling apart. When it was on its last leg, he didn’t know what to do. That’s when Moore & Giles, a leathermaker from Virginia, swooped in to rescue it. They offered to completely restore the leather on the loveseat and wanted to film the whole process.
Castleberry got to collaborate with them by picking out the leather and zebra fur you see above. Next, M&G came to New York and picked up the piece, towed it back to VA, and restored it. And finally, they revealed the final product to Castleberry in this awesome short-film.
PS—this isn’t the first time M&G has rescued a dying heirloom either! They did the same thing for men’s style writer David Coggins a few years back.
What else can we say? The loveseat is spectacular, and I’m very jealous.
Paynter’s accidental chore coat
Paynter is one of my favorite brands. In a busy, fast fashion world, they’ve found success returning to the basics: take a simple product, design it love & care, and build a community around it.
They make chore coats, and every few months, they design a unique one in limited batches. They invite you into the design process at every step, so if you’re subscribed to their newsletter, you’ll feel part of the journey.
If you’re not, you’ve got to subscribe to their newsletter. Meanwhile, here’s a snippet from their recent email about the accidental chore coat they recently made. It’s so good I had to share:
“We made this jacket purely for the love of it.
It started by accident. 6 months ago, we were in the mill where our original Applecross fabric was being woven. Before we headed to the production floor, we waited for Baltazar in the mill's archive room with a coffee. You can’t leave us in a room like that and not expect us to have a good rummage. Amongst the old swatches, we found a patchwork that had been out of production for a long while, and I couldn’t stop thinking about it. Ask Huw and he’ll tell you, it quickly became an obsession. A few days later, home in London and isolating after the visit, I was still dreaming in patchwork, wondering if we could get it back into production.”
NOTE: This is an excerpt from their latest newsletter.
Remember “THE 10”? Well, I present to you: “THE 20”
PY Leaks dropped this on Twitter the other day, and if you want to sample how the public really feels about this collab, as always: read the comments.
TL;DR—it ain’t great.
Personally, the collab is puzzling, because the angle feels forced and phoned-in, and I’m a little disappointed this is how Nike’s using Virgil’s resources and time (not that he should care).
As one Sprezza family member, Justin Gage, put it: “it seems like a lazy attempt to jump on dunk hype.”
The collab should drop this fall. We’ll see.
What products are you into right now?
Throw me some links here so I can check em’ out! 👇🏼