Vaping in the Proenza Schouler Puffy Vans
endless collaborations and more...
GM everyone.
ICYMI, yesterday I dedicated the entire newsletter to talking about Ooso, a new organic sparkling tea inspired by natural wine. I interviewed one of the co-founders, Sophia Racciatti, and asked about the challenges with starting a beverage brand, the beautiful packaging, and more.
If you’re interested in the beverage world, I highly suggest giving it a read. Ooso is also now available to purchase here.
Today’s letter is going to be a little shorter, I have a ton of work to do (🤑) and am going to an interesting event this afternoon, which I’ll spill the tea on next week.
Proenza Schouler and Vans are dropping a very puffy collaboration. I have been pondering the classic Vans slip on for some time. In an era of slim profile shoe dominance, why has the slip on van lacked the weight as the Samba or the Onitsuka Tiger Mexico 66? Arguably due to a lack of collaborative juice? But Proenza Schouler may be changing this, with their new collaboration which reimagines the slip on with an exaggerated, puffy construction.
I can’t even lie… I kind of like these. Yes, they’re a little weird, but I think they look fun and comfortable. I little odd to drop such a puffy, almost insulated shoe at the beginning of Summer, but I digress. That yellow-ish color is really nice. What do you guys think about these? In other Vans related news, they just tapped former Lululemon Product Chief, Sun Choe, as their Global Brand President.
This video from Canva’s design conference may be one of the worst thing I’ve ever seen. Your favorite non-designer’s favorite design tool, Canva, is making a big push at acceptance amongst pro designers. They just has a big conference a ton of marketing influencers attended and said nice things (they’re being paid to do so btw) where they decided to address pro concerns with a Hamilton-style rap. Please watch below. This so bad….
Balenciaga and Under Armour are collaborating. With each new Balenciaga season, comes an unexpected collaborator that ties into the brands chronically ironic ethos. This season’s is Under Armour, your dad’s favorite sportswear brand. The collection is so insanely boring, literally just $1500 zip up hoodies with Balenciaga and Under Armour logos. How much longer can this direction sustain with sales slumping 15% between ‘22 and ‘23? While I am an unabashed Demna fan, and you have to credit him with bringing Balenciaga back, I just wonder if maybe he and the team are losing a bit of creative inspiration.
Can this startup make vaping sexy? I stumbled upon Otherways, a sleek new vape that looks like it could have been designed by Jony Ive. It seeks to address a common problem with vapes… they are ugly and not very chic. The Miami Mint elf bar can kind of ruin an outfit, you know? Otherways looks to be better crafted and a way nicer design. There’s room for this product, targeting the aesthetically obsessed nicotine addicts. I want to learn more… hold for that.
Alexander Wang dropped a TikTok with Taylor Swift, Beyonce, and Ariana Grande lookalikes.
wrote about this Alexander Wang video promoting their Ricco bag. It features off-brand celebs lookalikes showing off the bag with voiceover like it was a corny video for a TikTok Shop scam product. At first I had to do a double take, I thought it was AI generated. This feels right out of the Marc Jacobs social media playbook. Its super interesting to see how luxury fashion brands change their marketing/content for TikTok, taking a much more post-ironic, chronically online take. For example, Loewe did one of those smash cut videos a few months ago. I’d love to see some of the decks behind the strategy here. Someone internal please leak me one. What do you guys think about this video?
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Alright thanks for reading this week! If you have someone in you’re life who you think would love Who Do You Know? then share this newsletter with them!
Have a great weekend :)
Jake Bell is a content marketing, creative strategist, and designer based in NYC. He specializes in brand building, content creation, branding, art direction, creative strategy, and making things cool.
Want to chat? Email me: jake@jb.studio