Who Looked Hot at the Met Gala?
The best Met Gala looks, Equinox's $40,000 membership, China's coffee obsession, the real winner of the Drake & Kendrick beef, and more.
GM everyone.
Last night I walked a few blocks from my apartment to check out the scene around the Met Gala.
The corner between the Carlyle and the Mark was f*cking bustling, filled with people climbing up railings, standing out shoulders, and holding their phone way above their head to try and snap a photo of a celeb getting into a Sprinter van.
I bumped shoulders with Jeremy Strong and thought to myself… “You’re wearing that?”
I knew a few people working the event last night and I am going to reach out to them for quotes, but they’re still asleep. So stay tuned for that in the coming days.
In today’s newsletter, I’m going to break down some of my fav looks, Equinox’s insane new membership, the real winner of the Drake & Kendrick beef, and more—
WHO DO YOU KNOW MET GALA AWARDS
Kendall Jenner wore a vintage Givenchy gown originally modeled on a mannequin. Apparently she was the first person to ever wear it, and was unable to do any tailoring whatsoever. It looks sick.
I f*cked heavy with Ayo Edebiri’s Loewe look.
Lana Del Rey only shows up the Met Gala every 6 years (can’t wait for 2030) and she wore a super ethereal look from Alexander McQueen. How many champagne boys got poked with a stick last night?
Gigi Hadid looked dope. I am presuming they didn’t let Bradley Cooper attend because he can’t stop wearing ‘rare Air Jordans’
Charli XCX wore a Marini gown crafted from vintage white t-shirts. This deconstructed look fit her super well.
As most Met Gala’s go… the fellas didn’t look great so not worth mentioning.
NEWS
Equinox is launching the world’s most expensive gym membership. The brand announced their new “Optimize by Equinox” program which costs $40,000 a year, and features a robust set of personalized trainings, diet plan, sleep optimization, and massage therapy. Those who sign up will begin with a battery of tests aimed at discovering the bodies areas of improvement, and help Equinox determine the best fitness plan aimed at improving overall health and longevity.
The program comes amidst a rising demand for personalized health and wellness services across sectors. I recently covered a hotel in Dubai dedicated to a high-end fitness vacation. This trend is largely led by influencers like Michael Huberman and Brian Johnson, who is spending $2M+ per year to run tests to create the perfect fitness plan to reverse his aging process. This space is super interesting and I am fascinated by the rise of extreme optimization. I really want to interview someone who is dropping $40,000 on this program.
Who is the real winner of the Drake and Kendrick Lamar beef? The last 6 weeks we’ve all been closely watching the two rap superstars drop a slew of concerning diss tracks devolving into a ‘he said, he said’ verbal sparring match with increasingly dark, unverifiable allegations. But the real winner of the beef is New Ho King, an unassuming Chinese restaurant in Toronto. The restaurant was first mentioned by Kendrick on ‘euphoria’ before being featured in Drake’s rebuttal ‘Family Matters’ music video. The NYT reached out to the owners, who confirmed their getting a ton of orders as a result of the beef.
Regardless of the subtext or rapid analysis by rap fans, Johnny Lu, the restaurant’s owner, was happy to be mentioned. “We usually receive 20 to 30 orders of fried rice a day,” Mr. Lu told The Toronto Star two days after Mr. Lamar’s “Euphoria” was released. “Today we made three times as much.”
Apparently, Brooklyn’s Lucali is also experiencing a residual effect. BTW I rock with OVO so you know where I stand on the ‘winner’
Coffee is becoming really popular in China. The world’s second largest economy is becoming addicted to caffeine just like us. Bloomberg reports they have become the world’s 7th biggest coffee consumers, which is remarkable considering just a decade ago they didn’t even register in the top 15.
As demand surges there, the price of Arabica beans is soaring, reaching their highest price since 1977. Here in New York that translates to around $2.5/lb or the highest price in over a decade. My quad cortado is now $8. Maybe its time to invest in coffee futures? Maybe rising costs will end the trend of every clothing store having a cafe? Probably not…
Disney+ recorded a shocking profit. To Bob Iger’s delight, the streaming service had their first profitable quarter, generating $47M in net operating profit (compared to a $587M loss a year ago) The streaming wars seem to be nearing an end, as the winners (Netflix, Disney, Max) continue to gain subscribers and consolidate smaller players under their wings. Netflix is venturing into new forays in live events, like the viral Roast of Tom Brady or David Chang’s live cooking show.
from Feed Me featured David Ulevitch, an investor at Andreessen Horowitz) on her newsletter. He sold his last company on to Cisco for $600M and had a ton of incredibly insightful answers about the VC space, fake meat boom, and some hot takes on fake jobs. She made the discussion free so go read that.
OKAY GOTTA GO BYE!
Jake Bell is a content marketing and creative strategist based in NYC. He specializes in content creation, branding, art direction, creative strategy, and making things cool.
To learn more about Jake visit www.jb.studio
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