Careful people, this is gonna be a fashion-heavy edition and we’re starting with the smartest announcement in weeks: Google Pixel and Highsnobiety are launching the Pixel Institute for Fashion and Tech (PIFT) – a year-long mentorship program starting at Milan Design Week, co-chaired by some of the coolest designers of the global fashion industry right now: Chet Lo, Christa Bösch and Cosima Gadient of Ottolinger, Lou de Bètoly, Priya Ahluwalia, Lukas Krob, and OBS co-focunder Matthias Schweizer.
“At its core, PIFT is about bridging the gap between creative vision and scalable business. Participants are encouraged to experiment, innovate, and explore how technology can be embedded in every stage of the creative process—from design conception to storytelling and audience engagement.” – highsnobiety.com
This is exactly what I've wanted to see for years. A brand offering real mentorship and masterclass infrastructure, not just partnerships. Actually building the next wave of talent. I'm genuinely excited to see what comes next: if it keeps the promise or if it's just another very well-timed announcement.
It’s been almost two weeks since Justin Bieber took Coachella with probably the most dividing performance ever. Weekend 1 was all personal archive deep dive. Weekend 2 shifted into something else: love and community. He brought people whose careers are stronglx connected to him: SZA, Billie Eilish, Big Sean.
But the real story is the lore and it’s orchestration around all of it. The dissections of weekend 1. The speculation about a SWAG tour announcement. The SKYLRK merch that dropped and made over 1 million dollars during the festival. This wasn’t just a concert performance, it was a fully constructed moment. The lore, the strategy, the layers. That’s what makes it groundbreaking – not the performance itself, but the ecosystem he built around it. And this ladies and gentlemen, is how you create a cultural moment…
Over the past years, brands became unavoidable at every festival that wants to avoid raising ticket prices through the roof. But most of them feel like they're just taking up space. You know the type: mini-games in booths, huge logos on cheap giveaways. Coachella is basically their natural habitat, which means my feed was flooded with brand activation posts I didn't care enough to click on. Except GAP.
They partnered with the festival to do official merch. Smart move, people want a hoodie from Coachella, but festival merch is usually garbage quality that falls apart. GAP didn’t just drop a better quality merch piece. They built the Hoodie House around it, a space where people customized their hoodie through patches. Could they have gone deeper with it? Absolutely, more authentic patches, buttons, paint, less branding. They played it safe – yet it was extremely smart: GAP owns the merch, which means they own one of the most important and lasting memories from the festival. That hoodie gets worn for years. Every wear is a brand moment. That’s the move brands miss: own the artifact, not just the activation.
Denim Tears launched their second collection after collaborating with Levi’s for a while. They brought in Lauryn Hill and her five kids for the campaign. But the real moment? NYC activation with Kaisokahwjumbie, a stilt dancing group started in 2010, walking the city in extra long logo-printed denim legs.
This is so amazing because it's so simple and way less expensive than the Lauryn Hill campaign, but it caught me in a second. That's the difference.
With the new ON campaign I caught myself thinking “OH, another Zendaya ad for ON, groundbreaking” (yes, Spike Jonze directed it and I should be excited about that, but unfortunately I’m not as much as I thought I’d be). But when you look closer, this one actually is different. Because Zendaya isn’t the star here; Law Roach is pulling the strings. He’s the stylist, the creative director behind all of Zendaya’s big red carpet moments, and he designed a Zendaya collection for ON. She stepped back and gave him the stage he deserves. That’s proof that ON listened carefully and didn’t just hire Zendaya as a famous face. They hired the duo as contributors and creatives. That’s the only way forward. Anything else falls flat.
Cecilie Bahnsen is Uniqlo's next design collaborator with her "Shapes of Poetry" collection. Finally one I'm excited about. Uniqlo's collabs often feel a bit cheap (sorry, JW Anderson), but these aren't cheaper versions of her designs. They're something completely different – frilled t-shirts, shirring dresses, flowers scattered through. They're not trying to be $600 Cecilie Bahnsen tops or $2000 dresses. They're just their own thing. And that's exactly what makes it work. The collection will launch May 22nd.
Yep, I’m a fangirl. No matter if it’s her own stuff – or Uniqlo, The North Face, Alpha Industries or Asics Cecilie Bahnsen collaborates with, I usually love it. And as always, I of course tried to get my hands on the new Cecilie Bahnsen x Asics Gel Quantum 360, but the true star in the new iteration of their parntership is the campaign featuring model Florence Huntington Whiteley and her three dogs in her childhood home in Devon, telling a story about coming home and what it means to her.
This week marked the beginning of Milan Design Week – and next to many brands that will push boundaries of product design over the course of this weekend, USM does not just one, but two installations – and one of them really got me! I’ve been discussing different ways of letting people experience your brands with both clients and colleagues over the past weeks. It doesn’t have to be a party or a game – and USM shows exactly what else it can be: A walkable installation, made of USM contructs and covered with fabrics to create a otherworldly experience in the midst of Milan. It’s USM, but different. And it’s a very busy event, but giving you a spacious experience meets cave built by kids.
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