It's Hot, So We Bought You Ice Cream

Image… You’re standing in front of an ice cream parlour window after waiting 17 minutes in line despite you being in a back alley. The glass is smudged with the greasy fingerprints of at least forty children who came before you. It’s 32 degrees Celsius, so naturally you’re sweating through your shirt. The person behind the counter is looking at you. And somehow, in this moment, under this pressure, with the full weight of summer bearing down, you’re genuinely considering rum raisin.

WHO ARE YOU???

I’ve always thought that ice cream reveals something true about a person. The flavor you choose, yes. But more than that: how you eat it. There are people who bite directly into a scoop with the casual violence of someone who also reclines their seat on a one-hour flight. Monsters.

Then there are the slow lickers (methodical, almost meditative, rotating the cone with surgical precision) making eye contact with you the entire time for reasons nobody can explain. CREEP!!! There are the people who let it melt and then drink it from the cone like a warm dairy shot, which is disgusting and also somehow always a man in his late thirties. There are the ones who eat it so fast they get a headache and then act surprised, every single time.

Psychologists will tell you that high sensation-seekers prefer bold, unconventional flavors while more conscientious types trend toward the classics. That people use food choices to signal identity and group belonging in ways they’re not consciously aware of. That nostalgia activates the same neural pathways as reward. That ice cream, specifically, triggers an almost universal positive emotional response in a way that almost no other food category does.

Which is, it turns out, exactly why half the fashion industry has apparently decided to use it as a marketing tool simultaneously and we cannot stop noticing.

In the past month alone, Rhode, Zara Larsson’s lingerie line MAIN ROSE, Burberry. Miu Miu, and Moncler have all leaned into marketing with ice creams and popsicles as the main act. What’s actually happening here? Is this a trend? A strategy? A collective hallucination? Is there something about a cone that communicates something a campaign can’t?

We got obsessed with this question, so we went deep. We spoke to ice cream shop owners who operate at the intersection of food and fashion culture and we came back with some answers. That piece drops next week here on Dot Dot Dot.

But while we’re finalizing it (and while we’re leaning into our commitment to doing more IRL with Dot Dot Dot, like we did with Stone Island during Design Week in Milan) we’ve organized something for the week. Get ready…

We hit up our new friend Yeha at DODO.

If you don’t know them: DODO is a Korean gelato brand that launched in Seoul in 2020, now operating five locations across the city. They’ve developed over 200 recipes in-house, and have become the quiet go-to for luxury and fashion brands who want to do something with frozen dessert. Their collab list includes everyone from Diptyque and Jo Malone to Salvatore Ferragamo and Birkenstock, Most recently Moncler with whom they launched the viral animal-shaped popsicles for their summer campaign.

We like that DODO treats every collaboration as storytelling where they use the gelato as the medium (flavors reference the brand’s heritage, packaging mirrors the visual language, the pop-up becomes part of the brand world). How Dot Dot Dot! So this felt right.

On Thursday 28th May (the day the article drops) at 11AM local time, we’re giving away complimentary Dot Dot Dot x DODO Yogurt with raspberry swirl (inspired by our Dot Dot Dot logo) gelatos to the first 50 people (or while stock lasts).

Location:
DODO Gelateria Parnas Mall

B1 R-36, Parnas Mall, 521 Teheran-ro, Gangnam-gu, Seoul, South Korea

It’s simple. Show up. Get a gelato. Read the article on your phone while it melts.

Our treat…

Tell your friends in town and don’t forget to take a snap and send this to us at @dotdotdot.zip or email us at dotdottdottmedia@gmail.com