When Jacquemus overhauled the retro track shoe, the deep brown iteration was universally praised as the standout colorway of the drop, selling out instantly and commanding steep premiums online. 

In transitioning that exact earth-toned aesthetic into a more accessible general release, Nike gives sneakerheads a second chance at the most versatile of the reupped classic.

The Moon Shoe in brown bridges the gap between Nike’s raw 1970s athletic lineage and the burning current desire for low-profile footwear. 

The upper is dressed in a rich espresso brown hue, with shining satin setting the base and tactile nubuck hits reinforcing high stress areas at the forefoot and heel. A crisp, oversized off-white Swoosh cuts sharply across the side panels.

The shoe stays faithful to its ground-breaking DNA with the iconic waffle rubber outsole in a dark brown finish. The slim foam midsole keeps the profile close to the ground, preserving the featherlight feel that first put Nike’s waffle traction on the map over five decades ago.

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Now, Balenciaga has always been quite stylistically flexible.

But to take this contortionism in such a literal direction is certainly a pivot. Balenciaga's ballet sneaker is Pierpaolo Piccioli's foldable take on the hybrid shoe trend. Nowadays, a shoe has to be everything, everywhere, all at once in order to crack it in this crazy, mixed-up fashion world.

The bendy, Balenciaga ballet flat wears a rubber sneaker-style base, complete with branded Balenciaga engraving on the outsole.

White nylon and gray paneling make up the ballet-style upper, topped off with a satin bow.

Its foldable design also makes it perfect for those on the go, since the ballet sneaker can easily be packed away in your travel luggage or the maximalist tote bag of your choice.

It's not enough for a sneaker-flat to just be wearable; it also has to be borderline collapsible. There's a lot required of the shoes of this hybrid-happy sneaker era, but that's just shoe business, baby.

Available on the Balenciaga website for $550, the Ballet Sneaker comes in black, pink, and eggshell, so no matter your stylistic partialities, you too can bend it, like Balenci.

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If you want to succeed in menswear, prepare to spend a decade grinding.

It's a big commitment and undermines the notion of anyone becoming a true (long-lasting) overnight success. It takes time to get good at your craft, for one, because few brands are born fully formed. And it also takes time to get the word out.

So, we end up with this funny scenario of all these fairly well-established brands suddenly being treated as fresh talent.

Labels like AURALEE, Soshiotsuki, and ssstein are abruptly being bandied about as the modern face of top-tier Japanese fashion, but they were all founded in 2015 or 2016. Danish label mfpen earned a spate of buzz after its well-received Spring/Summer 2027 presentation at Copenhagen Fashion Week despite having been a known quantity for the better part of a half-decade at least. Our Legacy was newly reconsidered to be one of the standard-bearers of good taste despite celebrating its 20th anniversary last year. It took most of the past 12 years for Camiel Fortgens to find its footing in the wider fashion playbook.

Some brands come around to hype much quicker. A.Presse turned five this year and it's already set to conquer the world. Rier launched in 2019 and is already a staple of good-taste stores across the globe. Carter Young leveraged celeb cosigns to

But in most cases, it takes a decade for good stuff to break through. Like, all of the aforementioned labels were already de rigueur among people who paid attention to good stuff. Why did everyone else only just start paying attention now?

Chalk at least part of it down to the pain of patient adoption. Brands as good as AURALEE and ssstein are obviously excellent but, due to availability or visibility or both, take time to sink in. Stores have to start selling them, customers have to start buying them, and trend-hungry (but slow-to-observe) fashion media has to notice both. It also takes years to build a business big enough to be noticed by less studious folks.

But here's proof that fashion weeks still make connections. mfpen is now established/comfortable enough to participate in Copenhagen Fashion Week. Camiel Fortgens, AURALEE, and ssstein are now Paris Fashion Week regulars. The unfortunate thing is that it took big moves to cross over to mainstream(-ish) success. Our Legacy earned its place in broader culture with Stüssy partnerships and Dover Street Market placement. Soshiotsuki won the LVMH Prize. All of these brands always made good stuff, but wider recognition only came slowly.

It's too bad, because not every label has the good fortune to hit it big, meaning that much of the quality clothing being produced by quality labels remains underdiscussed. The onus is partially on the retailers and partially on consumers: take a stab at the unknown. Uncover the great talent of tomorrow today; there's a big world of big stuff out there, if only you're willing to look.

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What makes this release so noteworthy is its revival of the coveted '01 shape. Celebrated by OG collectors as the superior retro build, the 2001 spec features a sleeker, slimmer toe box cut that far more accurately mirrors Bruce Kilgore’s original 1982 blueprint. 

After kicking off the remastered '01 wave through high-profile collaborations, Nike is now easing the collector-grade build into accessible inline colorways.

Delivered in an understated military palette, the slimmer silhouette becomes an instant everyday essential. It bridges the gap between sneakerhead nostalgia and modern styling that can legitimately be paired with almost any color palette.

The upper is built from smooth leather finished in a faded Light Army olive-grey hue. High-contrast jet-black accents strip across the iconic side Swooshes, tongue tags, and embroidered Nike Air heel branding, while crisp white details on the tongue frame the army-green chassis.

Any shoe that can appease both the footwear historians and casual wearers alike is surely a success. Today, the two camps are increasingly separated, but every so often, a release comes along that caters to both sides. This is one of them.

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That’s the idea the Japanese retail giant BEAMS is pushing via Arc’teryx’s STUFF SACK. Though the bag — made from deadstock GORE-TEX and nylon scraps — has been in rotation at Arc’teryx for a minute, it's been given an entirely fresh (and arguably more honest) spin by BEAMS, thanks to the product images that show it for what it really is: a branding exercise.

See, one glance at the supersized logo signals that this isn’t just another nylon pouch; it’s an Arc’teryx nylon pouch. That’s a distinction that matters. 

Brands like Arc’teryx have built cultural capital by creating products so good that customers couldn’t help but take them out of their outdoorsy lane and recontextualize them as streetwear. And why shouldn’t they? Technical gear translates as well into urban environments as rural ones, and the line between two realms has blurred to the point of being unrecognizable — something Arc’teryx has mined through both its high-end Veilance line and its defunct System_A sub-label. 

There’s a reason every image on the STUFF SACK’s product page shows the bag packed with nothing you’d need for a camping trip or hike. This bag is meant for the city, with a distinctive logo large enough to mark you as an Arc’teryx shopper from a mile away (ditto their new Arc'Word Logo tee). 

Is it any surprise that the bag immediately sold out in Japan? There’s no power stronger than that of performative branding. 

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In collaboration with Copenhagen-based menswear brand Mfpen, New Balance has stripped Steve Jobs' favorite dad shoe of all its glory, and the results are curiously sublime. Dad shoe heaven reaches its zenith with the New Balance 992, the paragon of elderly dad shoes.

With its humdrum symphony of grayscale mesh and suede, clunky dad shoe profile, and unobtrusive disposition, the 992 crawled its way from mid-aughts obscurity and onto the feet of some of fashion's finest. Like, a one Steve Jobs who couldn't get enough of the blissfully bland sneaker.

Yes, Mr. Jobs was a fashion icon, and he had the Issey Miyake catalog to back it up.

Now as New Balance's hero dad shoe turns 20, Mfpen is stripping it down even more.

It can be hard to justify taking anything away from such an already toned-down sneaker. But by removing the signature "N" logo that occupies the midfoot of just about every iteration of New Balance's 992, Mfpen gives the sneaker a higher-fashion composition.

Where the classic "N" logo should be, there's just a faint shadow of an "N" that kinda looks like someone ripped the logo off by hand. Artisanal! This branded absence gives the sneaker a runway-esque aura that's delightfully reminiscent of the big, bold Balenciaga sneaker era that dominated the better part of the mid-2010s. And when you think about it, it is about time for 2016 fashion trends to make their first decennial orbit.

In that, Mfpen's pared-down 992, despite being 20 years old, is still delightfully of the times.

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No one understands the rhythm and roots of a place better than those breathing life into it each and every day. Whether it’s through their sacred creative crafts that shape the culture of their city, or a commitment to fostering community there that ultimately transcends from IRL to URL, they catapult their local scene to the global stage—and we soak it all in. Their treasured hidden gems, neighborhood hotspots, and cultural hubs become the bucket list wonders we aim to cross off—and this summer we did just that with Carrera and company.

It’s not often that a brand hits the 70-year mark, but the house of heritage eyewear has set the standard for sports-derived shades over the past seven decades, and in the season of sun-kissed streets and lazy, long days, Carrera commemorates the milestone moment with a seven-city tour de force spanning two countries. The anniversary affair—or better yet, affairs —came to life from coast to coast of the U.S. and its northern neighbor, Canada, as part of the Italian design icon’s “Paint My Ride” competition.

Carrera set up shop in Miami, Houston, Chicago, Vancouver, San Diego, Philadelphia, and finally, Toronto for their retro ride showdown. Featuring top visual artists from each city, they competed for a spot in Carrera’s storied history with their one-of-one works of art on vintage wheels. We got a front-row seat to the action, but on the passenger’s side, as local tastemakers took the wheel and gave us a tour of their city’s sights and sounds.

Keep scrolling below to see how we spent a day with them and Carrera in their city.

Drewincolor  – Miami

Neither we nor Carrera could miss out on that Miami weather, and Drew made sure that we got a real taste of the 305. A creative chameleon, Drew’s authentic approach to style is highlighted in her content creation and bold aesthetic as a stylist, clothing and graphic designer. While Miami weather is temperamental, she doesn’t let it dictate her wardrobe, nor the trend of over-the-top dressing, preferring to stay true to her personal tastes inspired by the city’s iconic Art Deco architecture and colorful landscape. The Carrera shades she chose to complement her look reflect her personality perfectly, capturing her strong sense of confidence while adding a fun flair.

Jorge “Jorgey” Casanova – Houston

In H-Town, we linked up with local legend Jorge “Jorgey” Casanova to show us how things go down in the south. The brains behind the streetwear brand DIOS (Dit It Ourselves) styled his earth-toned, self-designed silhouettes with classic Carrera frames, ahead of his pit stop at Houston’s “Paint My Ride” pop-up. Casanova chopped it up with the two competing artists, Floyd Mendoza and Zuzu, breaking down their colorful, custom paint jobs on the vintage cars.

SOLOCELO - Chicago

We had to head to the Windy City to catch all the vibes with born-and-bred native, SOLOCELO. At 26 years old, Chi-Town’s very own has already solidified himself in the city’s creative scene as a rising musician, actor, and sartorialist. The “MOST DAYS” rapper has an affinity for oversized silhouettes in washed shades, often pairing them with high-quality accessories—in this case, the Italian brand’s sleek sunglasses —to bring his look full circle. SOLOCELO showed us the best sides of Chicago—though there are no bad ones —spotlighting how the city’s culture keeps him connected to his creativity.

Nina Huynh - Vancouver

Home is where the heart is, and for Nina Huynh, that’s Vancouver—or any space she can curate into a cozy, inviting place as a home influencer. An actress and digital style savant as well, Huynh held her Canadian city down when we spent the day together, walking us through the ways British Columbia has taught her to embrace alignment and appreciate a slower, steadier pace of life. Although she’s originally from San Francisco, she’s adjusted to the Vancouver lifestyle, just as her style has evolved with it. But, for Huynh her philosophy is simple, as long as she looks good she feels good.

Uwila “Uno” Simposya - San Diego

Where corporate and creative worlds meet is where San Diego-based creator Uwila “Uno” Simposya comes alive. During the day, the Zambian trendsetter is dedicated to the hustle and bustle of 9-to-5s, but after hours, he pours his all into his online fashion and lifestyle content where he weaves his love of self-expressive style and storytelling all in one. Having spent years hopping from different cities—from his hometown in Zambia to Seattle and now SD—Simposya has learned that every place he’s called home adds a new layer to his style and story.

Kwame Kadahndi - Philadelphia

“There’s no place like Philly.” Those are the wise words of native Kwame Kadahndi, who’s never played about the city of Brotherly Love and certainly does not play about his personal style. According to him, the vibes in Philadelphia are “A1,” and fuel his confidence to curate his retro-rooted aesthetic—these days inspired by Lenny Kravitz and the 1960s/70s Black Panthers—but with a streetwear twist. Philly’s the place that built him, brick by brick, and he has the city’s imperfections that are truly part of its charm to thank.

Ola “ihatemyfits” Oladmeji - Toronto

He’s a Naija boy, but he calls the 6 home. His online handle may be “ihatemyfits,” but Ola has a loyal following that loves them. The 23-year-old credits his mother’s intentional style sensibilities for his minimalistic looks where he manages to keep things simple while still making a statement. With his classy but never flashy ‘fits, he’s able to stand out amongst Toronto’s eclectic style scene while making his mark in the space, just like the city’s hustle culture taught him, and he showed us on the final stop of our “On the Road” social series.

Click here to discover more from Carrera's seven-city tour de force.

Whether you’re a cardio connoisseur or a weights warrior, or just want to look like one, nothing fuels a great workout like some fresh gear. One step ahead, we’ve rounded up the best of adidas’ workout bits to make getting back into the routine feel a little less routine.

Consider this your excuse to upgrade the rotation before you upgrade the reps.

Superstar Midlayer Shirt

Not quite a shirt, not quite a sweatshirt, and all the better for it. adidas’ Superstar Midlayer Shirt sits somewhere in that sweet spot between workout gear and something you’d actually want to wear outside the gym. Looking at you, KJ. The sporty details keep it firmly in adidas territory, while the easy shape makes it ideal for throwing on before, during, or after a session. Basically, it’s doing the most so you don’t have to.

Sport Tote

No solid workout fit is complete without an equally impressive tote. The OG Sport Tote has enough room for the gym essentials, but don’t expect it to stay in the locker room. Toss in your laptop, a water bottle, wired headphones and whatever else the day throws at you, then take it from the morning commute to wherever the evening ends up. Gym bag duties are merely a suggestion.

Sport Coverup Jacket

The ideal throw-on jacket does exactly what it says on the tin. adidas’ Sport Coverup Jacket is the kind of layer you can sling on without giving it too much thought, whether you’re heading to the gym or simply trying to look like you made an effort. Sporty without the performance, it’s an easy win when the outfit needs just one more thing.

Lifestyle Headband

The humble headband is having a moment. adidas’ OG Lifestyle Headband brings that old-school sporty energy to the workout rotation, whether you’re actually putting it through its paces or just want to look like you might.

Sport Longsleeve Shirt

A good long-sleeve is one of those things you’ll reach for without even thinking about it. This sheer Longsleeve Shirt brings a hit of butter yellow to the workout rotation, adding a little sunshine to even the most questionable gym-day motivation. Sporty enough for a session, easy enough for everywhere else, it makes looking intentional feel completely effortless.

Sport Onesie

There’s something deeply satisfying about a one-and-done outfit. adidas’ Sport Onesie takes the guesswork out of getting dressed, giving you a full look without having to piece one together. Pair it with the Originals Sport Coverup Jacket and you’re sorted.

More Good Stuff

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“It opened me up to a new spectrum of life,” Wareheim says. In the wake of the split, he found solace in walking through forests, running his hands across leaves. He’d already been studying bonsai as a hobby for a decade. Post-breakup, that fascination led him to Japan and later to train under plant stylists in Thailand.

This morning, in a 16,000-square-foot industrial space in Boyle Heights, Wareheim is wandering through his eclectic assortment of 1,500 plants and sculptures, pointing out oddities and treasures he found abroad. His collection extends into a sprawling backlot and even to a satellite nursery in North Hollywood. “A lot of this stuff is from France. You can tell because it’s a little more formal, but once you get down south to Spain, it’s fucking Salvador Dalí time,” he says, gesturing toward an unruly ficus sprouting from a cement sculpture fashioned to resemble driftwood.

The space is home to Serpentine, Wareheim’s latest endeavor, which opened in July 2025 — a botanical and design studio that also happens to house the largest collection of the designer Willy Guhl’s pieces in the US. Over the past several years, Wareheim has scoured the globe for unusual antiques and plants — some dating to the age of dinosaurs — bringing them back here and pairing them with carefully chosen vessels. The resulting combinations are striking: equal parts sculpture, horticulture, and poetic design object.

This is what interests Wareheim most: When does a plant become art? “Some people call it plant art. Some people call it plant sculpture. Some people call it American bonsai. It’s based on the rules of bonsai — putting a big tree in a little thing — but in Japan they are very strict about how that should look,” he says. Serpentine follows a more avant-garde philosophy. “We freak out and do whatever the fuck we want, which feels like a very American thing to do,” Wareheim says. “It’s the Wild West.” 

The Wild West is familiar territory for Wareheim, whose career has seen him repeatedly venture into new creative terrain. As one half of the duo Tim & Eric, he created a surreal, genre-defying style of sketch comedy on Adult Swim that influenced a generation of internet humor. More recently, he immersed himself in the natural wine movement, co-founding Las Jaras. The common thread is his obsessive nature. “When I get into anything, I study it so hard. I became somewhat of an expert in wine,” he says. Likewise, “in comedy, you have to fully give yourself to it.”

That devotion is now centered on plants. In the backlot oasis, among hundreds of pots, Wareheim points out a disfigured draco tree, bending and twisting into the sky: Serpentine’s demented mascot. “It must have been pushed over when it was young,” Wareheim explains. “That’s the coolest thing in the world. But other people will look at it like, ‘Oh no, that’s a reject.’” 

Wareheim can relate. “I never could do anything conventional. I just resisted,” he says. “It’s the same kind of punk energy, of wanting to be different. I see things on a different spectrum.” 

To shop at Serpentine, you first need to email and book an appointment. Its clientele ranges from creatives and Wareheim’s friends to rare plant enthusiasts from around the country. Just recently, Warheim worked on a design project for the actress Sharon Stone. The plants themselves range in price from a couple hundred dollars to thousands, depending on the value of their vessels. 

Wareheim has worked hard to make Serpentine a community-driven space. For his 50th birthday this past April, he threw a rebirth-themed celebration at the space, and in September, artist Jonathan Cross will present a show featuring 300 vessels and 300 plants. He’s met dozens of growers who are “doing things the right way,” he says: specialists who source and sell ethically. Last year, he invited several of them to an art show at the LA-based contemporary design gallery The Future Perfect that incorporated their plants. “They came to this fancy studio in West Hollywood, and they couldn’t believe that this tree that I bought from them was living like this,” he says. “I love that part.” He plans to bring Serpentine to new audiences through pop-ups in Miami, Paris, and eventually the rest of the world.

Last September, while hosting the LA Design Weekend kick-off party at Serpentine, the comedian cooked up a prank, informing guests over email that several tree snakes had gotten loose on the premises. Concerned emails came flooding in. “So many people did not think it was a joke,” he says, mentioning that distressed guests were scanning the premises for snakes.

The “loose snakes” might have been a bit on the nose, but in fact, the name for the space came to Wareheim in the spirit of overcoming fear. “In our DNA, we’re scared of spiders and snakes,” he says. “This whole project is about breaking through that.” His comedy partner and best friend of 25 years, Tim Heidecker, sensed the bigger picture when he visited the space last year. “He came here and was like, ‘Dude, I understand you. I see what you’re doing now. It’s fucking amazing,’” Wareheim says. “I almost cried because he’s never talked to me that way.” 

Wareheim explains that his time among the plants has given him a new sense of sentimentality. “I feel like I am in touch with the inside of myself,” he says. Before, “I went through life not even looking at trees. Now, I can’t even walk down the block without pulling out my phone and snapping a photo.” 

Even better when the original version is cosplaying as a runway-ready Miu Miu. Feast your eyes on this luxe Samba OG.

From the back, this could pass for any other leather-drenched Samba. But from any other angle, this is more fun than any terrace has ever dared before. Proof something as small as chucking a few extra laces on a sneaker can make a whole world of difference. Suddenly, this is one intentional adidas sneaker.

Four different laces run throughout both shoes, all in different colors and textures, meaning there’s plenty to play around with. Leave them loose, tie them up, do whatever you want with them. The rest of the shoe keeps things relatively restrained, with classic Samba proportions and a low-slung profile letting the details take center stage.

This isn’t the first time we’ve seen adidas and other big brands nab Miu Miu’s overachieving laces, and it certainly won’t be the last. Fair enough, really. It works.

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Dropping on August 28, the Albino & Preto x atmos x ASICS GEL-Kayano 12.1 Pack bridges Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu culture, Tokyo street fashion, and archival running heritage.

Our favorite aspect of this collaboration is how perfectly it taps into Albino & Preto’s roots. Translating as "White & Black" in Portuguese, A&P’s name pays homage to the progression of martial arts belts, from the clean slate of a white belt to the mastery of a black belt. 

By releasing the technical GEL-Kayano 12.1 silhouette in opposing White and Black iterations, the pack has a super distinctive visual duality inspired by traditional gi fabrics and the journey on the mats.

But, rather than relying on subtle neutrals, the duo elevates the upper's textured mesh and synthetic overlays with vibrant, high-voltage accents. In a market where tonal white and black iterations probably would have been successful, the fact that A&P have gone a step further, daring to use bolder visuals, is praise-worthy.

The White pair features a crisp mesh base with metallic silver overlays, while its Black counterpart leans into pitch-black stealth. Both colorways are bound together by eye-catching Safety Yellow/Volt" gradient midsoles, high-vis branding accents, and retro two-tone rope laces that thread through reflective paneling.

There are many reasons for collaborations, but at the very core is to platform a brand that is lesser-known or not integrated in a specific world. Here, a martial-arts brand gets the opportunity to prove its creativity on an archival running silhouette. In an age where collaborations are thrown about left, right, and center, it’s worth remembering that this is the point of it all.

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Recently, a friend asked if I’d ever heard of “Low-y.” He then went on to describe an incredible-smelling hand soap he had discovered while visiting the restroom at a fancy event. By his account, this soap smelled as freshly crisp as a snapped vine — dewy and earthy at the same time, like a garden. He had become  obsessed with tracking it down, having taken a photo of the bottle only to discover: “That shit was $90!”

We were talking, of course, about the Loewe Tomato Leaves hand soap. (Reader, he bought it.) And whilst I was still reeling from the novelty of pronouncing Loewe for a friend who’s clearly also entered the "paying too much for ordinary stuff” era of their life, I felt a kinship in his sense of indignation. Are we all out here paying $90 for soap?  

Historically speaking, hand soap isn’t a product category known to inspire much of anything on its own merits. It’s more often thought of as a boring bathroom staple — albeit one that, as many shrewd marketers have figured out, is literally unavoidable in our daily activities. No wonder the brands have moved in. Now, the strategic placement of a bottle of Dries Van Noten or Santa Maria Novella hand soap in one’s bathroom is all but designed to elicit envy and admiration. At a time when “taste,” as defined by our consumption habits, can be broadcast and replicated throughout social media, opportunities to status-signal essentially come down to any chance we have to do some visual name-dropping. 

What’s always funny is to note how certain names then cycle in and out of vogue. Originally, the Byredo hand soap bottle was the luxe way to decorate your bathroom sink, care of Into The Gloss’s popular Top Shelf (or #topshelfie for the private citizens featured) franchise, which editorialized aspirational women in fashion (or just in New York City), circa 2010. It was the first totem of rich people hand soap I can remember amongst 2010s editors and influencers. Then it was Aesop’s Resurrection Aromatique hand soap that was  “a fixture by the basins of some of the world’s best-appointed restaurants” (according to Aesop’s website) starting in 2006, before it eventually became a proxy for a certain subset of modern yuppies who could flex their bathroom accoutrement on Instagram. Then of course, tomato-scented hand soap started gaining popularity in 2020 amid pandemic-sanctioned add-to-cart fever, driven by, yes, Loewe’s fêted entry into beauty and home, and Flamingo Estate’s chic gardener aesthetic. 

The idea of “status hand soap” inevitably became a cultural touchpoint. The Aesop soap-havers were side-eyed, memed, and condemned to continuously rebuy a $47 hand soap or suffer the humiliation of being caught refilling it with off-brand soap (solve: never have house guests?). Byredo’s frosted, sans-serif’d bottle was mimicked by a handful of brands that were also betting on Big Soap to appeal to the posting class. While some of us in humbler tax brackets may have clung to our Mrs. Meyers hand soap scents with zodiac-like affinity (I’m a Rhubarb sun, Basil rising), the allure of status hand soap was hard to contest: After all, it offered a way to sample a luxury lifestyle for a fraction of the cost. They're expensive, sure, but not so expensive as to be totally unattainable. It’s the millennial avocado toast index all over again. 

That said, the only times I’ve had a luxury status soap in my house were when it came gifted. I do recommend experiencing the thrill of it, at least once,  to see if you’re going to become the type of person who would like to pay about $1.10 per hand-washing.  While I enjoy a chest-tightening splurge every now and then, the idea of paying so much for something I literally send down the drain frankly doesn’t inspire me. Luxury is many things, and in my opinion, that includes the ability to reuse something precious often and possibly pass it down.

Despite their uniquely delicious scents and decadent lather, I cannot quite get past the overt branding of it all — how displaying a status soap in your bathroom is not entirely unlike wearing a T-shirt where the giant designer logo is the whole point. I remember once visiting the bathroom of a date, immediately confronted with a bottle of Aesop hand soap (authentic, not a refill) there, in his studio loft in Williamsburg. It was such an incongruous artifact to me, considering that mere hours ago, this date had opted to split the bill —  a gesture I hadn’t minded before it appeared he was reserving his budget for conspicuous home goods. (I would soon learn this is not an original experience — laying bare the inherent irony in the Tomato Leaves life when you’re not actually making true Tomato Leaves bucks). Elevated everyday rituals are one thing; a slightly random sink-side flex is another. 

As I survey the current field of status hand soaps, I don’t see a clear contender for Loewe’s tomato-y crown yet, but that’s likely a testament to how hand soap has generally become a much more considered household purchase. The competition for the sink placement has grown fierce at every point of the taste food chain: in filling its locker rooms with Grown Alchemist and then Le Labo, for example, Equinox alone has taught a whole new generation of gym-inclined tech bros to adopt those brands as a signifier of luxury. But these days, you don’t need a hotel, luxury gym, spa, or fancy restaurant to put them onto nice soap (though apparently Coqadaq in New York offers a veritable “buffet” of various status soaps for you to sample, per a recent IG post from the food critic J. Lee): the taste-chasers have now become well-trained to seek out their own forms of sink-side expression. The soap sitting on your bathroom sink is liable to tell on you, the way you'd expect your shoes or handbag to.

Some favorites I’ve noticed: Malin+Goetz’s Dark Rum hand soap remains a popular pick amongst responsible working professionals who may still be wearing no-show socks. Compagnie De Provence’s bold-font bottle of Liquid Marseille Soap is cheerful in an expensive French farmhouse kind of way. People still covet Byredo and Diptyque’s hand soaps for their scents and their beautiful packaging. I’ve been noticing less mainstream brands like Ortegia Sicily, Astier De Villate, and Sangra de Fruta quietly emerging as a new IFYKY quiet luxury hand soap. (I saw the Ortegia amenities in a hotel in Montauk this summer and was charmed by its funky maximalist design.) The whole tomato thing has clearly inspired people to lean towards the unexpected for their respective luxurious lathering experience, and I imagine soap “tourism” — snapping up soaps from increasingly exotic locales — will inevitably become the new candle-as-souvenir. I’ve already spied a handful of French soap-on-a-stick dispensers (for true hand soap freaks) in several people’s Euro-trip carousels this summer.

Sure, overthinking hand soap may be silly! It’s an essential good with the duty of keeping an establishment within health and safety codes. But there are only so many ways to broadcast one's status in the home, and the brands aren’t wrong in that soap does hold a great deal of sensory and aesthetic potential. Otherwise, we’d all still be stuck with the colorful fish in the Softsoap bottles of our youths, or whatever that pink goop was pumped into every high school restroom. In my childhood home, the ever-present bottle of amber-colored Dial soap was simply how the world worked. Somewhere along the way (the 2000s), some clever marketing agency or two decided that we deserve little luxuries in our homes, and now I find myself in a Target aisle, beguiled into decision paralysis by the intoxicatingly soothing scents of the Method hand soap range. I’m all for it, even while I’m skeptical that the “express yourself” ethos must now extend to what’s sitting next to the faucet. Perhaps we’ve gone slightly overboard if we expect our hand soap to telegraph the fact that we’re more Telfar than Sambas, or if the reality of budgeting out our Le Labo Santal hand soap has started to get stressful. 

I get the ‘let people have nice things’ argument, and of course a Dior or Hermes hand soap is much more affordable than a bag. But it does get to a point, as they say — for me, this point is well under $90. Seeing an $80+ hand soap in a landlord-special bathroom is the kind of allegory I attribute to our inherited economy that makes actual home ownership that much more elusive, while offering a literal drip of luxury to stave off total class anxiety. I suppose small extravagances can make us feel closer to a life we want before the state of the rental market brings us back down to reality. And at least you can keep the Loewe bottle. I have it on good authority that you can refill it with  Mrs. Meyer's Tomato Vine hand soap, and it works just as well. 

For her debut Nike collaboration, visual artist Aya Brown wraps borough pride, childhood nostalgia, and a celebration of womanhood in a New York bow with this Atomic Green and Black Air Max 95.

Like all great collaborations, this one tells the story of an artist on the fringes. First released over thirty years ago, the Air Max 95 has long been a Brooklyn favorite, and sharing a birth year with the icon makes Brown’s ’95 collaboration all the more special.

A love letter to her creative journey and the conviction needed to pursue it, Brown pours her story into every detail, from the personalized shoe box and tissue paper to the university red aglets. It’s proof this isn’t just another sneaker collab, but a life’s work. 

From Brooklyn streets to the global stage, it feels personal and proudly rooted in place.

Already out in New York, the global release is set for August 21 on Nike's website. This nostalgia-driven sneaker won’t hang around. Consider this your warning to set an alarm.

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