Fire-King’s tableware was always meant to be part of culture. The company, born in Lancaster, Ohio, as Anchor Hocking, wasn’t the first to make use of cheap, heat-proof jadeite, but it quickly became the most ubiquitous. Its aggressive distribution model gave away the mugs in flour bags and at gas stations, while its partnerships with everything from Kellogg’s and Snoopy to restaurant chains and diners made it a cultural staple.

The thing is, Fire-King cups aren’t mere kitsch. They’re also quite cool. 

Over time, the mass-market Fire-King mug has become a cult design object as the very qualities that initially made it omnipresent — sturdy, utilitarian, worker-adjacent — are exactly what people are clamoring for now. It tracks then that Fire-King’s list of linkups over the past decade reads like that of a fashion brand: Vans, Pendleton, A Bathing Ape, and KAWS, plus a 14-year collaboration with BEAMS. When fragment design mogul Hiroshi Fujiwara was tapped to infuse Starbucks with a sense of “cool,” he devised collaborative Fire-King mugs.

For the latest release with the collab-heavy Japanese retailer BEAMS, Fire-King’s Americana origins are filtered into two commemorative ¥5,940 (about $37) Advertising Mugs befitting BEAMS’ 50th anniversary — one features its logo from 1986, the other its updated 2006 branding.

But these aren’t actually your mom-and-pop’s Fire-King wares. The partnership comes from Fire-King Japan, founded in 2010 and operating under license from Anchor Hocking as the exclusive producer of these vintage-looking mugs. This move to Japan follows a quiet period for the brand, after the end of its production run in 1976 and a brief, Martha Stewart-backed resurgence in the late 90s and early 2000s. 

Though OG Fire-King products can still be found on the secondhand market (at exorbitant prices befitting their age), Fire-King Japan has given the mug a more fashionable edge — ironic given its clean, curved lines. A vintage-looking Fire-King mug feels like the exact right cup to pair with a workwear-inspired ensemble and some new iteration on the GAT sneaker. 

Everything old is quite literally new again.

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