Why Is Hideo Kojima Modeling Dover Street Market’s 'The Substance' Merch?
Product merch for a movie that came out in September 2024? Peculiar to say the least. But for Metal Gear creator Hideo Kojima, it's perfect timing.
The video game designer and amateur movie reviewer posed as a model for a series of shirts in collaboration with Coralie Fargeat's The Substance and Geeks Rule. Kojima has developed a cult-like following for his prolific knowledge of movies and his coveted reviews on Instagram.
His cinephile tendencies have knighted him as a trusted source among his fans, but he's a choosey observer and seldom adds captions to his many movie posts. The gory goodness of The Substance, though, earned an extremely positive review from Kojima on Instagram, where he described the film as "extraordinary!" adding that "It was great! My favorite!"
If that wasn't enough proof that Kojima is a real substance stan, he made his modeling debut for the collab.
Kojima isn't the only fan. An incubator of cool, Dover Street Market will be selling "The Substance" T-shirts. So yeah, this ain't your regular merch drop.
The shirts are made in collaboration with Geeks Rule, a Japanese T-shirt brand, which put its silkscreen talents to work to create the handmade series of graphic shirts dedicated to The Substance.
The coloring process for these T-shirts was a very time-intensive process, according to Geeks Rule, which used the same method as "T-shirts from the 90s" to get quality pigment payoff. As such, wearers can expect the shirt to age like a classic vintage tee. This fits in well with the ghastly retro-vibes permeating the body horror film.
The Substance explores themes of aging, body image, and societal pressures in one of the most visceral manners imaginable. This is a movie as evocative as it is gory. Demi Moore and Margaret Qualley play the shared protagonist role, reflected in the T-shirts that feature Moore and Qualley, or a white T-shirt with a glowing green vial of the eponymous "substance."
The Substance, which won prizes at the Golden Globes and Cannes, has its fans, but dropping merch over seven months after its debut is almost as peculiar as the film itself, right? Ok, that was a bit of a stretch. After all, that movie was "Absolutely F*cking Insane," a direct quote from a movie review that's printed on one of Geeks Rule's tees.
But it is interesting that Geeks Rule typically collaborates with anime series like Samurai Champloo, Neon Genesis Evangelion, and Ghost in the Shell. A partnership with The Substance? Certainly a change of pace.
Funny enough, the movie hasn't been released in Japan yet. The premiere is set for May 16, which explains the release of these shirts, which will be available at Dover Street Market. Overall, though, it's still quite the curious team-up.
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