In New York City, beyond the constraints of dingy house parties in sixth-floor walk-ups and half-forgotten book clubs you joined on a whim, no other third space breeds a greater sense of community than the humble espresso-fragranced café. Anchored on nearly every corner of the concrete jungle, coffee shops are the great social equalizer: where an aspiring screenwriter taps away at their final draft beside a well-tailored banker who paints on weekends. Behind the counter, patchwork tatted baristas with a unique combination of chunky stacked rings and intriguing nonchalance run the show, impressively pulling espresso shots and bantering just enough for 8 AM that I’m convinced to drop a 40% tip.
It’s an occupation, a collective crush, and—depending on who you ask—the kind of uniform that begs for its own capsule collection. Enter Oatly and LA streetwear brand, Kids of Immigrants, with their debut 4-piece capsule collection and cornerstone of countless #normcore fits to come.
For the uninitiated, the workwear jacket, messenger bag, and bandana might read as some Bushwick-adject trend, but for those behind the bar, it’s a functional uniform. At the center of the glossy campaign are the craftspeople who actually make New York’s café culture hum: Brie Handford of Flowers on the Park, Robert Marcello of Oslo West Village, and James Edward Davis of Café Bureau. Consider this an insider’s stamp of approval.
On the Upper West Side, Handford wears many hats (sometimes literally): part-time barista, part-time internationally signed model and meteorology grad student, and full-time master of the neighborhood regular. Handford fell into the coffee world the way most people do—that is, by accident. A winter break job in Virginia turned into a long-term love affair once she realized the barista gig was connection, not just service. Now at Flowers on the Park—a café-flower shop hybrid—Handford works the bar on instinct, toggling between pulling precise shots and remembering exactly who wants oat milk in their niche order. A self-professed caffeine minimalist (chai and London Fogs are her lane), starring in the campaign saw her two worlds of fashion and café life finally overlap. “Seeing them collide was uniquely fun,” she says. Very multidimensional of her. Very New York.
In a similar multifaceted vein, Robert Marcello came into coffee with exactly zero prior experience and a healthy dose of humility: the unofficial requirement for surviving the West Village espresso circuit, where yuppie locals, starry-eyed tourists, and NYU students all think they discovered the café first. At the vintage trinket-laden Oslo West Village, he learned the trade one shot at a time, eventually layering in latte art and his personal artistic endeavors: between pours, the café doubles as the set for his oft-viral comedy sketches. “I’ve made a lot of friends throughout the years by working where I do,” he says—which tracks, considering half the room seems to be mid-conversation with him at any given moment.
And like these multihyphenate coffee connoisseurs, their day jobs rarely tell the full story. James Edward Davis is no exception. Based out of Café Bureau on the Lower East Side, his orbit extends well beyond the espresso machine. Equal parts café, clothing label, and cultural clubhouse, the space treats coffee as the entry point. Mornings belong to latte-seeking regulars, afternoons blur into impromptu drop-ins, and evenings stretch out into pool games and art programming in the space Davis co-founded for connection first, caffeine second. “Our community is NYC’s creative ecosystem,” he says. For those seeking a scene-y side quest with coffee included, Davis has already set the stage.
As the old saying goes, “New York is the city that never sleeps,” and perhaps that’s partly due to our collective caffeine addiction. From uptown to downtown, these baristas keep us New Yorkers moving and marginally sane—because America may run on an unnamed brew, but this city runs on Oatly. And now you can literally run in Oatly in their latest collab with Kids of Immigrants.
Click here to discover more from the capsule collection.
