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Like the plague
+ Off-White’s struggle
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OVERWORLD:
-About SpaceX’s spacewalk-
ONE BETWEEN:
-Off-White’s struggle to reclaim the crown-
THE DEPTHS:
-This spread like the plague, and then died.-
 | O |  |
We’re here
About SpaceX’s spacewalk
SpaceX just made history with history’s first commercial spacewalk.
If you didn’t know, a spacewalk is when an astronaut exits a spacecraft to perform tasks; maintenance, repairs, or experiments. This had previously only been done by government astronauts on national missions.
Here’s what happened:
Start: The livestreamed mission, called Polaris Dawn, begun shortly after 6 a.m. ET Thursday, when oxygen began flowing inside the SpaceX-developed suits.
Middle: After some safety checks, private-citizen astronauts opened their ships safety hatch and exposed the entire spacecraft to the vacuum of space. without a problem. They went out into space, did some mobility tests, and came back inside around 7 a.m. No problem.
Ending: It was really a test of SpaceX’s spacesuits, as they’ve never been tested in orbit. Making sure they work is crucial for SpaceX as it want to put human life on the Moon and Mars. “Building a base on the Moon and a city on Mars will require thousands of spacesuits,” SpaceX stated in a post on X.
Record: This mission also set a new altitude record for private astronauts. Their spacecraft reached 870 miles above Earth, three times higher than the International Space Station. This makes it the highest altitude humans have reached since NASA’s Apollo program.
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✦QUICK HITS✦
✦Business & Tech✦
Haha, no: Caroline Ellison’s lawyers are requesting no prison time for her role in FTX’s collapse, citing her cooperation with authorities and unblemished record. Ellison, who pleaded guilty, faces sentencing on Sept. 24.
Creating blood: A startup, Safi Biotherapeutics, aims to solve the U.S. blood shortage by producing lab-grown blood from stem cells. While the technology shows promise, it's expensive and requires years of development before approval.
Microsoft is laying off 650 employees from its gaming division, following its $75 billion Activision Blizzard acquisition. The layoffs target corporate roles, aiming for long-term success amid industry-wide downsizing. Game Pass expansion continues.
✦Fashion & Culture✦
She’d do it regardless, but: Taylor Swift says it was the AI images that falsely linked her to Trump that pushed Taylor Swift to endorse Harris for president. Swift criticized the misuse of her likeness and urged transparency to combat misinformation.
✦Hmm… Interesting✦
Weird website from 1996: A Warner Brothers cartoon encyclopedia
Sweet 30-second read: What's Something You Regularly Fail At?
Real father shit: Dad builds safe movie system for his kids
ONE
BETWEEN
Survival
Off-White’s struggle to reclaim the crown
SS25 "DUTY FREE" SHOW
No hip-hop video, no clout chaser, no pop-culture got cool without Off-White somewhere in the frame in the mid-to-late 2010s.
Then, in 2021, founder and creative director Abloh died — and a lot has changed since then:
A fading flavor: The brand has faced difficulties post-Abloh. For one, streetwear is simply not that popular anymore. Also, Off-White has strategically shifted towards higher-priced luxury goods, alienating customers. That puts Off-White in no-mans-land — too streetwear for the luxury zeitgeist, and too luxury of the streetwear loyalist.
A fading flavor: On top of that, its controlling shareholder, Farfetch, faced financial difficulties. This lead to inventory excess and sale-prices that confused both customers and wholesale partners and made the brand look cheap and undesireable.
Off-Line: Major retailers like Mytheresa and Net-a-Porter dropped the brand, and resale platforms like The RealReal and StockX saw sales decline.
SS25 "DUTY FREE" SHOW
In December 2023, a lifeline from South Korean e-commerce giant Coupang helped stabilize Farfetch. This has given Off-White some breathing room.
Since, much reorienteation has been needed. CEO Christian Fagnani, who took over Off-White in May 2023, recognized the need to reset the brand’s direction.
Part of this reset will involve readjusting the prcing/luxury problem. According to Fagnani, Off-White’s value was never in luxury points, but in culture points.
Reviving the brand involves reclaming the strategy by relations with culture titans. That includes sharpening the Off-White Nike collaboration, but also returning to being the zeeitgeist; the brand is reconnecting with consumers and key cultural moments, dressing high-profile artists like Usher, Doja Cat, and NLE Choppa.
Additionally, new products like the Vulc 779 skate shoe, accompanied by an art exhibition by British-Nigerian artist Olaolu Slawn, are designed to reintroduce Off-White into cultural conversations.
SS25 "DUTY FREE" SHOW
THE DEPTHS
Pretty, pretty
This spread like the plague, and then died.
Art Noveau very bluntly means “new art”. It’s a vague title, as any new art movement has technically been “new art” at some point. The vagueness ends there, however, as anything considered Art Noveau can be spotted from miles away: Floral patterns, curves, swirls, curving glass, impossibly intricate metal fencing.
A great example of these style tropes can be found in the Saint-Cyr house in Brussels, pictured below.
Yes, the late 1800s aesthetic is primarily a decorative art movement, meaning architecture, doorways, furniture, graphics, windows, and stairwells, are the places where you’re most likely to spot some Art Noveau.
The movement appeared in Belgium in the 1890s, and the idea of “new art” was a reference to attempting to find new forms, methods, shapes, and decorations. Simply something different. And how different it was, below you can see an insane take on a simple door in Brussels by Ernest Delune in 1893.
From Belgium, Art Noveau spread to France and then took over all of Europe. Its wonkiness was generally an experimental departure from the Gothic and neoclassical trends which by the end of the 1800s had become uniform across Europe.
And sometimes it’s so different that it starts looking a little alien, and sci-fi. Like the Casa Battló in Barcelona.
Oddly enough, this movement only lasted for about 20 years. It spread across Europe like the plague, but by WWI people were suddenly over it.
Well… okay, not quite. Much like a disease, Art Noveau mutated into what we today call Art Deco, a more straight-lined, stoic but still equally wonky and opulent version of Art Noveau.
Thankfully, the 20 years that Art Noveau was around were prolific and left us with some of history’s most imaginative building facades in Europe.
