- Paris announced the Seine would be open for public swimming in time for the 2024 Olympics.
- Advertising agency Ogilvy defended its anti-misogyny “Maaaate” campaign for the Mayor of London, which has been widely criticised online.
- Mr Justice Fancourt ruled Prince Harry’s case against the publisher of The Sun could go to trial.
Images emerged this week of author, socialite and Y2K fashion icon Paris Hilton wearing a sunshine yellow catsuit with a pair of enormous, yellow rubber boots. Hilton is the face of the latest drop from the Brooklyn art collective MSCHF – pronounced “mischief” – which will release the $450 boots, a Crocs collaboration, to legions of fans worldwide via its app on 9 August. Victoria Beckham – who once publicly stated she’d “rather die” than wear Crocs – has already donned a pair.
So what? Trying to understand MSCHF is like trying to understand the internet. Making sense isn’t the point. The point is making people talk and – crucially – making money. As Banksy is to fine art, so MSCHF is to popular culture: anarchic, exhilarating and impossible to pin down. Founder and CEO Gabriel Whaley, 33, explains, “There is no better way to start a conversation about consumer culture than by participating in consumer culture.”
It’s definitely not an advertising agency but it isn’t an e-commerce company, social media platform, fashion brand or creative studio either. It’s all and none of these. However avant garde its output, MSCHF is certainly a business. It did a $12.5m Series B fundraise in 2021 and has 40 employees with a super traditional, male dominated lineup of senior managers with classic “Chief Something Officer” job titles running the show.
Good bad advice. Gabriel Whaley grew up in North Carolina with no TV or internet and was packed off at the age of 18 to West Point Military Academy. No wonder he rebelled. He told ad industry rag Campaign that West Point was “hilarious and fascinating” but dropped out after two years anyway. “I had no world view. I didn’t know what culture was. What was the internet? How do people dress? How do they act?” Whaley learned to code while studying philosophy at the University of South Carolina, where he kitted himself out in hipster clobber from Urban Outfitters and started mucking around with internet stunts. Toothpick was a sexist tip generator app and Wingman was a Tinder-style dating app that only worked on planes, to facilitate membership of the mile high club. But it was after selling bad advice on Twitter for $1 a go that he eventually blagged a job at Buzzfeed – although he quickly got the boot from that when the whole team was laid off just a few months later. And lo, MSCHF was born.
A few of MSCHF’s greatest hits
- Finger on the App (drop 24, June 2020) A collab with the biggest YouTuber in the world, Mr Beast, in which the person who kept touching the app screen longest won $25,000.
- Birkinstock (drop 39, February 2021) Very much not a collab with either luxury brand Hermès or classic sandal maker Birkenstocks, MSCHF destroyed Hermès iconic Birkin bags to create “the most exclusive sandal ever made” costing up to $76,000 a pop.
- Eat the Rich Popsicles (drop 81, July 2022) Ice creams the shape of Bill Gates, Elon Musk and more were sold from ice cream trucks around New York and LA.
A little bit naughty. Jesus Shoes (drop 7, August 2019) featured customised white Nike Air Max 97s with holy water from the River Jordan injected into the sole (so the wearer was walking on water, geddit?). 200 pairs originally priced at $1,425 can now fetch up to $5,000 each. Nike turned a blind eye to that one but their legal team kicked off about the follow up, Satan Shoes (drop 43, March 2021), a collab with rapper Lil Nas X. Box-fresh Nike sneaks, 666 of them, with human blood in the sole, priced at $1,018, sold out in under a minute. MSCHF settled the trademark infringement suit with a promise to refund any purchaser shocked and horrified to find their shoes – now worth up to eight grand btw – weren’t officially endorsed by Nike.
What about those boots though? Well. The original red ones, based on Osama Tezuka’s manga series Astro Boy, dropped in time for New York fashion week last February, sending the whole world into a full-scale fashion meltdown. Sneakerheads who managed to bagsy a pair confirm they’re easy to get on and comfy to wear but difficult to get off and not suitable for driving. Weird shoes are having a moment, so if you miss out on the big yellow boots come 9 August you could always treat your tootsies to the JW Anderson frog clogs (£350) or Loewe’s Minnie Mouse-esque foam rubber pumps (£595) instead.
