This Super Bowl will be remembered for ages for its influence and its significance during our times, and while we all are trying to digest the power behind that much needed halftime show, @raullopez had other reasons to celebrate as well, with a moment that we can only imagine what it feels like, culturally and personally.
A week before the Grammys, Gaga’s stylist got in touch with Raul, who later mentioned that the idea was a salsa inspired dress, and that nobody had ever given him an opportunity like this.
You might notice that strong yet clean shade of the custom @luar dress, which serves as a reference to the Puerto Rican flag of 1895, the light blue shade that references the sky and coastal waters of Puerto Rico.
The bias pleated dress was intended to create what he calls “something that was Titì Gaga”, and that he had no idea she was going to wear it, as he found out about it while watching the halftime show with his friends, a truly unreal moment.
Raul still keeps it close to his experience, ensuring that the ethos still embodies heritage and experience through his lifetime, and in this case, as he explains to Vogue “I designed this dress for the Caribbean women I grew up watching, listening to, and being shaped by”.
One of the most prolific and impactful designers whose influence will be remembered for a long time, while it is still being shaped, as he is one of the most important designers to come out of New York, and with his Dominican roots too, that are a strong pillar of his brand and community as well!
📷: @luar | @jehan_vazifdar | @ladygaga | @raullopez | @diegocajasparra
In a recent interview with Hypebeast in December 2025, following the launch of Denim by @denimtears , @tremaineemory broke down the design behind the ‘1619’ (represents the arrival of the first slave ship, the white lion, in Virginia) and the ADG flower.
He emphasized the importance of exploring parts of African Diaspora history that have been overlooked or insufficiently examined in order to understand their roots, which stands as the main mission of Denim Tears.
Denim carries a deeper narrative tied to resistance and the history of the African diaspora. The Gullah Geechee people (descendants of enslaved Africans from the “Rice Coast”) brought indigo cultivation and advanced knowledge to the southeastern United States through enslavement.
On plantations in South Carolina and Georgia, enslavers exploited this expertise to make indigo one of the most profitable and important colonial crops, second only to rice.
Enslaved people were dressed in denim because it was durable, readily available and visually separated them from plantation families, with the fabric becoming a marker of forced labor and oppression.
During the Civil Rights Movement, organizers within SNCC recognized the divide between formally dressed student activists and the farmers they sought to mobilize as denim became a way to express solidarity. Matching jeans and jackets were worn when Martin Luther King Jr. and Ralph Abernathy were arrested in Birmingham in 1963, reinforcing its connection to forced labor and resistance.
By the 1980s and 1990s, hip hop culture reshaped denim, grounding it in self expression and identity through music and fashion and that influence is still felt today, as the brand actively tells these same stories through its garments, continuing the acknowledgment of this history and helping ensure it is not erased from the historical record.
Happy Black History Month 🖤
@nigelsylvester “Brick After Brick” universe keeps on expanding.
After the downtown art exhibition featuring a brick over a BMW, the latest event takes us to the legendary institution; Patsy’s Pizzeria, where close friends and family enjoyed a night celebrating “Family, Legacy, and the commitment to sustaining success,” per @nigelsylvester .
From the cans to the custom pasta, and plenty more, every pop up within this universe seems to be executed with the finest details in mind.
By far our favorite ongoing rollout, one that seems to touch every aspect of success across multiple layers.
Still building…
Big throwback on this one, as this is a cultural treasure, which also had its own clearance issues to which @asaprocky didn’t settle since the vision was so far ahead, and when it’s on this level - you can’t compromise on a single detail.
Dropped in 2013 (after a few delays due to said issues above) this album is important in so many aspects that when you think of this era, the 2010-2014 in music, this is probably an album that will keep coming up in conversations, even decades from now.
Yes, most of earth’s population will start screaming when they hear that track with 2 Chainz, K Dot and Drake, but we (and we believe you as well) tend to look past the hits, choosing to also listen to the songs that carry the most substance, be it personal storytelling, production, or any other reason that you find yourself drawn to.
We can write a whole dissertation about any of the 17 tracks, but one question still stands - who had the best verse on 1 Train? Help us solve it once and for all.
Production credits include but are not limited to Hit-Boy, Clams Casino, Skrillex, Hector Delgado, Flacko himself and more.
Honorary Mentions -Virgil taking care of the Fashion Killa music video, if not mistaken the first time he directed a music video.
Photography: @knottphil
The importance of Rainy Night in SF though. Shout out Jay Worthy for making the connect; a connection that gave us more than one album, with two West Coast giants, having us all floating while listening to those tunes.
15 tracks, each with its own flavor, with stacked features from Jay Worthy, Wiz Khalifa, Joey, Curren$y, Evidence, Boldy James and more; turning this into a great sonic experience for those who know those names, and even exposing fans to those artists if they never knew them before.
Another effect of a successful project. no ego, only elevating each other.
@alanthechemist explained “I wanted to make beats that sounded like there was not a piece of lint on them.” Floating.
The album extended to such lengths as flying to Mexico to learn more about Barragán Lighting, which is a direct by-product of the lifestyle and what @larryjunetfm is rapping about effortlessly across every track.
Playing Summer Reign while driving down Road 1 stopping by Pacifica on the way to LA from SF; different experience…
Photography: ripmiggs / Larry June / The Alchemist
With @demna first @gucci resort collection, #Guccicore set to go live in the greatest city in the world tomorrow at 9PM New York Time, everyone waited to know a bit more; and Gucci delivered, tracing the inspiration back to the late ‘70s and early ‘80s work of Robert Longo.
His series “Men in the Cities” serves as the main inspiration, with the promos doing the work and keeping it mysterious: just how far will Demna take it?
Back to the artwork.
Born in Brooklyn, a then-25-year-old Robert Longo created “Men in the Cities” as a series of hyperrealistic drawings made with charcoal and graphite on paper. A few of his friends gathered on his rooftop and, as they were put through various “activities” that made them look as though they’d been struck by a bullet, captured that mid-air body movement, giving also a rock-stars-caught-in-a-moment energy as well, with Longo later tracing that photograph to complete the work.
Fast forward today, roughly 50 years later, Demna is set to present his collection in the same city, through a different medium.
Exciting times…
Credits:
Robert Longo / Gucci.
Doubters have been around for centuries, and they are quite needed to deliver great work, assuming we are utilizing their non-support attitude as motivation.
We face them everywhere in everyday life - the quiet versions and the loud ones in the comments, IRL and online, at work and outside of it. They are literally everywhere, and the earlier we make peace with the fact that this is inevitable and part of the thing we call life, the better; because our work only suffers more when we don’t.
Article No.80 “the people who doubt you stopped creating before you even started.” is now live on Substack, and the link is in our bio.
“Letters from the front row” Every Monday, Wednesday and Friday.
Photo Credits: SZA 👑
Ice man is here ❄️❄️❄️
Of course, we had to tune in and see what’s new from the 6 God @champagnepapi ; his views from the North Side of the map, and he delivered.
Some tracks featured the usual (great) Drake flow, some were made for the club, some will get picked up by TikTok and everyone around it, and some will only be appreciated years from now.
Regardless, we played it all, and we enjoyed it.
Our takes are here, written as we played each track. Real thoughts.
Opinions?
Many people tend to overlook the album as a whole and the picture it paints for listeners, showing the world both Havoc and Prodigy lived in; Queensbridge during the wild 90’s.
Production started when both were still teenagers, with Havoc presenting a sound that’s hard to compete with (that click sounds that was believed to be a stove ignitor is one example), a super eerie, unapologetic production with features from Nas, Rae, Ghost and Q-Tip.
Four singles. “Shook Ones, Part II”, “Survival of the Fittest”, “Temperature’s Rising”, “Give Up the Goods (Just Step)”; with Havoc explaining the decision behind handling production on the album “We started producing because other producers was giving us shit that we didn’t like, or they was just charging too much. I didn’t know nothing about producing music at the time, but I learned by watching others.” Those beats were made at Havoc’s QB apartment.
Prodigy would later reveal that Illmatic actually made them look back at their story and realize that the tales told on Juvenile Hell weren’t telling them well - a sign of maturity and respect that (almost) doesn’t exist within the hip-hop world these days.
Album cover shot in QB by Delphine A. Fawundu.
Rest in peace Prodigy 🕊️🕊️
Photogrpahy: @atsukoholic | Johnny Nunez/WireImage | Chi Modu | Delphine A. Fawundu | Shareif Ziyadat/Getty Images | Unkown
The Mercer Edition’s “In Rotation” is back again!
A series where we highlight our friends who spin in clubs, as they share what they currently have in rotation on their everyday streaming services of choice.
For this segment, we reached out to our friend @missmonroe__ to hear more about the new series she just launched | “Girl Code” | @girlcodeworldwide | providing a safe space for women, pocs, and members of the queer community that love to party.
Head over to our Spotify (link in bio) to stream the curated playlist that Miss Monroe made for everyone, reflecting the series’s atmosphere.
Girl Code’s first event will take place two weeks from now at Mood Ring in Brooklyn on May 30th from 10 PM to 4 AM - go rush that!!
📷: @henryknightmedia
Of course, when a collection drops, a lot of people have things to say, and to be fair; that’s the whole exercise.
Criticizing collections has been a great habit of humankind, so we are not surprised to see conflicting opinions about Jonathan Anderson’s Dior Resort collection, which was just previewed in Los Angeles last night.
A rather interesting, floral-dominated collection, with probably more references than we’ve noticed yet. A solid one, for a resort collection, yet the internet is still mad, though, with plenty of people mentioning that this lacks the thoughtfulness of the Loewe era of JWA, some saying it reminds them of Blazy’s Chanel, and others saying JWA is burnt out.
While all of this can be true, it’s subjective after all, so maybe we just need to enjoy the artistry? Probably yes. Still big fans of resort collections, which are often underrated and forgotten about quickly, strangely enough…
Photo: Umberto Fratini / Gorunway.com
