Paragons of carry normalcy
Look at this. Stare, like it is wreckage. They are abominations, yet not. They are luxury, yet not. They are the product, maybe, of an AI prompt to graft X-Pac MOLLE webbing onto Italian leather. Literally I stared for so long that I had to go downstairs and pour myself a snifter of yellow chartreuse about it, and then I had to write some text about my psychic interiority. So I’m here, now, two sips into the chartreuse, realizing that the brand is called Thousand Yard Studio and not The Observer Collection. That’s only the name of the collection? I am stupid. There is Bodoni, a festival of Bodoni. The whole thing is pretentious and not, a sort of alien thing, just totally itself. The call to action text reads “Acquire.” We have arrived in this place.
They sell wallets, bags, denim, fragrance, whatever – and it is all clearly meant to both perform and signify. Is this bag couture? You, the owner, are beamed in from another dimension, clearly with disposable income, and nobody knows what to do with you. It’s maybe a relatable concept after the three years we just had.
The wallet is the kind of wallet one buys for a single reason alone: because they are going to Tokyo. Gosh, why else? My change jar has held less than 50¢ since 2020. Nobody should buy this unless they work with cash, which they should not do in 2023 unless they travel four times around the world every year. The wallet looks like it could have conceivably been made in Japan, or Singapore, or Los Angeles, or nowhere, or anywhere. The materials, craftsmanship, and style fit the price – which, yes, is eye-watering.
Most of the bags have MOLLE on them, which can you even imagine grafting a MOLLE accessory onto an Italian leather bag? You can, of course, since you’re just as unhinged as I am, and you exist in another dimension now. The duffel looks like nothing I’ve ever seen before, and yet it looks both legible and generous. It is maybe a masterpiece, and it maybe costs as much as a good laptop. These objects are made of precious materials some of the time, and they are meant to be beaten to hell all of the time. The intention, the prayer, is that you buy one and beat it to hell. Life’s too short to live soft.
The analogy to all of this, of course, is Matsuda, another independent craftsperson who makes small-batch runs with weird materials, stuff grafted onto other stuff that shouldn’t be grafted there, a general total design program that makes sense as a whole, etc. The difference between Matsuda and this, of course, is that I refreshed for months for a Matsuda piece and I can only watch this one unfold from a distance. (Not fully accurate: I bought the Afghanistan book, because fits.)
Nobody needs a $1,500 duffel, but it sure feels nice to look at one and think about all of the possibilities. And if you travel enough, if you’re on that level, well, then, there’s your duffel. Please, for the love of everything, beat it to hell. Make it unrecognizable. Do your worst. And tell us all about it.