Depop, Lucky, and Gap are feeling sexy
Plus: Consumers have unmet potent urges, and you can now drink nicotine.
Morning,
This week, I had dinner with a reader up here in Rhode Island. One of my fave parts about this letter is all the amazing people it has introduced me to. You guys are really awesome. Thanks for saying hi when you do.
If you only read one thing in this letter I recco: POTENT URGES.
As always, the lens of this letter is a best-of-the-best on culture, trends, marketing, etc. What I’m dropping to friends on Slack or finding useful in meetings with brands.
Let’s dive in!
CULTURE
WHOSE HAUL // #BackToSchool posts are 50/50 Alpha hauls and college hauls.
’s video is the best on the latter. What struck me about the Alphas was the moms. They are as into it as the tweens themselves. The cross-generational influence and interest between parents and Alphas/younger Zs is growing. Another example: K-Pop Demon Hunters. This sums up my group chats. And this weekend, many parents and their kids are attending the one-weekend-only sing-along event. Moms (and parents) aren’t so much influencing their kids as being influenced by them. Which makes this very fun Baby Dior ad-meets-mini-movie all the more interesting.POTENT URGES // This
article lodged into the back of my mind all week. It’s all about our increasing need for ‘potency.’ It explains why ayahuasca retreats, sauna raves, and Hyrox competitions are surging. “The mainstream has drained itself of risk, so people are finding potency in the margins. For anyone building brands, communities, or cultural movements, this is both the challenge and the opportunity. You can keep chasing width in activations, collabs, and photo walls, or you can engineer depth by creating spaces that allow rupture from the norm.” Just read the whole thing.F&B
DOGS ARE IN VOGUE // Maeve, a new line by Anthropologie, is directly targeting pet parents with matching attire. Dogue by Vogue features celeb dogs like NBA player Devin Booker’s Cane Corsos to Lewis Hamilton’s plant-based, Dior-chewing dog, Roscoe. Fred Hart went to SuperZoo, the pet world’s version of Expo West. Fred’s deep dive reflects Lewis’s mindset: our pets are extensions of us. We want pet shampoo that can sit out like beauty products and counter-perfect treats that rival our own snacks. We’re increasingly interested in preventative medicine, rather than reactive. AKA, we want longevity for us and our ‘babies’. Think: TCM and supplements. Oh, and don’t let the title fool you, cats are in here too. Felines are getting the good-boy treatment.
DRUGS & BOOZE
said it best: “Biohackers and podcasters that have great influence over the American population, particularly men.” Rogan and Huberman have been pushing the potential positives of nicotine for ages. Nicotina Energy, shipping in early September, is now on a mission to “take the dirty stigma from nicotine in dirty mechanisms like smoking.” Much like ayahuasca, nicotine is an indigenous medicine, so if we scroll back up to POTENT URGES, you might see how we got here.SILVERS, ALPHAS & ZS
HOMECOMING QUEENS // Note to self: never fall into a TikTok hole on writing day. I landed in #BamaRush and #BackToSchool and looked up an hour later. While RushTok hovers at 1.4M posts, BamaRush, one singular school, is right at 1.3M.
’s breakdown of which brands won at BamaRush is pure gold. Love a good chart. New-to-me brands: Gold Hinge (Zara but make it sorority) and DailyDrills (Colorful Standard of athleisure with a cowgirl kink). Also notable: “Skims…wasn’t mentioned even once” despite having a “Campus Collection.” Hopefully, none of us were fooled by this BamaRush AI influencer created with just 3 apps and 10-min-a-day—but I’m sure some were.GOOD OLD THINGS // Landline has been making a comeback for a while. Tin Can is a new brand entering the chat. They are cute and work over Wi-Fi. Parents are all over it. But it’s not just phones. Parents are begging brands to bring back tech without ‘screens.’ Hector Muelas, one of my fave commenters on LinkedIn, posted this just this week: “Dear old Apple colleagues, A plea from parents everywhere: please bring back the iPod. Not an iPhone with a music app. The original iPod. Societal signals are all there, you just have to pay close attention.” Legacy brands need to start making some legacy products.
RETAIL
SEX IT UP // Denim brands en masse have decided they are over dressing for the female gaze and are all in on sex appeal. First, we had the AE, who is currently running this audio as an ad—you thought it couldn’t get worse. GAP has a fresher take with its Katseye/denim campaign that makes TikTok dances an art form. You have Lucky, who tapped Addison Rae for a sweat-covered, low-rise 90s-inspired moment. Levi’s keeps trying to push its Beyoncé partnership. And, finally, Diesel, who has been giving us kinky since 2024, is doing whatever this is. All very interesting, given we’re in a sex recession.
DEPOPAMINE RUSH // Finding that perfect piece of vintage? Next to orgasmic (sex is really making a comeback). And Depop’s new OOH campaign reflects just that—super fun. To tie it back to POTENT URGES, it’s the thrill, the feeling, the grin that comes when someone asks you ‘where’s it from?’ And Pinterest says searches for “dream thrift finds” are up 550%. “Vintage fall aesthetic?” Up 1,074%. “Thrifted kitchen” 1,012%. They’ve even curated vintage directly on the platform.
TECH
BUILT FOR BOTTLENECKS // Drug discovery is getting faster thanks to AI. But clinical trials, regulatory filings, and documentation are causing a bottleneck.
says Convoke has raised $8.6M to build for the bottlenecks—smart. They are using AI to automate and streamline the development pipeline. If successful, they hope to “democratize access to expertise and shave years off of drug development timelines for the largest and the smallest organizations in the industry.” Are we all about to start building drug companies?SPORT
DELU FOR LULU // Lululemon is having an excellent week, according to Substack. Maybe some of their investors are reading Substack, too.
said they are killing it on campus and this interview with , owner of of Running Wylder is also positive. What did she like about Lulu? The run clothes aren’t overtly lifestyle. As mentioned back in June, women’s performance is a blank space. Maybe Lululemon can step into it.WELLNESS & BEAUTY
BEAUTY MECCA // Mecca, the Aussie answer to Sephora, has opened a 3-story, 4000 sqm store—the mecca of beauty (sorry!)—housing “80+ services including naturopathy, skin treatments, injectables, nail services, a hair salon, a café, a flower stand, and a 2100 sq ft auditorium.” Their “new Apothecary concept features wellness products focused on gut health, sleep and holistic wellbeing from 15+ new brands.” The auditorium is very intriguing. Time for a GOOD THINKING MELBOURNE TOUR?
TRAVEL
SUPER SONICS -> The Hustle // Spike Aerospace says their supersonic jet will get you from NYC to Paris in 4hrs, starting in 2031. The S-512 Diplomat jet will carry “18, travel 1100 mph, and blunt its sonic boom so it can travel over land.” Lovely, but who can I talk to about their website? Boom Supersonic, a supersonic brand with a marginally better branding, plans to have a non-audible supersonic jet earlier this year that will go 750 mph. And Astro Mechanica is attempting to make all this economically viable. They’ll use hybrid-electric for fuel efficiency, thereby cutting costs. Exciting, but where’s the Pan Am energy?
FUN FOR THE WEEK
What are your brand’s recurring moments?
This is a fun bit of swag from Sakara.
Where are the brand activations? This deserves many.
Spam made a musubi mobile—cute.
Independent Chinese voices to follow courtesy of
.Watch this viral tamales ad made with AI.
Vox is partnering with Fashion Neurosis by Bella Freud. A very fun watch. Notable: it will expand into live events.
This is cute.
Funniest thing I saw this week.
That’s all, folx.
-Chris
If you read this and liked it, that little heart is there for that. The algo and I appreciate it.
Drinking nicotine! What?!