TT Vol. 97

Cannes, Dior Men's, Jacquemus x Nike & Graza Olive Oil

May 22, 2022

Clockwise from Top.

Summer Film Festivals

The Cannes Film Festival is in full swing right now. While not quite the setting that is the Venice Film Festival, it does have a glamorous, old world feel. We always associate Cannes with Hitchcock’s classic To Catch A Thief1. All of the white washed hotels along the Riviera from that film are still there, and fill up at this time of year.

This year’s “official selections” include the ridiculously creepy looking Crimes of the Future and Claire Denis’ Stars at Noon2. Anne Hathaway, star of the “white privilege” think piece Armageddon Time, got attention on the red carpet for wearing a Gucci mini dress and Armani Privé.

And a little bit down the coast, Facebook (well, Meta) rented out the famous Bubble Palace and welcomed content creators to what it called the Creators Villa to test out VR hardware, as well as gain access to Cannes.

THR has a good play by play from the past few days.

We talk more about Cannes on this week’s podcast.

Resort 2023 Continues

Dior Men’s showed its Resort 2023 collection in Venice Beach on Thursday. It marked yet ANOTHER collaboration for the brand - this time with Eli Russell Linnetz, a very talented up and coming designer supported by stockists like Dover Street Market and Slam Jam3 whose designs have been described by Vogue as “friendly, unpretentious American dream.”

Thibo has images of the Osiris-like shoes that went down the runway. Tony Hawk attended the show, as did Dan Levy. The whole collection hit HARD on 80’s/90’s California. Baggy acid wash denim, too much hair product, bulk sneakers - and of course the blinged out saddle bags.

Under Kim Jones, the Men’s side of the illustrious Maison has become a collaboration machine. Everything has been commercially successful, but with each successive partnership, Dior Men’s loses a little bit of identity. The industry has talked for years about luxury streetwear, and that is the direction Jones is taking the brand. But it feels like he has ceded creative control to his collaborators. Let Dior be Dior!

EVOO

Raquel and I use A LOT of olive oil around here. We’re people that have two tiers of oil: one for cooking, and one for seasoning. That used to mean this and this, but we’ve been experimenting with other options. There are a whole group of new brands popping up in this space and trying to make into the next food category to be DTCified.

A small abbreviated list of brands operating here: Fat Gold, Wonder Valley, Pineapple Collaborative, Brightland, etc. etc. etc.

This week, we’ve been testing out the “Drizzle and Sizzle” pack from Graza.

It has Strega Nona-style branding, and comes in squeeze bottles for easy use. While no fan of plastic, squeeze bottles are a game changer when it comes to using olive oil when cooking. Let it rain! The oil itself is definitely a step up from the basic stuff you find at the grocery store. Light, buttery with a slightly bitter finish. But it’s not as good as our current go-to: Séka Hills. Harvested by the Yocha Dehe Wintun Nation in Northern California, their olive oil tastes like rendered butter with absolutely no bitterness. It is generously applied to Raquel’s nightly popcorn.

Jacquemus x Nike

Nike and Simon Porte are teaming up for a “sensual sportswear” collection releasing next month. From the press release, it sounds like a women’s focused collection centered around ACG and the Humara.

Not many images out yet - but from the Vogue piece, it looks like clay court tennis and desert hiking. I.e., lots of browns. Excited to see where this ends up! And nice that Nike is pulling in some better collaborators centered around the women’s side of the business. Outside of Ambush, there hasn’t been much.