In today's surprising fashion industry news, private equity firm L Catterton is selling Everlane to none other than Chinese ultra fast-fashion giant Shein, Puck reported on Sunday. The deal valued Everlane at $100 million, and was reportedly approved by the board on Saturday.
Founded by Michael Preysman, Everlane launched in 2010 as a direct-to-consumer label offering minimalist basics to sustainably-minded shoppers. In its early days, Everlane stood apart in the industry by offering consumers a behind-the-scenes look into its production by explaining how and where each of its products were made.
L Catterton took a minority stake in the company in 2020 and later became its majority owner in 2024. However, the brand has stalled in recent years. L Catterton and Everlane CEO Alfred Chang had been searching for an investor to clear about $90 million in debt, Puck reported, but the private equity firm was also open to offloading the label.
Both Everlane and Shein declined to comment.
Update, Friday, May 22 10:52 a.m.: Both Shein and Everlane have confirmed that the ultra-fast fashion brand will buy the majority stake in Everlane from L Catterton for an undisclosed amount, Vogue Business reported on Friday. In a message to staff, Everlane CEO Alfred Chang addressed the change in ownership: "This past week has been a hard one," he wrote. "Seeing our company in the media, and in that light, was painful. Needing to stay silent per standard process in these matters has been even harder. I want you to know I've felt the weight of that alongside you. I want to be clear: Everlane remains Everlane. I will continue as CEO, our leadership team will stay in place, and we'll continue operating independently, with our design standards, brand philosophy and values intact.. Moving forward, Everlane will unlock key opportunities by increasing our competitive advantage and reaching more customers around the world."
Need to plan a trip to NYC to see this and the Marcel Duchamp exhibit!
To know the work of designer Iris van Herpen is to know the beauty of a mushroom gill (her Spring 2021 collection drew patterns from the mycelium network), the glow of bioluminescent algae (Fall 2025 included a “living dress” made with 125 million Pyrocystis lunula organisms) and the movement of a bird mid-flight (as seen in the glass wing pleats of her Fall 2018 collection). Since founding her namesake brand in 2007, the forward-thinking Dutch couturier has looked to fields spanning mathematics, neuroscience, marine biology, paleontology, mycology, mineralogy, astronomy, architecture and dance to inspire her fantastical haute couture garments.
“What I found amazing about Iris was that she had a very different source of inspiration than most designers,” Matthew Yokobosky, senior curator of fashion and material culture at the Brooklyn Museum (who has staged exhibitions on Dior, Virgil Abloh and Thierry Mugler), tells Fashionista. “Of course, we have designers who are influenced by orchids or flowers… but Iris is looking at it beyond just a flower, just a leaf. She's looking at structures. She's looking at growth systems. She's looking at how the world's weather is changing, the ocean, the sky. It's a much more complex box of inspiration.”
Having originated at the Musée des Arts Décoratifs in Paris in 2023, the “mid-career retrospective” brings together more than 140 haute couture creations alongside contemporary art pieces, design objects, scientific artifacts and natural history specimens. The show is not chronological. Instead, it offers an immersive look into van Herpen’s mind over the last 19 years. “The exhibition feels like a diary,” van Herpen tells Fashionista. “Shows that have been done, and processes, and collaborations.”
"Iris van Herpen: Sculpting the Senses"
Photo: Courtesy of Brooklyn Museum
The exhibit is organized into 11 thematic sections that mirror the breadth of van Herpen’s inspirations and commitment to environmental preservation. “Sensory Sea Life” dives beneath the ocean’s surface with otherworldly looks inspired by marine organisms, while “Cosmic Bloom” (above) looks outward to space and the multiverse beyond with dresses that are displayed sideways and upside down. A 2016 glass-sphere dress, set in the “Water and Dreams” space (below), opens the show and brings to mind the sculptural mini Eileen Gu wore to the 2026 Met Gala, alongside liquid-like sculptural gowns and air-like fabrics that evoke waves, waterfalls and drops. On the other end, “New Nature” concludes the exhibit by imagining a post-human world with the possibility of rebirth and transformation, with garments including a look that Beyoncé wore on the Amsterdam stop of her 2023 "Renaissance" tour.
"Iris van Herpen: Sculpting the Senses"
Photo: Courtesy of Brooklyn Museum
Van Herpen is a master sculptor of silhouettes that appear to defy the laws of physics. That sense of impossibility is inseparable from her passion for experimentation. In 2010, she pioneered the use of 3D printing in haute couture with the “Crystallization” collection, setting the stage for the fusion of technology and craftsmanship that has come to define the brand. In the years since, she's worked with innovative processes including laser cutting, magnetic sculpting and silicone molding and made progress in sustainable material development (her most recent collection featured a fiber made from sugarcane) — all while preserving couture practices.
“There have always been those experimenters in the history of art and the history of fashion, and I loved that Iris has taken it to another level. She's incorporating new technologies that haven't been addressed before,” Yokobosky says. “[But] Iris is not just technology. She's also those traditional handicrafts, and she's finding the place where they come together. Iris is an artist who's looking at the past and the future and finding a way to bring them together.”
That marriage of technology and technique comes into focus in the “Atelier,” which captures the essence of the brand’s Amsterdam studio, where each collection begins with “hands-on material experimentation.” The room highlights the work of van Herpen’s many collaborators (who are credited throughout the exhibition), like biodesigner Chris Bellamy and architect Philip Beesley, while offering a look at the making of the garments through embroidery samples, laser-cut drawings, 3D-printing materials, and a sketchbook visitors can touch. “You're really going inside my process and my mind here,” says van Herpen. “The spirit of my atelier is embodied in this space.”
"Iris van Herpen: Sculpting the Senses"
Photo: Courtesy of Brooklyn Museum
For a designer known for creating universes around runway shows, the exhibition similarly builds a distinct atmosphere for every vignette. Videos, lighting, movement and a soundscape — the latter by composer, music producer and van Herpen’s partner, Salvador Breed — help activate the galleries. The sound is especially potent in “Skeletal Embodiment” (above), where a visceral rattling sends a chill through the space as visitors pass garments that mimic human remains and fossils. The eeriness bleeds into “The Mythology of Fear,” which includes the snake-covered dress (below) worn by Björk on tour in 2011.
"Iris van Herpen: Sculpting the Senses"
Photo: Courtesy of Brooklyn Museum
Van Herpen sees a connection between putting on fashion shows (which get a dedicated video space in the exhibit) and an art retrospective. “I love doing the shows because it carries a certain energy. But what is somewhat frustrating about the show is that we work for months and months on these pieces — sometimes a year! — and then they are gone in like 10 minutes,” she says. “[At an exhibition,] people can come so much closer to the work. You can have your own personal time with a piece. You can be there for an hour if you want, and you can understand the work so much better, and you appreciate the craftsmanship that goes in there, and that is just not possible to embody in a fashion show.”
Plenty of fashion exhibitions have succeeded at showcasing beautiful garments. What makes “Sculpting the Senses” compelling is the way it places van Herpen’s avant-garde designs in cerebral conversation, not only with contemporary art, but also with artifacts and natural history specimens. Van Herpen’s color-forward gowns (including a red dress seen on Anne Hathaway in "Mother Mary") naturally come alive alongside the pigmented works of collaborator Kim Keever, as well as pieces from artists like Nick Knight and James Turrell; but it is often the less expected pairings that invite the deepest dialogue.
"Iris van Herpen: Sculpting the Senses"
Photo: Courtesy of Brooklyn Museum
An ornate 19th century maple-and-beech chair sharpens the eye to the details of a wood-like dress from the 2012 collection, inspired by Europe’s Gothic cathedrals (above). Early 20th-century renderings of marine life and brain function from scientists Ernst Haeckel and Santiago Ramón y Cajal, respectively, reveal visual precedents for the patterns and structures echoed in the garments nearby. An 80-million-year-old dinosaur skull brings out the edges and coiled lines of the mollusc-inspired dress from van Herpen’s 2016 collection.
Van Herpen sees these pairings as entirely natural. “Artifacts in the exhibition speak to our origins, who we are, and I think fashion ultimately asks that question: Who are we, and where are we going?” Beyond offering fans a deeper understanding of her artistic process, she hopes the exhibition becomes “a point of interest for people that normally are not into fashion.”
"Iris van Herpen: Sculpting the Senses"
Photo: Courtesy of Brooklyn Museum
“Everything that I do is very intuitive. My mind combining all of the disciplines into one, that's just natural to me… but not everyone sees the connection,” she continues. “It made me realize how important it is to have these conversations to broaden the perspective on fashion. People tend to narrow it down to a very small isolated bubble, but it is connected to all of these worlds.”
“Sculpting the Senses” refuses to treat couture as an echo chamber. Van Herpen’s work may begin with the spectacle and beauty, but it rarely stops there. It opens the door to exploration — to the ocean floor, to bone structures, to Greek myths, to microscopic organisms, to distant galaxies — and argues that couture can be more than a display of aesthetics or technique. It can be a way of asking how humans fit into the larger world around us.
“Iris van Herpen: Sculpting the Senses” is on view at the Brooklyn Museum from May 16 through Dec. 6, 2026.
Milan Design Week might be better known for its major furniture launches and blockbuster shows, but these rug collections still stopped us in our tracks as we hustled through the halls of Salone del Mobile and traipsed around town to Fuorisalone venues numbering in the hundreds.
1. FACES Collection by Kengo Kuma for Jaipur Rugs
With its bold architectural patterns, this collaboration between Jaipur Rugs and Kengo Kuma held its own at both Salone and at offsite presentations. The 16 rugs of the Faces collection come in muted tones, and are inspired by the facades of the Japanese architect’s most renowned buildings, including the Suntory Museum of Art in Tokyo — whose striations are hinted at in the patterns Sukima and Bokashi.
The references are subtle; what both Jaipur and Kuma seek is an evocation of the ways in which light and shadow are cast against a facade. And the nuance comes across brilliantly.
2. Illulian Rugs
Ilhabela by Paula Cadematori and Mineralia by Controvento exemplify the artistic ambitions of the Italian luxury rug brand Illulian, whose rugs are handcrafted by artisans in Nepal. Ilhabela, part of the NO LAND capsule collection, “explores the contrast between the depths of blue and the shades of sunrise,” says Cadematori, and features a precise 45-degree hand-cutting technique.
Meanwhile, Mineralia plays with pile heights and yarn textures to create a floor covering that feels crafted by nature. Together, they express the brand’s range of offerings, from restrained yet whimsical to organic and seemingly freeform.
This oval rug made of jute and wool makes the impression of a shaggy yet regal pet — or, more aptly, the sheep that provide its yarn. According to the Spanish rug brand, the collection’s production involves two techniques: “manual loom and hand-knotting of the wool, which is what allows for the execution of the different textures and densities of the landscapes in its design.” The result is strikingly compelling, as both a crafted artwork and a practical home accessory.
4. Lucia Eames Rug Collection by Nanimarquina
The Eames legacy was strong throughout Milan Design Week. Not only did the Triennale showcase a prefab modular pavilion based on the Eames House, but the nature-inspired drawings of the late Lucia Eames (born to Charles and his first wife, Catherine Woermann) were interpreted in a delightful rug collection by Spain’s Nanimarquina.
Installed at Salone del Mobile — its butterfly rugs soaring above the Nanimarquina booth — the collection brings features hand tufted, hand knotted, hand loomed, and embroidery pieces made “alongside new developments such as sculptural tufting and hand-braided, hand-stitched jute,” brand explains. Its natural fibres of with natural fibres Afghan and New Zealand wool and jute are combined to create a surfaces that play between matte and luminous in subtle counterpoint.
5. Bieke Casteleyn x JOV
As part of Fuorisalone, Bieke Casteleyn and JOV collaborated on Clover, which they describe as “an immersive landscape of softness, form, and material.” The rounded form of the wall-mounted rug stood out for its simplicity and playfulness.
no wonder so much is boring and no one seems to care about art
Token Anxiety. “This voice in my head that says ‘something could be running right now’ just doesn’t shut off. I’m not even building a company. I’m just addicted to building my random ideas.”
Tomas, 22: “I like soft, rounded shapes and thick materials. When it comes to designing clothes, what inspires me right now is softness, soft colors, humanity, people’s flaws and insecurities, and especially understanding them.”
Niilo, 20: “Some grey jeans, white t-shirt, ballerinas, big backpack and a furry cap felt good in the morning. If I have to try to find the words to describe what inspires my style, maybe playfulness, mix of masculinity and femininity, expressing yourself and harmony.”
“Wooden friends” began appearing in illustrator Lesley Barnes’s social media in 2019—along with her pop-up book “Bauhaus Ballet.” They were like flat, graphic, modernist geometric illustrations come to life.
Some of the wooden figures Barnes hand-made with her collaborator, portrait painter Ross McAuley, were flat cutouts. Others seemed assembled from wooden balls and cones and cylinders, shapes one might turn on a lathe. And painted in eye-popping polkadots, harlequin diamonds, and stripes, in brilliant blue, red, green, black, white.
“We really wanted to capture the sense of endless possibility and adventure that fashion can offer,” Barnes and McAuley say in a press release. “We hope our combinations of shapes, colours and pattern leave visitors with a sense of joy.”
Barnes and McAuley are based in Glasgow, where Barnes is from and McAuley arrived from his native Toronto. Her illustrations are rooted in midcentury modern design (Mary Blair! Alexander Girard!). Their wooden figures were part folk craft and part something out of a 1920s Bauhaus costume party. When covid lockdown arrived in 2020, Barnes and McAuley began turning out whole troupes of them.
“Fashion Play” takes its inspiration from Barnes’s 2024 book of the same name—a flip book divided in three sections, allowing readers to mix and match outfits and patterns. The exhibition features 33 of their handmade wooden sculptures—plus books, painted wooden mobiles, a screenprint, and banners.
This is incredible: artist Kara Walker took a statue of Confederate general Stonewall Jackson that had stood in Charlottesville, Virginia until 2021, chopped it up, and reconstituted it into a disfigured beast. It’s part of an exhibition of several such works called Monuments, which opens at The Geffen Contemporary at MOCA in LA on October 23. From the press release:
In 2021, The Brick (then known as LAXART) acquired a decommissioned equestrian monument of “Stonewall” Jackson from the city of Charlottesville, Virginia. The monument was given to Kara Walker to create the new work Unmanned Drone (2023). The original bronze statue portrayed Jackson spurring his steed into the heat of battle. Walker dissected the statue and reshuffled the parts in a Hieronymous Bosch-like fashion. The result is still horse and rider, but instead of charging into battle, Walker’s horseman wanders in Civil War purgatory, dragging its sword over a ruined battlefield.
Here’s the statue as it looked in Charlottesville:
She likened the result to a haint — a Southern concept with roots in Gullah Geechee culture that designates a spirit that has slipped its human form and roams about making mischief and exacting vengeance. Here, what is deconstructed is not just a statue but the myth of suppressed Confederate glory that it represents. Her sculpture, she suggested, “exists as a sort of haint of itself — the imagination of the Lost Cause having to recognize itself for what it is.”
“I’m wearing a hat from Esenshel, Naushad Ali top from Society of Cloth in LES, Dries van Noten shorts, Cubitts glasses, Bode shoes, Thom Browne bag and rings from Sohnder, Eyeba. Since I’ve been working from home so much, pajamas have become my daily uniform. So when I do step out, I treat it like a mini runway – going a little extra to make up for all that loungewear. Lately, I’m inspired to invest in pieces that stand the test of time – less chaos in the closet (NYC closet space is wild iykyk), more quality at the core. Clothes chosen carefully to last a lifetime, not just a season.”
Last Friday I didn’t have a top image or a subject line for the newsletter, so I said, “You know what? I’ll give myself an hour to play and see what happens.” I pulled a half-finished blackout poem out of the drawer and came up with “New dumpsters, old fires.”
Miska: “Everything I’m wearing is second hand; thrifted or given to me by friends and family. The only exception being my Adidas Busenitz shoes that I skate with. I draw inspiration from skateboarding and hip-hop cultures as well as some artists.”
Angelica, 26: “I’m wearing an apron-style Marimekko dress, that I believe someone has made themselves, over a mesh shirt and trousers, all thrifted. These Dr. Martens DMXL boots are my favourite shoes.“
Every look in Celine’s Resort 2026 collection feels effortless, but is built on a small styling twist that makes it sing. Same-colored knit layered over knit. A cardigan buttoned only at the neck, shifted slightly so it falls like a cape. Sleek tailoring accented by a silk scarf or an extra large brooch. They’re easy-to-execute details—but they change everything. Zara’s newest drop already has the pieces to make it happen, shown here. Staud and Quince also has knits to effect layering cool.
I still regret not buying that broccoli fabric, although I do have a potholder
Textiles are a definitive indicator of culture. Fiber content, construction style, patterning, and color cues are all crucial elements to the essence of a fabric, defining our clothing, linens, and household fabrics for eons. After a successful run at the IKEA Museum in Älmhult, Sweden, IKEA presents their inaugural textile exhibition at Edinburgh’s Dovecot Studios, highlighting their collaborations throughout the years, celebrating independent designers and uplifting their work to a global stage. Showcasing textile iconography spanning 60 years, the exhibit illuminates the lasting impact the Swedish brand has had on design history at large. Innovation and collaboration are tenets central to the IKEA, and IKEA Museum: Magical Patterns is emblematic of this communal energy.
Featuring 180 vintage and contemporary designs, including collaborations with Zandra Rhodes and Marimekko, the colorful explosion rings true to IKEA’s symphony of items – a multitude of colorful, affordable, yet carefully considered objects. Poppy, brilliant colors adorn a multitude of fun prints, some taking on an I-Spy level of granularity.
Natural details are a central theme within the iconic pattern works on display, featuring large leaf prints and generously dense ferns in watercolor. Happy florals meet graphic foliage, in cool colorways that add a sense of fun and sophistication to any space.
Iconic prints cover mobiles made from hangers, exemplifying some more unexpected uses of textile within the home. Not just relegated to upholstery or tablecloths, IKEA has proven over the years that kitchen, bathroom, and even closet organization can all receive a colorful upgrade.
Founded by Ingvar Kamprad in 1943, IKEA has consistently supported democratic design for over 80 years, introducing a fresh sense of color, print, and form. Since the 1960s, the brand has invested in experimental artists and designers for collaborations, like Danish textile artist Bitten Højmark in 1962, and Inger Nilsson in 1965, as the demand for textile design increased. The duo brought forth new technology, including the first Swedish version of the Natural Colour System (NCS) and vibrant patterns, in a world where gray textiles were all that was available.
Developed by physicist Tryggve Johansson at Sweden’s National Defence Research Institute, the Natural Colour System (NCS) provided a precise, universal way to describe and reproduce colors across materials. Designer Nilsson recognized the system’s power early on. She championed its use across IKEA, particularly in fabric departments, educating teams on how to display and coordinate textiles in ways that would better connect with customers.
This passion for precision and presentation helped usher in what many fans call a golden age for IKEA textiles. Spearheaded by strong, visionary women, this era was marked by fearless experimentation with pattern, texture, and tone. A prime example is the now-iconic ‘RANDIG BANAN’ by Inez Svensson. The quirky striped banana motif, first created in 1985, went unnoticed for decades before resurfacing in a 2013 limited collection, where it quickly became a cult favorite.
More recent designs have carried that same spirit forward. Ida Pettersson Preutz’s ‘ANNIKEN’ pattern, featuring green broccoli set against wavy neon-pink stripes, embodies the irreverent and joyful energy that continues to define IKEA’s approach to textiles. From technical innovation to bold artistic expression, the company’s textile history is one of both discipline and delight – a reflection of IKEA’s ongoing mission to make everyday life more colorful.
To learn more about the Magical Patterns exhibit at the IKEA Museum in Ediburgh, Scotland, which is open now through January 17, 2026, please visit ikeamuseum.com.
Protestors rally outside of Glass House in Kendall Square. | Julia Turcotti/TransMIT
150 people protested outside the Kendall Square spot on Sunday
A local trans rights group organized a protest at Kendall Square spot Glass House on Sunday, May 18, after two anti-trans organizations held a fundraising dinner at the restaurant. The group TransMIT is now calling for a boycott of Glass House and its overarching owner, the Briar Group, which also operates tourist-y downtown spots like Ned Devine’s and Hurricane’s at the Garden.
TransMIT, a university student group that advocates for trans people’s rights, initially planned “to pressure Glass House into cancelling the event altogether” by calling and leaving voicemails at the restaurant, according to a public document outlining the group’s actions. The dinner, titled “Born in the Right Body,” was hosted by the groups Democrats With an Informed Approach to Gender (DIAG) and LGB Courage Coalition, both of which campaign against transgender care for minors. One of the speakers, Simon Amaya Price, a Berklee College of Music graduate who identifies as “formerly trans,” has had other speaking engagements cancelled in the past. The Glass House event was priced at $200 a plate.
When the event wasn’t cancelled, the group turned to protest on Sunday, and called for a boycott of all of the Briar Group’s restaurants, which also include Broken Records Beer Hall, the Harp, Six String Grill and Stage, the Beth Kitchen & Bar, and more.
Lead organizer Julia Turcotti, a PhD student at MIT, told Eater in a statement that LGB Courage Coalition’s co-director Jaime Reed and Vernadette Broyles, the founder of the Child and Parental Rights Campaign, both scheduled speakers at the dinner, “have built careers ruining trans lives because of their own ignorance.” Turcotti continues: “They call a ‘threat to society’ what they simply cannot understand. As MIT students, and as the Cambridge community, we will always put the full force of our love and solidarity into fighting ANYONE who comes and tells us our neighbors are not worthy of it.”
Reed expressed gratitude to the Glass House for not canceling the event and “standing up for free speech,” per an emailed statement. A DIAG rep echoed the same sentiment, saying that they were “grateful” to the restaurant for hosting the event and “not yielding to pressure from activists to silence views they oppose.”
According to Turcotti, about 150 people gathered to protest on Sunday afternoon. Protesters held signs that read “Trans Rights Are Human Rights” and “HRT Saves Lives” while chanting “shut it down,” according to videos and photos taken at the event. Cambridge vice mayor Marc McGovern also showed up to protest, holding up a megaphone and saying to a cheering crowd that Cambridge is a community that should be safe and welcoming, and is safe and welcoming, to everybody.
“The event at Glass House is organized and hosted by a private event client,” a representative for the Briar Group said in an emailed statement on Friday, May 16. “The views of private event clients do not represent Glass House, and we do not assume any responsibility for the views of our guests. Hosting a private event at Glass House is not an endorsement of the organizers’ position or opinion. We remain a neutral entity focused on providing excellent hospitality, food, beverage, and dining experiences for those who come through our door.”
TransMIT states that rhetoric against transgender people can cost lives, citing research that indicates 82 percent of transgender individuals have considered suicide and 40 percent have attempted suicide. States that passed anti-transgender state legislation saw suicide attempts by transgender and nonbinary youth increase by as much as 72 percent in the months that followed.
Eater reached out to the restaurant group again after the protest on Sunday and calls to boycott. They declined to comment further.
Whoa, look at the interior of this new Japanese restaurant in NYC called Shirokuro — all of the surfaces (floors, chairs, walls, counters, etc.) are painted to look like a 2-dimensional drawing. From Colossal:
“Shirokuro” translates to “white-black.” The New York Times shares that proprietor James Lim was inspired by an immersive, 2D restaurant he visited ten years ago in Korea, and he envisioned one of his own, now open in the East Village. To make the interior pop, he invited his friend, real estate agent and artist Mirim Yoo, to transform the space into an all-encompassing environment.
Here’s what it looks like with people and other non-b&w objects:
This reminds me of Alexa Meade’s work — it would be amazing to see a collab where Meade does up the servers (or guests) for a performance piece.
On Friday, thousands of NFTs that had once sold collectively for millions of dollars vanished from the internet and were replaced with the phrase “This content has been restricted. Using Cloudflare’s basic service in this manner is a violation of the Terms of Service.” The pictures eventually returned but their brief loss, as a result of one of the services that served the NFTs being migrated to a free account, is a reminder of the ephemeral nature of digital goods as well as the craze for crypto-backed pictures that dominated the internet for a few years.
The pictures were part of a CloneX RTFKT (pronounced “artifact”) collection, a Nike-backed NFT project done in collaboration with Japanese artist Takashi Murakami. They disappeared because the corporate overlord that acquired them was no longer investing the time or capital into the project it once had.
At around 5 a.m. EST on the morning of April 24, more than 19,000 NFTs in the CloneX RTFKT (pronounced “artifact”) collection vanished. In their place was white text on a black background that said: “This content has been restricted. Using Cloudflare’s basic service in this manner is a violation of the Terms of Service.”
The pictures linked to a URL on Cloudflare’s site that explained a bit more about what was going on. “If you are on a Free, Pro, or Business Plan and your application appears to be serving videos or a disproportionate amount of large files without using the appropriate paid service as described below, Cloudflare may redirect your content or take other actions to protect quality of service,” it said.
One of the original pitches of NFTs is that they would live forever on the internet. The idea is that they were a digital asset, as good as a real world asset like gold or silver, and could never be destroyed or erased. The flicking out of some 19,000 NFTs and the erasure of tens of millions of dollars in Etherium called that into question.
NFTs are non-fungible tokens, which use the blockchain to “prove” the ownership of digital assets. In the speculative frenzy that followed, a lot of people got rich minting grotesque pictures and selling them online. The trend peaked around the start of 2022 when Jimmy Fallon and Paris Hilton talked about the then-popular Bored Ape Yacht Club on the Tonight Show.
Nike bought RTFKT in 2021 when corporations and investors thought NFTs would be the next big thing. No one knows what Nike paid for the company, but earlier that year Andreeseen Horowitz had valued RTFKT at $33 million and RTFKT used that number to raise $8 million in capital.
Three years later, Nike decided to pull the plug and sunset the project. At the time, Samuel Cardillo was RTFKT’s CTO and the man in charge of keeping things running. At its height, Cardillo had a team of 12 people helping him run the project. Now it’s just him. He stayed on as a consultant after Nike said it wouldn’t support the project anymore.
He’s currently in the process of migrating Nike’s NFTs off of a DigitalOcean cloud server and onto AWS. “I, personally, wanted to decentralize the assets instead of moving them just to yet another centralized hosting which would be under someone else’s will,” he said.
But Nike gets the final say, even now.
He was using Cloudflare as a third-party service to secure inbound and outbound connections from the user to DigitalOcean. The plan was and is to use this as a bridge while he decentralized the pictures on ArWeave—a blockchain for data storage.
According to Cardillo, the images vanished because Cloudflare moved RTFKT onto a free plan earlier than he expected. “The reason we're moving to the free plan is that, RTFKT is sunset, there are no plans to do any drops or anything like that so having a paid plan with Cloudflare makes absolutely no sense anymore,” he told 404 Media.
RTFKT websites are currently down due to changes happening with our current Cloudflare setup due to the infrastructure downsize. I am working with Cloudflare to get things back up and running as soon as possible!
Cardillo posted about the issues on RTFKT’s Discord and fielded questions on X while he got the pictures back online. “I understand the panic,” he said. “It’s my duty to ensure that those people can be reassured, it’s part of my responsibility being in charge of all of this.”
Around the same time that the NFTs vanished, some of the people left holding the RTFKT bag filed a lawsuit against Nike. An Australian resident filed the class action lawsuit in Brooklyn, New York federal court. It said that the shoe company ending support for the NFT company led to significant losses for people who had bought them.
Cardillo declined to comment on the lawsuit, but said he still believed in the technology underlying NFTs. “I hope people see the point of this technology itself and stop using it to fuel the casino that crypto became,” he said.
“I’m wearing a layered dress and skirt which I made myself, a hoodie and jacket from Uniqlo, and Bottega Veneta boots. My style right now is heavily inspired my surroundings. Having lived near the Hasidic community in Bed-Stuy for 2 years now, I draw inspiration from the silhouettes, layering, and muted color palettes I see every day.”
Once a maker of leather-covered pipes, now a coveted global fashion house, Longchamp has never once lost its mastery of craft. In its latest chapter, the French brand has teamed up with celebrated designer Pierre Renart to make its first foray into furniture, where supple leather and sculpted wood come together as one. The collection of nine pieces – the Wave leather bench and a set of eight Ruban chairs – will make their grand debut at Milan Design Week at Longchamp’s flagship boutique.
While this marks Longchamp’s first official furniture collection, it’s not the first time the fashion house has collaborated with Renart. In 2021, the brand commissioned the designer to create exclusive Wave coffee tables for boutique displays all over the world. The Milan presentation feels like a natural next step in their evolving partnership.
True to Renart’s signature sculptural aesthetic, the Wave leather bench and Ruban chairs are crafted from American walnut in a way that suggests the pieces have been effortlessly formed from a continuous ribbon. In reality, Renart meticulously assembles ultra-thin pieces of wood, bending them into sinuous, fluid shapes. That sense of movement was the only creative direction Longchamp provided. “These designs are all Pierre’s work,” shares Sophie Delafontaine, Creative Director at Longchamp, “but we challenged him on a single point: to ensure that – even with the combination of wood and leather – the pieces looked as light and fluid as if they had been executed in wood alone. We wanted him to keep the idea of movement, of the single, unbroken line – and clearly, he has done exactly that.”
To give the collection its distinct Longchamp identity, Renart upholstered each piece with supple cowhide leather, a long-time goal of his that was finally realized through this collaboration. The Wave bench is clad in rich mahogany leather while each Ruban chair features their own hue, including Longchamp’s signature heritage greens. “Leather is a magnificent material to work with,” says Renart. “When I met Sophie Delafontaine, she took me through all the different types of leather and how Longchamp uses them. It’s exciting to be able to apply that expertise to my designs.”
The result is a collection that is both quintessentially Renart and unmistakably Longchamp, a perfect fusion of flowing forms and leather craftsmanship. It honors tradition while carving out something entirely new, and stands as a testament to the power of creative collaboration across disciplines.
Judith Butler: “Once you decide that a single vulnerable minority can be sacrificed, you’re operating within a fascist logic, because that means there might be a second one you’re willing to sacrifice, and a third, a fourth, and then what happens?”
