What’s Happening: The sportswear giant makes its grand entrance into web3 with the debut of Swoosh, a platform aiming to educate Nike’s customer base, sell virtual and physical products, and offer creators the opportunity to collaborate with Nike’s design team.

The Download: Fashion brands have embraced web3 in recent years, with Puma, Adidas, and Gucci all experimenting with non-fungible tokens (NFTs) as membership programs for perks, freebies, and exclusive access to new product launches. Nike seems to have been eyeing it since at least 2019 when it secured a patent for blockchain-linked sneakers called CryptoKicks. The sportswear giant acquired RTFKT—the virtual fashion maker founded by Benoit Pagotto, Chris Le, and Steven Vasilev—two years later, making Nike’s investment the largest of its peers.

Besides launching NFT footwear such as the Nike Dunk Genesis CryptoKicks with RTFKT, Nike has been fairly quiet about its web3 projects. That changed yesterday when the brand announced the new virtual platform Swoosh. Though Nike’s plans are still largely under wraps, it teased something called “creator challenges” that will award winners with the opportunity to collaborate with Nike’s creative team to design virtual collections and earn royalties from sales. Another potential feature is a safe and reliable resale market that protects against some of the fraud seen on exchanges like OpenSea. The new offering is aimed at the “web3 curious” rather than those with a foothold in the space.

Nike anticipates consumers on the periphery of web3 may be enticed by preorders for physical sneakers in the form of virtual ones. The digital releases will at first be wearable on RTFKT’s CloneX avatars, but eventually expand to other video games—much like when it launched Air Jordans for Fortnite in 2019. First up, however, is a month-long education session to demystify web3 for the uninitiated. “We’re not gonna sell stuff right away. We really want to be careful and thoughtful about how we invite the community in,” Ron Faris, the general manager of Nike Virtual Studios, told Complex. “What we really want to do is broaden the definition of what a creator can be.”

Education is a major reason why Nike held off on debuting Swoosh sooner. According to Faris, the brand opted for a slow and steady approach for entering web3 given the space’s relative volatility as seen in the dramatic downturn in cryptocurrency values, waning interest in NFT trading, and the catastrophic FTX collapse. But a recent Accenture study suggests the global video gaming industry is outpacing the music and film industries combined, which Nike doesn’t anticipate will slow down anytime soon. “We’re building for a long-term future,” Faris says. “We’re here to stay in this space.”

In Their Own Words: “We see a [virtual] shoe that one day unlocks access to a pre-order of a physical shoe, or one day unlocks access to a token-gated chat with our designers where you can help shape certain decisions around what colorway we launch with,” Faris says. “Or another day where you could unlock the wearable version in your favorite game or immersive experience.”

Surface Says: In light of recent events, it’s clear that crypto has a credibility problem. Maybe established brands with a track record will be essential to shaping the future of web3.

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Alex Proba often adorns posters, rugs, murals, augmented reality, and even the bottom of swimming pools with her signature vibrant tones and shapes. But the multidisciplinary designer’s latest creative experiment is best enjoyed by four-legged friends, especially her rescue dog, Sam. “He deserves the world, and so do all other furry friends, which inspired me to create ProbaPaws,” she tells Domino. The new collection encompasses chew toys, bowls, bandanas, hand-tufted beds, and Egyptian cotton blankets that are “perfect for wrapping your pet up like a colorful burrito.” Almost all are handmade at her Portland, Oregon, studio using natural dyes and incorporating sustainable materials such as recycled PET plastic.

She also brought like-minded designers into the fold, resulting in brass-cast tags by Blink, necklaces from Marrow Fine, and dishwasher-safe rippling bowls by Sophie Lou Jacobsen that are also fit for humans. The collection combines Proba’s exuberant style with Sam’s penchant for fun, but she took safety seriously and ensured each item used the best possible materials “so you can feel good about pampering your pet,” she says. The psychedelic Petal toys, for example, are crafted using natural food-grade, phthalate-free silicone. A portion of all proceeds will go toward Three Little Pitties Rescue, where she found Sam.

“Great White was born out of what we perceived to be a gap in the market for an all-day, fast-casual cafe that we knew at home in Australia,” says co-founder Sam Trude. For its third location in L.A., the lifestyle concept known for its killer breakfast burritos, natural wines, and smart design curation heads to Melrose (joining Venice Beach and Larchmont Village). Chilean chef Juan Ferreiro, a Per Se alum, follows a similar blueprint with a menu of fast-casual juices, bowls, and wood-fired pizzas complemented by new additions like mushroom fries and wild arugula pesto pasta.

Housed in a former laundromat, local architect Natalie Kazanjian fashioned a textural pink facade to match Trude’s childhood home in Australia. A Portuguese limestone bar and woven Pakistani pendants set a boho vibe inside, where Berlin-based artist Danny Gretscher’s abstract painting, Forgotten Planet Awakens, adorns the dining room wall. The twin fireplaces on the back patio are the place to enjoy L.A.’s temperate nights with a glass of Glou-Glou-style chilled red from Lorraine, France, or perhaps Great White’s own skin-contact blend produced in collaboration with NorCal’s minimalist winemakers Deux Punx.

Imbued with intimacy and poise, the Spanish painter’s fleshy portrayals of the female form share a colossal strength and aren’t afraid to take up space.

Here, we ask an artist to frame the essential details behind one of their latest works.

Bio: Cristina BanBan, 35, Brooklyn.

Title of work: Mujeres I (2022).

Where to see it: Skarstedt Gallery, New York, until Dec. 17.

Three words to describe it: Resolute, confident, emboldened.

An interesting feature that’s not immediately noticeable: I’ve left more spaces of open canvas for the charcoal drawings in this work. It gives the figures more freedom and hopefully allows them to break the line between abstraction and representation.

When: Until April 2

Where: The Toledo Museum of Art

What: The birthplace of the Studio Glass Movement presents more than a decade of experiments from Matt Wedel’s career, including imaginative plant-like forms grounded in human psychology that the boundary-pushing ceramic artist describes as “the phenomenal debris that’s shed from being human.” Wedel often challenges himself to embrace chance, possibility, and failure through his work, resulting in unique pieces recalling tales of creation and destruction.

Artists Vivian Caccuri and Miles Greenberg toasted their joint New Museum exhibition with a night of dancing and DJ-spun beats at the Public Hotel. The exhibition, “The Shadow of Spring,” spans everything from sculpture to embroidery to sound in its investigation of the effects of vibrations on collective experiences.

When was it? Nov. 9

Where was it? The Public Hotel, New York

Who was there? Vidar Logi, Hannah Traore, Monique Long, Casey Spooner, Jonathan Gardenhire, and more.

Over the past month, chaos has erupted at museums in Europe as activists hurled foodstuffs at famous artworks and superglued their hands to gallery walls to protest fossil fuels. The most famous incident saw Vincent Van Gogh’s Sunflowers get doused in tomato soup at London’s National Gallery. In an impassioned speech, two youthful protesters affiliated with Just Stop Oil decried climate complacency, asking if visitors “are more concerned about the protection of a painting, or the protection of our planet and people?” Copycat incidents have quickly ensued from Madrid and Berlin to Rome and Sydney.

None of the paintings were harmed, but the brazen acts quickly went viral and ignited fiery discourse about whether such attention-seeking protests are misdirected. The sheer shock value has certainly generated a frenzy of international headlines. The trend may also pave the way for less protected artworks to suffer irreparable damage at the hands of increasingly brazen and less scrupulous activists, which has compelled some museums to place pieces behind less accessible barriers. Museums haven’t resorted to desperate measures yet, but some of their new tactics are alarming. Besides enacting “zero-bag” policies and reinforcing paintings behind glass, some cultural institutions have explored hiring ex-military pros to teach guards expert surveillance tactics.

With a history that spans more than 100 years, Georg Jensen represents quality craftsmanship and timeless design, with lifestyle products ranging from watches and jewelry to home goods.

Surface Says: From silverware and cutlery to watches and jewelry, Georg Jensen’s reverence for artisanal skill translates across mediums. The purveyor of fine silversmithing references nature and simple Nordic living in its designs, keeping the founder’s aesthetic values alive.

Airbnb rolls out a much-needed feature to address hidden fee complaints.

In Milan, an artwork reinterprets Stonehenge with 16,000 recycled bottles.

The Warhol Museum digitizes rare tracks from The Velvet Underground…

…while the Chelsea Hotel will host a party celebrating Edie Sedgwick’s art.