Copy
Apr 12 2023
Surface
Design Dispatch
The lucrative rise of tunnel fashion, Maniera’s history-laden new home, and the poop emoji’s legal history.
FIRST THIS
“Art is a guarantee of sanity.”
HERE’S THE LATEST

notification-Transparent_2x

The Lucrative Rise of Tunnel Fashion

What’s Happening: Fashion labels are capitalizing on NBA basketball stars’ pre-game entries into arenas—a moment often telecasted by sports broadcasters—jumpstarting a lucrative cottage industry that turns athletes into style influencers.

The Download: Fashion has the runway; basketball has the tunnel. What was once an unnoticed shuffle from the arena entrance to the locker room has evolved into a bona fide catwalk illuminated by flashing paparazzi bulbs, where NBA stars flaunt their outfits. At a mere 15 seconds, the tunnel walk is a concise affair—but the jaunt is closely watched by style-savvy basketball fans eager to emulate their idols and luxury brands anxious to place their latest clothing and accessories in front of the doting eyes of millions.

It’s no exaggeration. Instagram accounts dedicated to tunnel fashion, like @leaguefits and @nbafashionfits, have amassed hundreds of thousands of avid followers. The Athletic and WWD routinely publish best-dressed lists; GQ readers voted Shai Gilgeous-Alexander as the most stylish man last year. “Style icon is the perfect way to describe these guys,” vintage specialist Tom DeCeglie tells Business of Fashion. “It’s crazy how the tunnel walk has gotten to this level because I remember guys used to just come in wearing sweats, and that was it.”


Outlandish fashion statements have always been part of NBA culture—take Magic Johnson’s fur coats and Dennis Rodman wearing a wedding dress to promote his 1996 autobiography, among other antics—but have surged in the age of Instagram. “These players recognized that social media was an opportunity to demonstrate their own style and taste,” Matt Powell, a VP at sports marketing research firm NPD Group, tells Town & Country. Brief tunnel struts indeed offer a momentary glimpse into each player’s personality, from the sneaker-obsessed PJ Tucker to the avant-garde leanings of Jordan Clarkson, who once wore a kilt.

The entrances also afford players opportunities to promote causes close to them. Chris Paul often sports apparel from historically Black colleges and universities, which jumpstarted multiple charitable initiatives. The Miami Heat wore hoodies after Trayvon Martin’s shooting; in the wake of 2020’s Black Lives Matter movement, players were quick to wear jerseys emblazoned with phrases like “Say Their Names” and “Respect Us.” LeBron James routinely wore shirts promoting More Than a Vote, a nonprofit that raises awareness about voter suppression and registration, in advance of the 2020 election.


Fashion labels have picked up on players’ newfound status as runway models. In 2018, Thom Browne jumped at the chance to outfit James and his then-team, the Cleveland Cavaliers, in his signature shrunken gray suits, a stunt that got the internet talking. Kyle Kuzma posted a tunnel shot of him flaunting a $3,000 Rick Owens puffer jacket, resulting in the garment selling out within a few days on SSENSE. “Brands are really seeing how much the tunnels and everything that we do kind of matters to society and pop culture,” Kuzma says. The next frontier? Styling college players, who are finally allowed to profit from their image.

In Their Own Words: “The league is getting younger. They care about their image and how it looks on Instagram,” says Richard Ontiveros-Gima, a former paparazzi photographer who shoots basketball players for @thehapablonde. “They grew up when streetwear became high fashion—it’s natural for them.”

Surface Says: No look will ever beat Shaq in a Superman cape.

notification-Transparent_2x

What Else Is Happening?

Check-Circle_2x Construction begins on a giant vertical garden in the former Domino Sugar Refinery.
Check-Circle_2x Christian Siriano debuts a line of 30 “fabulous” paint colors with Sherwin-Williams.
Check-Circle_2x Marseille’s Museum of Contemporary Art reopens with a playful show by Paola Pivi.
Check-Circle_2xOPEN Architecture reveals visuals for a sinuous performing arts center in China.
Check-Circle_2x The Met announces new projects by Nairy Baghramian and Jacolby Satterwhite.
Check-Circle_2x Dubai lands another record-breaking sale with a $15 million vanity license plate.


Have a news story our readers need to see? Submit it here.

PARTNER WITH US

Reach the design world every morning. Find out more about advertising in the Design Dispatch.

ARCHITECTURE

notification-Transparent_2x

The Nita Mukesh Ambani Cultural Centre Sets a New Standard

Situated at the heart of the bustling Bandra Kurla Complex, the Nita Mukesh Ambani Cultural Centre (NMACC) is on a fast track to becoming one of Mumbai’s most spectacular cultural hubs—thanks in small part to its star-studded opening gala, but largely the ambitious fashion, design, and art programming slated for the lavish building’s state-of-the-art theaters and galleries.

It starts outside: Three giant golden leaves sketched by founder Nita Ambani’s daughter, Isha, grace the exterior, nodding to the holy trinity of Hindu Gods. The interior, meanwhile, plays host to public artwork like Yayoi Kusama’s Clouds, a 90-piece stainless steel structure that mirrors the sky, and some of the largest-ever commissioned Pichwai paintings.


Inaugural programming forecasts a bright future. Taking over the Richard Gluckman–designed Art House is an exhibition by Jeffrey Deitch and Indian poet Ranjit Hoskote that highlights connections between homegrown artists and international names. It’s also hosting a landmark show about Indian fashion’s influence on global style coinciding with curator Hamish Bowles’ newly published Rizzoli tome about the same topic.

Perhaps the building’s crown jewel is the Grand Theatre, whose private boxes are adorned with silhouettes of shining lotus flowers that overlook a giant chandelier emblazoned with Swarovski crystals casting a glamorous glow over the tableaux vivants underneath. Guests fittingly enjoyed a rendition of “Civilization to Nation: The Great Indian Musical” on opening night, a musical crash course in Indian history.

DESIGN

notification-Transparent_2x

In Brussels, Maniera Settles Into an Art Deco Villa

In 1922, the Belgian architect Jean-Baptiste Dewin designed the sumptuous three-fronted Villa Dewin in the heart of Brussels for his contemporary Jean Dackaert, an industrial engineer. A century later and the heritage structure has retained most of its original Art Deco flair, including the elegant woodwork, an imposing oak staircase, and vivid stained-glass windows that overlook an English-style rose garden, all of which came from Kortrijk’s famous Ateliers d’Art de Coene. The structure, now known as Hôtel Dackaert, is surprisingly well-preserved—and offers a look inside how the industrial bourgeoisie used to live.

The villa is also welcoming its latest tenant, the roving Maniera design gallery founded nearly a decade ago by Kwinten Lavigne and Amaryllis Jacobs, who have a penchant for historically significant architectural sites. (Previous shows were held at Henry Van de Velde’s Hôtel Wolfers, Juliaan Lampens’ Van Wassenhove House, and Huib Hoste’s De Beir House.) Each of the inaugural show’s 15 objects gels well within the villa—likely because Maniera encourages its diverse roster of architects and artists to explore beyond their usual practice.

That’s no exception here. Among the offerings is a steel-and-rope lamp by Belgian artist Valérie Mannaerts; a metallic, Pergay-meets-Parachute platform sofa with off-white canvas pillows by Lukas Gschwandtner; and an entire room filled with some of the best-known pieces by Tbilisi’s up-and-coming Rooms Studio, a recent addition to the roster with new work underway. On that note, things might look different next time: the gallery plans to carefully renovate the villa with Belgian restoration architect Barbara Van der Wee.

ITINERARY

notification-Transparent_2x

Kay Hofmann: Being and Becoming

When: Through May 27

Where: Patron Gallery, Chicago

What: The modernist sculptor reflects on the peculiarity of collective experience wrought by the early days of the pandemic. During quarantine, the sculptor turned to decades-old stores of African Black Stone, marble, and alabaster to hand-carve many of the female figures on view. Their fluid forms seem to come to life and achieve dancerly grace despite being fixed in time and place. According to Hofmann, the pieces aren’t memorials to the past as much as they are a meditation on transcendence. Surface readers are invited to attend Patron Gallery’s opening reception on April 12, from 5-7:30 p.m.

ART

notification-Transparent_2x

ICYMI: Sage Ni’Ja Whitson Illuminates Our Fear of the Dark

There’s a spaceship, called a space|ship, in one studio at EMPAC, the media center by Grimshaw Architects sitting like a space station at Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute, itself perched on a hilltop in Troy, New York. The space|ship sits in darkness, and it’s of darkness: its route is through colonial conceptions of the dark, and those who live and look like it, as dangerous; through investigations of how “dark matter” isn’t dark at all; through how society blankets Black, trans, and queer bodies in a terrified desire to make them invisible; through all this and into your own body so you can see yourself.

It’s the heart of Transtraterrestrial, an ambitious project by multidisciplinary artist Sage Ni’Ja Whitson that debuted at EMPAC on April 6. A culmination of a multi-year collaboration with curator Ashley Ferro-Murray, the show begins with a hushed entrance into the vast studio. A spotlight finds Whitson approaching a pile of collard greens and making them into percussion. During the performance, the space|ship beckons in shadows, but first Whitson takes a podium and addresses us, a dim spotlight illustrating their position.

THE LIST

notification-Transparent_2x

Member Spotlight: Gaggenau

Gaggenau is a German manufacturer of high-quality home appliances. Founded in 1683, the company is one of the most important names in kitchen design and is represented in more than 50 countries with showrooms around the world.

Surface Says: There’s a reason few brands in the high-end kitchen appliance arena are more revered than Gaggenau. It comes down to an unrivaled combination of engineering and style.

AND FINALLY

notification-Transparent_2x

Today’s Attractive Distractions

This Indigenous engineer is upcycling tequila waste into sustainable housing.

Bronze Age hair strands reveal ancient Europeans took hallucinogenic drugs.

The poop emoji has found itself in legal evidence a surprising number of times.

Each year, a French town’s brotherhood cooks up a giant 15,000-egg omelet.

               


View in Browser

Copyright © 2023, All rights reserved.

Surface Media
Surface Media 151 NE 41st Street Suite 119 Miami, FL 33137 USA 

Unsubscribe from all future emails