What’s Happening: Following a brat-friendly rebrand, Kamala Harris’s presidential campaign released its first round of merch in the form of a camouflage baseball hat. It conveys running mate Tim Walz’s everyman appeal and slyly nods to another Gen Z–favorite sensation, Chappell Roan.

The Download: When Kamala Harris announced her bid for the Democratic presidential nomination, popstar Charli XCX tweeted “kamala IS brat”—a reference to her latest album and the cultural fervor it caused this summer. Almost immediately afterward, Harris’s campaign updated its X header to read “kamala hq” in the same slime-green style as the album’s cover. Though some interpreted it as portending the death of “brat summer,” the rebrand hinted that Harris’s campaign was keen on dialing into Gen Z culture and shaking up the often-dreary aesthetic choices of election cycles. Then she named Minnesota Governor Tim Walz as her running mate. In a video, he gleefully answers her call wearing a camo baseball hat—perhaps a shrewd tactic to convey his everyman appeal to dads, veterans, and rural voters, who wear the hats for actual camouflage as opposed to a fashion statement.

The internet, of course, immediately drew comparisons to merch from the popstar Chappell Roan, who sells camo hats that read “Midwest Princess” in orange varsity lettering that reference her breakout album The Rise and Fall of a Midwest Princess. Within hours of the initial round of memes, the Harris campaign started selling like-minded camo hats—crucially American-made, union-printed—on its online store for $40. Taking advantage of viral moments and engaging with very online Gen Z culture is uncommonly bold for such a high-profile politician, but appealing to younger voters can supercharge the campaign’s momentum. More than 47,000 hats were reportedly sold as of August 8, yielding a cool $1.9 million in revenue. The kicker? Not even Roan fully understood what was happening.

In Their Own Words: The hat’s versatility—it has street style and Gen X appeal—could influence broad swaths of voters. Still, merch alone won’t win an election. “I’m really encouraged that it seems like the campaign is listening to young voices,” Ziad Ahmed, head of United Talent Agency marketing practice Next Gen, tells The Guardian. “When we first saw the hat, we almost couldn’t believe our eyes, as we’re so not used to politicians actually making good, cool, smart choices. It’s my hope that those in power continue to pay attention to what young voters are saying across the internet. Not just to draw inspiration for their next merch drop, but to shape their policy platforms that will define our generation’s present and our future.”

Surface Says: When the hats finally ship on October 18, maybe camo will succeed slime green as the season’s it-color.

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Just the name of Paris evokes the 19th-century splendor of the city’s Haussmannian architecture. But in the Marais, local studio Amca Oval has fashioned a modern sensibility for a collection of apartment-style lodgings for Edgar Suites. In each flat, ‘70s vintage furniture commingles with finds from the aughts and enviable works of contemporary design, like Starck Tick & Tac clocks, a Fritz Hansen Attitude arm chair, and a Ciancimino coffee table. Of course, since the studio spans fashion and interiors, several of their own objets feature within. The sculptural, aluminum lamps, shelving, and vases of their Aurora series add an unmistakable je ne sais quoi.

Tadao Ando and Zeng Fanzhi first met a decade ago, when the latter painter approached the Pritzker Prize–winning architect about designing a museum for his private art collection. That never materialized, but the two stayed in touch, with Ando handling exhibition design for Fanzhi’s 2016 solo outing at the UCCA Center for Contemporary Art. The two joined forces again this year at the Venice Biennale thanks to the Los Angeles County Museum of Art, which organized a solo exhibition, “Near and Far/Now and Then,” for Fanzhi’s latest batch of monumentally scaled oil paintings at Scuola Grande della Misericordia.

Much like his best architecture, what Ando sculpted is minimalist and exacting, harmonizing with the 16th-century neoclassical building while allowing Fanzhi’s abstractions to breathe. A series of self-contained walls with increasingly large apertures forge conceptual links among the works, which employ layers of brushwork and pointillist techniques to render perceptible elements from afar that dissolve when viewed up close. “[His] work is celebrated as a balance of technical mastery and emotion,” says Michael Govan, the museum’s director. “Ando’s intervention illuminates the interconnections that Zeng’s new body of work highlights.”

Perhaps it’s a reach to call a personal razor “transportive,” but the latest collaboration from men’s grooming favorite Harry’s comes pretty close. They teamed up with Sean Brown on a bold collection of personal care items and homewares that are molded, cast, and hand-finished in a playful blue-and-white terrazzo, evoking the colors of sun-drenched Greek isles. The razor handle and stand will be familiar to Harry’s loyalists, but don’t miss the matching catchall tray with a built-in incense holder. The custom fragrance blends notes of cardamom, cedar, and lavender to instantly evoke memories of Mediterranean shores, all illustrated by Brown’s own photographs captured in Greece that grace the packaging. $50–55

Since 2016, Wrensilva has been producing handbuilt HiFi record consoles coveted by both design and audio connoisseurs alike. Rooted at the intersection of high design and technological innovation, Wrensilva sets a new standard for the home music experience. All Wrensilva consoles are made in San Diego with the finest American hardwoods and carefully selected materials.

Surface Says: HiFi purists know the importance of sound, but Wrensilva goes a step further by making console tables that also look worthy of your favorite records.

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