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Life in a glass house. Not sure about you, but it feels like Elon Musk is slowly turning into a Bond villain with each new headline. During a 2022 internal review, Tesla uncovered the billionaire’s secret plans to build a mysterious glass structure (dubbed “Project 42”) near its headquarters in Texas. Apparently, the classified endeavor required so much material to construct it prompted an investigation from the company’s board.
Is anyone else getting Glass Onion vibes?
In other news… Fashion hits the speedway, Netflix franchises go global, and cities harness the power of wasted energy.
Top Trends
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FASHION
Fashion fits Formula 1
The Future. F1’s recent explosion in popularity has made fertile ground for fashion collaborations and partnerships, with brands like Louis Vuitton and Hugo Boss getting in on the action. With sports like football, basketball, golf, and tennis saturated in brand deals, the next few years in fashion could be defined by a race to fit Formula 1’s best drivers and establish a new lane for creating trends.
Runway to speedway
Fashion wants to hit the pit with the biggest names in F1.
Italian streetwear brand Palm Angels became Haas F1’s “entertainment curator” — hosting dinners, parties, and, yes, creating a fashion line.
LVMH went all in, with Berluti becoming Alpine F1’s “elegance partner” and Louis Vuitton designing a travel case for the Monaco Grand Prix trophy in 2021.
Hugo Boss outfitted the entire team of Aston Martin F1, including drivers and support staff, and plans to release a co-branded consumer line later in the year.
The race for F1 to suit up in luxury stems from seven-time championship-winner Lewis Hamilton, who has made fashion a key part of his image (to the initial annoyance of F1 leadership), designing collections with Tommy Hilfiger and Saul Nash before launching his brand, +44. Several other racers are now following in his footsteps.
Hamilton is also a producer behind the in-production F1 Apple film, Apex, directed by Joseph Kosinski (Top Gun: Maverick). The project prominently features Tommy Hilfiger logos on the jumpsuits of its stars (Damson Idris and Brad Pitt) in the movie, further tightening the threads between F1, Hollywood, and fashion.
ENTERTAINMENT
Courtesy of Netflix
Bird Box Barcelona reveals Netflix’s international franchise strategy
The Future. The see-them-and-die monsters of Netflix’s 2018 hit Bird Box popped up in Barcelona this past weekend, with Bird Box Barcelona becoming the first major test of the streamer’s local-language spin-off strategy for popular films. While it may not chart too highly in the US, expect Netflix to consider it a hit if it drives sign-ups with Spanish-language audiences.
Universal language
Using the same premise, Bird Box Barcelona explores how people in the Catalan city would react to the global threat, featuring a mixed Latino and European cast, including Diego Calva, Mario Casas, and Georgina Campbell.
It’s part of Netflix’s new strategy of franchising films for local audiences, including Zack Snyder’s zombie thriller, Army of the Dead, and the Spanish hit Money Heist.
The thinking is that as a global platform, Netflix can develop regional hits from (typically) English-language blockbusters.
That helps drive growth in emerging markets, as opposed to the US, where subscribers have already peaked.
Netflix isn’t the only streamer using this strategy. Amazon Prime dreamed up the spy-thriller Citadel, which comes from the minds of the Russo Brothers, as a literal globe-trotting series, with interconnected versions from various countries.
Citadel hasn’t really become the hit Amazon thought it would, but it did do great in India, thanks to star Priyanka Chopra Jonas. So, don’t be surprised if the Indian version of Citadel drops next.
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SUSTAINABILITY
Power up // Illustration by Kate Walker
Cities want to bottle up your body heat
The Future. All around us is an abundant energy source that remains mostly untapped: heat. With the EPA determining 60% of uncaptured energy is lost as heat, there may be plenty of opportunities to not only harness an efficient power source that’s typically wasted, but also create a cycle of use and reuse.
Human battery
Cities around the world are already turning heat into energy.
In Vancouver, the False Creek neighborhood captures excess hot water from drains and uses it to warm homes.
In London, heat is being captured from subway tunnels and redirected to homes.
In Glasgow, the body heat from partiers at a club gets pushed into colder rooms to balance it out.
In Stockholm, the city is collecting heat created by data centers.
In Germany, the heat from asphalt is getting absorbed to warm the roads in winter when they ice over.
Next up, scientists hope to capture any heat stored underground — a move that would both capture energy and cool groundwater so it doesn’t become a hotbed (sorry, we had to) for bacteria.
And with cities typically being seven degrees warmer than their surrounding areas, Insider notes the “urban-heat-island-effect” can be used as a force for good.
Highlights
The best curated daily stories from around the web
Media, Music, & Entertainment
Former Netflix exec Cindy Holland will join Elisabeth Murdoch and Jane Featherstone’s production company, Sister, as CEO. Read more → deadline
Netflix’s password crackdown looks to be a success as new subscriber count has jumped 236% from May 21st to June 18th. Read more → fastcompany
According to SAG, the AMPTP proposed in their contract negotiations that studios should be able to scan background actors to create a digital likeness of them that could be used in perpetuity… while only paying for a single day’s work. Read more → engadget
Fashion & E-Commerce
Italian luxury brands, such as Zegna and Prada, are collaborating to acquire mom-and-pop textile suppliers and homegrown manufacturers to protect the country’s supply chain and make clothes truly “Made in Italy.” Read more → bof
The Fashion Revolution Transparency Index, which keeps track of fashion’s sustainability goals, reports Gucci and OVS are passing with flying colors, while Tom Ford and Savage X Fenty have scored a 0%. Read more → hypebeast
Rémy Martin is helping Usher fans get a taste of the artist’s new album with a visual project called “Life is a Melody” and a rollerskating pop-up tour (!) dubbed “4 On The Floor.” Read more → highsnobiety
Tech, Web3, & AI
ChatGPT usage has dropped roughly 10%... potentially because kids are out of school and don’t need it to help with coursework. Read more → insider
If you’re mad about McDonald’s ice cream machines always being broken, blame the protections of the Digital Millennium Copyright Act — when the Taylor-made machines go down, franchises have to call a Taylor technician because the machines are password-protected. Read more → fastcompany
Shopify has a calculator for determining how much money is wasted on meetings, shaming workers into second-guessing if they really need to schedule them. Read more → bloomberg
Creator Economy
Brands are getting more engagement on Threads than on Twitter — not a great sign for Twitter’s advertiser-recovery strategy. Read more → fastcompany
TikTok Shop is already netting creators thousands of dollars in commissions. Read more → insider
Twitter’s ad-revenue sharing program went live last week, doling out to controversial influencers like Andrew Tate and twin brothers Ed and Brian Krassenstein — who were all banned from Twitter before Musk’s takeover. Read more → variety
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Today’s email was written by David Vendrell.
Edited by Nick Comney. Copy edited by Kait Cunniff.
Published by Darline Salazar.