This weeks edition is in honor of the many hours lost to doomer algos and may they rest in peace. We’re over it. Life on and offline is complex and we’re leaning into it.
One of us will be out for the weekend helping with a big move in Austin! The rest of us will be finding our way to Dinos and any other patio that will have us. Macke will be in town and James will not be - somehow this has become tradition.
Before the weekend finds us, here’s what we’ve been thinking about this week
Let’s get into it.
“Life starts all over again when it gets crisp in the fall.”
– F. Scott Fitzgerald
“But expectations were like fine pottery. The harder you held them, the more likely they were to crack.“
– Brandon Sanderson (it’s Jack and yes I started The Way of Kings)
Top of Mind
Mainstream menswear is getting back to its roots.
Mainstream, accessible menswear brands are having a bit of a renaissance. For me, it started last year when J.Crew brought over Noah founder Brendon Babenzien to revamp the men’s line. He ditched the technical golf pants, revived the iconic ‘90s-era catalog aesthetic, and suddenly J.Crew felt cool again (at least to me — I ordered three pieces yesterday).
Banana Republic is attempting a similar comeback. Nobody’s calling them cool (yet), but early Banana actually was cool. It started as a quirky Bay Area surplus shop run by a husband-and-wife duo who used the clothes as a vehicle for their real passion: hand-drawn, story-driven travel catalogs. The brand was weird and warm and full of character — until Gap bought it and slowly turned it into another store in the mall with sterile lighting.
But they’re trying again. BR just bought the domain Abandoned Republic, a fan-run archive of their vintage catalogs and early pieces, and they’re folding it into their main site while dropping curated vintage collections. Is it enough turn the brand around? I’m skeptical. But even if it flops, the old safari-style catalogs are sick to scroll through.
Playing The Field With My A.I. Boyfriends (The New Yorker)
The chatbot company Joi AI, citing a poll, reported that eighty-three per cent of Gen Z-ers believed that they could form a “deep emotional bond” with a chatbot, eighty per cent could imagine marrying one, and seventy-five per cent felt that relationships with A.I. companions could fully replace human couplings.
We’re really hoping this is just some exaggerated reporting of the numbers or scuffed polling from Joi AI (they are in fact selling AI companions). Brigham Young University’s Wheatley Institute released some numbers with a little less sticker shock, but shocking nonetheless, that nearly one in five adults in the U.S. have used a product like Joi’s. This all feels a little like letting the genie out of the bottle as we did in 2012 with social media but in this case when we look back in a decade, there will be no shadow of a doubt whether this was a bad idea.
ICYMI: Happy Hour Edition
A gi and a Games blazer walk into a bar… Well, not quite. But that’s the spirit of our latest collaboration.
The Friend campaign has truly been something to witness. Someone has made a site out of what has been happening to the NYC subway ads.
Will the Google bulls please rise? Sama… look out.
Best of Substack this Week
This Week in Relay’s Shopping Cart
Peplord Tote, Florence (bottom left), (Zach)
I am finally getting rid of the tech-logo backpack. Working in tech, the tech-bro backpack is a scourge on the community, and I’m at my whits end. Peplord is an incredibly relay coded brand. From Florence, Guissepe runs this ultra-high quality boutique bag + accessory business through instagram DMs at his leisure. I’ve placed a down payment and I couldn’t be more excited. Stay tuned for an update hopefully by end of month.
C-R™ Pro 5” Short - Brown, (Jack)
We all know my aversion to hype running brands (see Bandit and Satisfy), but I spotted these shorts on a fellow Broken Anvil Backyard Ultra runner a few weeks ago and I haven’t stopped thinking about them since. Satisfy-like, with a little more reasonable price tag.
Cowboy Cortado Cup, Bloated Snoopy Cup (Zach)
Danny D’s Mudshop is a sick LA based ceramic maker. He’s got an incredible story and I’ve been looking for an excuse to buy some ceramics. My recent Espresso maker purchase finally gave me a reason to pull the trigger. Danny makes incredible products and has an incredible story. If you’re in LA he’s got a small showroom, or give him a follow on IG.
Ronnie Fieg for Kith, ASICS World’s Fair (James)
I’m failing spectacularly at my personal goal of avoiding any more white sneaker purchases this year.
It’s Not That Deep, Randy
Thanks for reading—or for mega scrolling all the way down here.
The internet is an overwhelming mess of headlines, ads, and mid takes from the worst people you know. Big Tech owns our attention spans. Everything is content. Nothing makes sense.
We’re not here to “fix discourse” or “build a better internet.” Relay is just our attempt to riff on what we’re already talking about at happy hour without feeling like we’ve been hit by a content truck. Some analysis, some memes, call it a day.
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I still need to have a cheeseburger and meet the Lone Ranger at Dino’s. Bucket list items