Next time you feel you got a little carried away on something, remember there are two tiers of things getting out of hand: what happened to the woman with the world’s largest collection of rubber ducks, and everything else. In 1996, Seattle’s Charlotte Lee set out to decorate her bathroom with just seven rubber ducks. Today, her collection contains 5.6k+.
In today’s email:
Casual every day: Traditional office fashion is out.
Video: 50 Cent’s $100m Vitaminwater deal broke the mold.
Around the web: How to get more video views, visually appealing websites, elegant llamas, and more.
👇 Listen: Would you pay a $1 fee to use X (AKA Twitter)? We would not.
The Big Idea
Loafers are out, sneakers are in: Office fashion isn’t going back
Offices are getting more casual — from head to toe.
2023-10-19T00:00:00Z
Sara Friedman
It feels like everyone is wearing sneakers lately.
And we mean everyone: The sporty footwear is being worn in workplaces from Congress to the Oval Office. (The political kicks did not go unnoticed, and the internet had a lot to say.)
It all begs the question: Are sneakers work-appropriate now?
According to the Senate, the answer might still be no — a unanimous vote recently reversed relaxations and codified a dress code.
But, for the rest of us, the numbers alone suggest change is afoot:
The global sneaker industry generated $131.1B in 2021 and is expected to reach $215.6B by 2031.
And, per Bloomberg, improved materials, luxury fashion collaborations, and proprietary tech have elevated the humble sneaker into a shoe fit for the boardroom.
Even as sneaker trends lean brighter and sportier, they are still being accepted professionally.
This trend covers more than just our feet
What workers wear from head to toe is changing as corporate America skews more casual:
According to a 2023 study, the percentage of job postings mentioning “casual” dress codes has jumped ~80%.
Even Wall Street, once home to power suits and stilettos, is embracing khakis and arch supports.
Much of the change…
… is likely thanks to generational shifts in the office.
Millennials and Gen Zers are known to prioritize work-life balance and individuality, two attributes often reflected in our attire.
The last frontier for office shoes…
… might just be Crocs. The brand is benefitting from the casual footwear takeover, reporting $1B in Q2 revenue, up 12% from the year prior.
But how will we know if we’ve gone too far? When a co-worker shows up in cowboy boot Crocs.
Free Resource
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New artist alert: Drake’s 6-year-old son Adonis is taking after his dad. The mini rapper dropped his debut song, “My Man Freestyle,” this week, complete with a full music video. Make sure to check out the lyrics.
SNIPPETS
X, FKA Twitter, announced a new program called Not a Bot that will charge users an annual fee to post on the platform (lurkers can still read free of charge). X will begin by charging users in the Philippines and New Zealand a $1 fee.
OpenAI has given ChatGPT full internet access, meaning that paid users can now access up-to-date information as they “Browse with Bing.”
Pfizer will raise the price of Paxlovid — the antiviral that treats covid but also makes it taste like you licked a rusty car — from $530 to as much as $2.5k, meaning customers with commercial insurance will likely see a co-pay.
Powered down: Apple's MacBook line is having a tough year, according to a top Apple analyst, who predicts shipments of the computers will decrease 30% YoY given declining demand.
Heads up: Amazon will soon deliver prescription medications via drone. The drones, which fly from delivery centers to customers’ homes, descend to a height of 13 feet before dropping a padded package. For now, the flying pharmacists will deliver medication in College Station, Texas.
United Airlines is testing a new boarding process: Economy-class passengers with window seats will now board first, followed by those in aisle and middle seats. (Families will still board together.) The change could cut up to two minutes of boarding time from each flight.
Victoria’s Secret is launching an intimates apparel line for people with disabilities. Features include magnetic closures and sensory-friendly fabrics.
But why? Ed Currie, creator of the Carolina Reaper, has come out with an even hotter pepper: Pepper X, the hottest pepper in the world at ~2.69m Scoville units. It left Currie “laid out flat on a marble wall for approximately an hour… groaning in pain.” Fun!
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WATCH
How 50 Cent’s $100m Vitaminwater deal changed the business of hip-hop
Not all that long ago, musicians built their business around one goal: selling CDs. They’d even go on tour just to get those shiny discs into more hands.
That’s not how artists are making money today — far from it. As the likes of Jay-Z, Dr. Dre, and Rihanna build billion-dollar businesses, Dan Runcie says they have 50 Cent to thank for setting the template.
And if anyone knows, it’s Runcie, the founder of Trapital, a media startup covering the economics of hip-hop.
In 2004, rapper-turned-actor-turned-entrepreneur Curtis “50 Cent” Jackson turned mogul as well. After the success of his album “Get Rich or Die Tryin’,” 50 got to work building his empire around bottled water:
In 2004, 50 Cent agreed to a deal with Glaceau to start his own Formula 50 brand, with the artist getting a 10% stake.
50 Cent used his platform to grow sales — from $100m to $700m in 2007.
That’s when Coca-Cola bought Glaceau for $4.1B, with 50 Cent pocketing ~$100m.
By leveraging the platform he built through music in another sphere, 50 Cent cashed in and charted a lucrative path forward for other artists.
Now, as Runcie puts it, “Artists become millionaires selling music; they become billionaires selling products.”
📼 On this day: In 1985, the first Blockbuster store opened in Dallas, Texas. Today, just one independently operated store remains in Bend, Oregon.
✨ That’s cool: Click and Sharkle will show you a visually interesting website.
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🔎 That’s interesting: An investigation into why the American Museum of Natural History in New York seemingly doesn’t want to identify its collection of 12k+ human remains.
