Logging On is an on-going newsletter column by ICYT Columnist-at-large Ian Chow, & ICYT Co-Founder Raeland Mendoza​. The duo also make up ICYT's consultancy division, Tomorrow Works.

Weekly Specials:

Ian: My vibe of the week is bringing Rae to a new thrift spot and coming up large! We're talking about Italian made Allen Edmonds loafers with the shoe trees in them. We're talking about a made in USA Ralph Lauren tie for $3. And we will not be revealing the location. We simply cannot let this honey hole run dry.

Rae: Incase it wasn't immediately clear, we're really about this jawnz life. This past weekend, Ian took me to a *classified location* where I came up on a pair of Italian made Allen Edmonds loafers in pristine condition - complete with wood shoe trees. Decent on their own sure, however the light tan colour wasn't the most copacetic to my own personal colour palette. So I put my years in fashion school to good use and took them home and dyed them to a dark chocolate brown / black. Big vibes indeed. 

LINKS:

FAshion

RAE: 

COLOUR PLUS COMPANIE X SAUCONY FT. DREW JOINER, Colour Plus Companie

My major shout out of the week goes to the big homie Drew Joiner, seen modelling in the new Colour Plus Companie x Saucony collab campaign. Drew do what it do. 

Further listening: Jordan Page - Throwing Fits 

MEDIA

@Dieworkwear, Twitter’s ‘Menswear Guy,’ Is Just as Perplexed as You Are gq

We talked to Derek Guy, the menswear writer who’s suddenly all over your feeds. 

I: Rae and I have been longtime admirers of DIEWORKWEAR for years. Come for the meme's, stay for the deep dives on clothes. 

Case in point his thread on cashmere sweaters.

R: *drake voice* "Your content is so aggressive lately, what's irkin' you?"

The Junkification of Amazon intelligencer

Why does it feel like the company is making itself worse?

I: As someone who just recently had to buy something on Amazon for a gift, the amount of parsing through junk to get to the good stuff is annoying.

The interface is awful. For a company that makes the amount of money it does, you'd think they'd invest in an upgrade, but the idea of "if it ain't broke, don't fix it" shouldn't be a concept that a company that dominates the market uses.
​

Now Entering the Golden Age of N/A Beer punch

In just five years, the category has moved beyond its staid roots to become a booming industry with its own cast of big-name players and independent upstarts.

I: Shoutout to all my sober kings and queens out there!

MUSIC​

IAN:

Young Fathers - Heavy Heavy ninja tune

The Men - New York City fuzz club

Whitney - For A While secretly canadian

I: The best Whitney has sounded in a while!

Westerman - CSI: Petralona partisan 

RAE: 

DO YOU REALLY LIKE ME? daniel caesar 

BOY'S A LIAR PT. 2 pinkpantheress, ice spice

R: the munch agenda CONTINUES.

SAY SOMETHING lil yachty
R: Yachty dropping a fire psychedelic album wasn't on my 2023 bingo card, but happy to report this album and video are both very good. 

Shouts out to all the homies that have been curved in their favourite diner (me included).
​It's okay Yachty, I too was thinking we'd be together.  

RAE'S WILDCARD: TL RECAP - The promise of pyer moss

The most divisive story on my timeline this week was undoubtedly The Promise of Pyer Moss. The article felt like part op-ed critique / takedown piece, but also valid fashion journalism reporting on the promised potential, rise, and subsequent fall of the Pyer Moss brand, and its designer Kerby Jean-Raymond. 

Releasing an article like this on the day before Black History Month is admittedly shows the click-driven agenda of the publication, but to an extent I do agree with a large part of the discourse surrounding the story: Today representation and performativity can often be two sides of the same coin, so who and how do we define/quantify what is worth platforming? What happens when those platforms we construct aren't what they were promised to be? 

I certainly don't have the answers to these questions. However, I also understand the other side of this argument. I'm obviously not Black and my experience doesn't equate to being part of the Black community. That being said, the loss of Virgil Abloh is still in our collective minds and hearts, and like myself and many others, we saw ourselves in his work, what he stood for, and feel the empty space he has left. And in a lot of ways, it feels like many communities are holding their hero figures closer because of this. So when a publication publicly calls out an a community appointed figure, especially at a time where we should be celebrating Black perspectives -  the intentions seem triggering at the least, and dubious at the best. 

Further Reading: Twitter Thread - Jordan Page