OK COOL

Estonia’s new tourism ad set to Future’s Mask Off goes HARD 🔥 It’s a new film from Visit Tallinn called Born from Culture. Tallinn University’s folk dance group do traditional Estonian dance, soundtracked by Future and Estonian accordion player Ernst Valdmaa. People who’d scroll straight past a folk dance video stop when they hear Future on it. Folk dance and trap shouldn’t work together. Your brain clocks the clash and you have to keep watching to see how it plays out. 👇 Tourism ads are on a roll at the moment! Visit Sweden opened an Introvert Travel Agency, selling holidays where nobody pressures you to socialise. Visit Oslo brought back Halfdan, their famously unimpressed local, for a grumpy Christmas musical moaning about winter. Somehow it makes you want to go. Every one of these found the thing that makes a place feel like itself, and gave people a fun way in. ✌️💚

Luxury’s new flex is getting you to make things. Loewe’s hosting flower pressing workshops in their Milan store. And they’re not alone… Last year Hermès made drawing its theme for the whole year and instead of keeping it in a campaign, it turned a Paris secondary school into a drawing academy. In Amsterdam it set up a workshop with drawing tables and easels anyone could walk up and use, free and open to all for four days. Cartier created an embroidery kit, so you can hand-stitch the famous Cartier panther yourself using traditional Levantine techniques. Fendi brought back its needlepoint Baguette kit. It costs $3,890, people on TikTok say it takes months to finish, and it still sold out. Dior has had guests making their own paper flowers at a fragrance masterclass. 👇 Think about how much time people are spending with these brands. Brands are getting hours of undivided attention. And none of it is about learning to make the product. People are being invited in to play, draw, stitch and press flowers, and the brand gets to be part of a slow, happy afternoon. It’s following where culture already is. Needlework, knitting and quilting used to be your nan’s hobbies, and now they’re some of the fastest-growing hobbies around. People want to be part of it, sat around a table with strangers, making something with their hands. High effort, very human and a bit niche, which is pretty much everything the OK COOL Trend Report says is winning right now. Link below for the full report. ✌️💚

Our work with Microsoft AI went up in Times Square 🔥🔥 It’s called “The State of Your Art”. The twist is that the comment section helped make the art. Three artists were briefed, cinematographer Mateo Lara, illustrator Helen Ratner and graphic designer Andrey Azizov, to each design a bespoke piece using MAI-Image-2.6. Then the creative professionals opened up their creative process to their comments in real time. People weighed in, and the artists built that input straight into the final work. Community-created art, built with Microsoft AI, displayed on one of the most iconic screens in the world, the Microsoft Cube. From URL to IRL… and it doesn’t get more IRL than Times Square. Huge shoutout to the squad at OK COOL and the Microsoft AI team 👏 ✌️💚

Skateboarding used to be rebellion. Now it’s custom Prada at 151km/h 😅 Red Bull athlete Diego Poncelet, a two-time downhill world champion, just became the fastest skateboarder in history!! Setting a Guinness World Record for the fastest speed on a skateboard standing up. Insane talent! He did it on the Route des Éboulements, after years of waiting for the right conditions. Prada Linea Rossa, Prada’s sportswear line, built his shoes and gloves and backed the attempt alongside Red Bull. 👇 Some people will see Prada and Red Bull and say skating’s lost its edge. The top comment on this clip on IG is literally “Not skateboarding”. Lol. Speed races down hills have been part of skating since the 70s, with the famous Signal Hill speed runs in California. Every subculture has a fight about what counts, and skating’s had that fight forever. When skateboarding was added to the Olympics, plenty of skaters argued it went against what skating stands for. Underneath it all, it’s still pure commitment. The money changes for sure. But the obsession doesn’t. 💚

OK COOL Trend Report, IRL, in LA… and the team crushed it 🔥 Massive thanks to BUCK for hosting us at their studio. Being part of Residence with them means a lot, and nights like this are a big reason why. Our Head of Strategy Annie House walked the room through the big ideas. The short version… the optimisation era is over and we’re in a high-effort, high-humanity moment. Nonchalance is out, cringe is cool, taste is earned not bought, and audiences can tell straight away when a brand doesn’t care. 𝗜𝗳 𝗮𝗻𝘆 𝗼𝗳 𝘁𝗵𝗶𝘀 𝗶𝘀 𝗻𝗲𝘄 𝘁𝗼 𝘆𝗼𝘂... 𝗴𝗲𝘁 𝗰𝗹𝗶𝗰𝗸𝗶𝗻𝗴 𝗼𝗻 𝘁𝗵𝗲 𝗿𝗲𝗽𝗼𝗿𝘁 𝗹𝗶𝗻𝗸 𝗯𝗲𝗹𝗼𝘄. 𝗬𝗼𝘂’𝗿𝗲 𝗮𝗹𝗿𝗲𝗮𝗱𝘆 𝗯𝗲𝗵𝗶𝗻𝗱 👀 Then my co-founder Liz Stone led a panel with Nicolas Ayalo from Eavesdropping, Angelica McKinley from The Walt Disney Company and Madison Caprara from BUCK, plus our own Delanie Gulino and Annie. Six months of thinking, put in front of a room that genuinely cared about it. That never gets old. Rumour has it, Annie and Delaney 𝗱𝗶𝗱 𝗻𝗼𝘁 disappoint at karaoke with the BUCK team after. Flying the OK COOL freak flag as always 💚 The full report is live at https://lnkd.in/ewsVnCnx ✌️

Hundreds of people turned up in Hackney to watch Lime bike jousting 😂 East London artist Jack Carden and actor “Camtholomew the First” rocked up to London Fields in full armour. It started as a joke, then it took off locally, and people of all ages showed up to watch. Lime bikes are basically London’s unofficial mascot at this point. 👇 THIS is the stuff people are craving right now. Something real, in person, a little bit ridiculous, and done with total commitment. People are already suggesting where the next duel should happen. 𝗧𝗵𝗮𝘁’𝘀 𝗰𝗼𝗺𝗺𝘂𝗻𝗶𝘁𝘆. People doing something purely for the joy of it, and the city showing up no matter how niche it is. It’s one of the big shifts in the OK COOL Trend Report. The optimisation era is over. Nonchalance is out, cringe is cool, and the stuff that wins now is high effort and very human. Lime team, if you’re reading this, let’s talk!! PS. The full trend report is 100% free, link in the comments! ✌️💚🍋🟩

Dior’s newest accessory is a lip balm for your phone 👀 Most people can’t buy the bag, but an £80 balm gets the logo in their hand every single day. For Dior it’s the perfect gateway product. Rhode started the trend when Hailey Bieber put her lip treatment into a phone case. Charlotte Tilbury followed with a powder compact built into a phone grip. Now Dior’s made it luxury. A product on the back of your phone gets seen dozens of times a day, by you and everyone around you. For Gen Z, personalising your phone is like choosing your outfit. Phone cases, charms, straps, stickers, all of it says something about who you are. So beauty brands are finding fun ways to get onto the hardware. Can’t front… I LOVE this!! ✌️💚

Timberland x Jacquemus are back at it again 🔥🔥 This time they’ve put Timberland’s classic boat shoe in brown and navy croc. So good. And the campaign video is peak Jacquemus. Acrobats on a circus seesaw, in an autumn forest. The idea is that a summer shoe has left the sea and crossed into the autumn woods. Jacquemus knows luxury doesn’t need to be serious to be desirable. And it’s a smart move for Timberland. The boat shoe is a big part of its growth plan beyond the yellow boot, and up to now it’s been a warm weather play. This drop stretches it into autumn. Timberland’s strategy is to prioritise culture and win over younger shoppers, and its global brand president has talked about needing to “reignite energy” around the brand. So Timberland borrows Jacquemus’s associations… Paris, the Riviera, joy, colour. And Jacquemus borrows Timberland’s… heritage, the American outdoors. Each brand becomes synonymous with something it couldn’t build alone. This is their third drop together, and each one builds on the last. Maisie Willoughby and Darren Leon Mckoy killing it rn! ✌️💚