to culture ❤️ beauty in the F1 paddock, AI wimbledon influencer, love island watch parties | 25.07.13
Street becomes stage, myth meets music, and softness carves new power.
💌 This Issue Felt Like…
This week felt like culture remixing its roots with beauty bleeding into speed, AI personas crowding the stands, and fandom encouraging remix culture. It’s less about individual moments and more about how we all come together to celebrate chaos. You need these textures to build brands that breathe.
🌀 What’s Happening
❝Beauty In The Paddock❞
What’s happening:
At the British Grand Prix, Aston Martin Aramco collaborated with Glaize on limited-edition AMR25-inspired nail wraps, spa kits, and hydration bars. They also just announced a multi-year partnership with luxury skincare brand ELEMIS to deliver co-branded experiences, which debuted with a spa experience at the Goodwood Festival of Speed this week. These activations weren’t tucked away. They were center stage, seamlessly woven into the racing experience. Female fandom has grown from 32% in 2017 to 41% in 2023, and brands are treating that stat as a strategy.
What does it mean:
This move isn't about pinkwashing; it’s a redefinition of who gets to belong. This soft-power infiltration blends fandom, luxury, and wellness, making F1 more inclusive.
My take:
This is not just gender-targeted merch. It’s a reframing of motorsport as a gender-neutral culture. For a long time, racing fandom has been masculinized—pit crews, rubber, noise. Now, brands are rewiring the circuitry: turning paddocks into beauty bars, performance into lifestyle, and pit lanes into pop-ups.
How to move with it:
Embed rituals such as “hydration pitstops” and “glam garage kits” that let beauty and sport exist in symbiosis, not separation.
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❝AI Wimbledon Fan❞
What’s happening:
AI influencer Mia Zelu went viral for her courtside Wimbledon content, posing in luxe outfits, sipping Pimm’s, and capturing slow pans of the grass courts. But here’s the twist: Mia is 100% virtual. She’s labeled as AI, comments are off, and yet she fooled thousands. She amassed over 150K followers in a week. The audience knew she wasn’t real, but they didn’t care. Because the storytelling hit. The vibe hit. And maybe that’s the real flex.
What does it mean:
In a world saturated with “authentic” creators, the real novelty is artificiality done right. Mia doesn’t pretend to be real; she performs relatability better than most humans do.
My take:
Mia tests our desire for presence, intimacy, and access, without being human. The fact that she fooled people reveals a deeper truth: storytelling trumps source.
How to move with it:
Authenticity in this new paradigm isn’t about who you are, but how clearly you show your code.
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❝Reverse K-pop Canon❞
What’s happening:
K-pop fans are not just listening to Saja Boys and Huntr/x; they’re dancing to them, drawing them, streaming their lore. These aren’t real bands. They’re demon-hunting, chart-topping fictional idols created for mobile games and multimedia storyworlds. Now, real K-pop idols (e.g. Wonho, Cha Eun-woo) are covering their songs, cosplaying their characters, and taking visual cues from these animated avatars. The fiction isn’t following reality — it’s leading it.
What does it mean:
Fandom is fluid. Fans don’t care if your band is real; they care if your story is compelling. This is mythology-as-music, cosplay-as-chart strategy.
My take:
“Saja Boys” and “Huntr/x” prove that with the right lore, they can build long-lasting fandom. The line between artifice and legacy is now decided by how real it feels, not who sings it.
How to move with it:
Launch character-led brand collabs. Think: blade choreography in Reels, AR cards that unlock backstory content. Build fanbases, lore, and canon arcs.
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❝Everyday Country Club❞
What’s happening:
In Kuala Lumpur, new forms of luxury padel clubs are emerging with popularity, with luxe courts, Volvo-sponsored tournaments, and fashion-forward fits. It’s also being packaged as a whole lifestyle: movement, networking, and aesthetic. Meanwhile, Tom Holland’s non-alcoholic beer brand, BERO, recently hosted the BERO Padel Classic, a pro-am tournament that brought top talents and celebrities to London’s Padel Social Club. It’s blending wellness, celebrity access, and non-alc luxury into a new kind of social scene.
What does it mean:
Country clubs aren’t disappearing, they’re evolving. Padel is country club energy in post-luxury form: casual, mobile, and media-native. It’s where wellness meets aesthetic, and access beats exclusivity.
My take:
This is what happens when tennis meets brunch, CrossFit meets café, and leisure becomes identity. This is the new golf club, built for hot weather, hot takes, and hyper-visual venues.
How to move with it:
Design rituals around padel: post-match skincare, padel-fit fashion edits, padel x mezze pop-ups, non-alc pairings, padel club NFTs. Think of padel as the new “country club cool”, but millennial, mobile, and vibe-forward.
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❝Communal Fandom Revival❞
What’s happening:
Love Island has sparked a cultural resurgence — not just in streaming numbers, but in how people watch. Across New York, bars like Babylon Social are turning episodes into full-on events: themed cocktails, group chats, outfit-coded nights, and tear-soaked recaps with strangers-turned-soulmates. It’s no longer about the villa. It’s about the room you’re watching it in.
What does it mean:
It transforms TV from passive viewing into a vibrant social touchpoint — perfectly positioned for brands aiming to build community, not just attention.
My take:
This is a comeback for communal TV in a post-streaming world. Love Island has become a social ceremony, reviving the watercooler in a world that needs togetherness.
How to move with it:
This is prime real estate for experiential pop-ups—branded viewing events, cocktail pairings, digital meetups, donation activations — strategically located in NYC nightlife circuits.
🔮 Strategy to Hold
Culture’s new coordinates are access, belonging, and built-for-us spaces.
Think less exclusivity, more intimacy.
Less VIP, more shared ritual.
🌟 One-Line Truth
You don’t need to stay in your lane if you’re building the road.
🐋 The Close
Not everything has to be new to feel alive. Sometimes, culture just needs a little remix, reframing, and remembering.
To Culture, Love Miki