This month, the New York City restaurant Mission Chinese Food, under the direction and guidance of owner-turned-celebrity chef Danny Bowien, cashed in on its seemingly bottomless vault of cool with two fashion collaborations—both in union with fellow New Yorkers, Collina Strada and Telfar. This likely isn’t the first time you’re reading the name Telfar, even those with a cursory interest in fashion will be familiar with the designer via recent controversy surrounding his deal (or lack thereof) with Gap. These collaborations have resulted in an output that goes beyond restaurant merch. In fact, in both instances MCF acts as something akin to a silent partner in the absence of any logos or outward branding we’ve come to expect with flashy collaborations.
For each Collina Strada water bottle in the set of three, for example, we get a crystal enveloped treatment in colorways that match some of MCF’s most popular cocktails. It’s a subtle move, but one that communicates with consumers in a way which emphasizes design—something of a rarity in the collaboration world. A similar approach has been taken with the MCF-exclusive chrome colorway of Telfar’s revered and lusted after “shopping bag,” a piece cleverly dubbed the “Bushwick Birkin” by makeup artist Xya Rachel. The MCF edition of the bag does not insist on being anything other than a really cool bag, which echoes the approach taken with the water bottles. Both releases came equipped with some signature MCF delicacies—cocktails with the bottles and a vile of coveted Sichuan pepper oil with the Telfar bag.
This joint effort between the restaurant and each respective fashion brand reflects a broad industry trend and circumvents what we’ve grown to expect when fashion and food link up. On a sort of basic level, adjacent to menswear’s growth over the last decade, the food industry has also seen a significant evolution. This growth has been all-encompassing, but the significant parallel to draw from here is the rise of the chef as a public-facing figure. These chefs are often branded as “bad boys” or marked with some other reductive phrase, but they are even more often stylish. And that style has rules of its own, syncing up with both a chef/cook/restauranteur’s style of cooking and even their personality.
In the case of Bowien, this style is a zany mix of high and low that first started peaking its head up during his 2018 love affair with still-edgy and untouchable (at the time) anti-fashion brand Vetements. Food and media industry favorite Matty Matheson boasts an extensive and impressive collection of vintage tees—the kind that puts the Round 2’s of the world to shame. And I would be remiss if I didn’t mention the significant contributions of the late Anthony Bourdain, who not only sported great personal style but cultivated a sense that food is stylish and the people who make it are badass.
But Mission Chinese Food’s recent entry into the capital “f” Fashion scene is very much the exception to the rule of fashion and food pairings. The “rule” smells like a marketing meeting from a mile away, and usually results in a big brand’s name next to a big brand’s name (anyone cop some of that Kith x Coca-Cola recently?)
In a recent piece for Ssense, Mayukh Sen documents the food industry’s obsession with embracing “low” cultural culinary outputs like McDonald’s, and how fashion takes part in the glorification of nostalgia-driven fast food brands. The point left almost unmade in discussions about the mix of “high and low” both in food and in fashion, however, is that both industries feed significantly on elitism. The message being delivered by fine dining heavyweights like David Chang or Thomas Keller when they say they love Taco Bell is one that seems to assuage the guilt of those who can afford the tasting menu but want a license to eat a double crunch wrap. And indeed, they should enjoy both, no license required. But endorsements of this kind can read as self-serving and misguided, like someone confessing their sins to a confused god who didn’t tell them the combo meal was a sin in the first place.
Fashion’s obsession with “elevating” streetwear is an almost too-perfect incarnation of the high embracing the low in bad faith. And we see it done more and more with food. Marc Jacobs using the golden arches in a Moschino collection is clever and fun, but is it honest? Or is the entire crux of its cleverness that expensive things have inexpensive things printed on them? When Telfar made a uniform for White Castle he wasn’t doing it with a wink and a nod, he was doing it because he didn’t see the link between fashion and food—style—as being invalid at the franchise general management level.
But endorsements of this kind can read as self-serving and misguided, like someone confessing their sins to a confused god who didn’t tell them the combo meal was a sin in the first place.
Culinary collective and cultural force Ghetto Gastro has been using food as a tool to engage with fashion, music and art since 2012. And that engagement, while taking on a myriad of forms, always privileges the preservation of a design or idea over putting a billboard on a t-shirt. Most recently, the group released a black version of their Food is a Weapon tee, with their calling card “Black Power Kitchen” emblazoned on the front-left chest. Ghetto Gastro’s site is a place where you can purchase both a Juneteenth tee and a grip of “steasoning,” a spice blend which promises to numb your mouth like they’re “numb to the nonsense!”
It’s ventures like this, as well as fashion entries from Mission Chinese Food, that most clearly exercise what brings fashion and food together. Style binds both industries, and culture is only becoming more intersectional. Where perhaps there was a line drawn, separating foodies from club kids from luxury fashionphiles, there is now a paved road which anyone can use to traverse to and from disparate scenes. Collaborations between fashion brands and food purveyors that embrace this kinetic culture, like those outlined here, strengthen that culture. And of course, they give us some cool shit.
