‘Expect perfection’ – so ran the teaser for a new collaboration between British designer Martine Rose and cult Californian surf and skate brand Stüssy, revealed in a joint Instagram post earlier this week (the accompanying image saw a pair of hands, glimpsed through a car sunroof, grasping a leopard-print steering wheel).
Today (11 April, 2023), the full collaboration has been revealed, seeing Rose’s idiosyncratic design signatures – inspired by the dress codes and traditions of British subcultures, whether ravers or sports fans – brought to a series of co-branded car accessories, from a swinging air freshener (‘expect perfection’, it reads in Stüssy’s signature font) to a car mat decorated with a lucky eight ball.
Stüssy & Martine Rose: accessorise your car
Other pieces in the capsule, which the notes call a celebration of ‘the art of driving’, include a colourful fringed flag to hang from your rear-view mirror and a fold-out windscreen protector, made to keep the car cool in the heat. The latter is decorated with photographs of figures from Rose’s community; ‘I get goosebumps when the bass line drops,’ reads one of the overlaid hand-drawn speech bubbles.
Those who don’t have their own vehicle – or, indeed, a driver’s licence – can still shop the collection with a concise capsule of clothing available alongside. These include the aforementioned driving gloves, as well as Stüssy T-shirts with the brand’s signature ‘Stand Firm’ slogan and a hoodie – one of Rose’s hallmark garments – with the same photographic print as the windscreen protector.
An accompanying series of images is captured by British photographer Rosie Marks, whose own idiosyncratic portraiture – much of it documentary, taken on the street – seeks to find the ‘unusual within the everyday’ (much like Rose’s own approach, which the designer describes as an exploration of the ‘high-low melting-pot cultures of London’). The pieces are photographed in and around a series of souped-up vintage cars, alongside the petrolheads who drive them.
The collaboration – officially titled ‘Stüssy & Martine Rose’ – will be available worldwide at selected Stüssy stores, selected Dover Street Market locations, as well as the Stüssy and Martine Rose websites, from 14 April, 2023 at 10am PST.
