This Week in Dulture…

Approx 5 minute read:

🍩 20 years later, a sequel

🇨🇳 Chinese Jordan

🎦 AI and Hollywood don’t mix

✨ Long Live Virgil

Dulture weekly mix

I know I tell you this every Friday but seriously, you should put on some music at some point during your day and just chill out for a minute. WE can’t be sitting glued to our devices all day, especially on a Friday.

And if you work a job where you’re up an about, then put some earbuds in and throw this mix on. And if you’re not even working today then all the more power to you - you have no excuse but have this mix playing all day.

Yes, this is a summer mix. And yes it still feels like summer outside - enjoy it while it lasts, suckers.

Jordan in Chinese

If you’re a sneaker head, you’ve seen some fakes, like fr fr.

But as we’re well aware, China takes counterfeit to a whole other stratosphere.

And the list goes on and on. But did you know there’s a fake Jordan brand with 6000 stores? Before I go any further, you need to watch this video.

Qiaodan, the Chinese way of saying Jordan, is a popular sports brand in China that started up in 2000. Banking on things like the number 23, the Jumpman style logo, and even Chinese versions of his kids names, Qiaodan quietly (to us westerners) blew the f*ck up in China.

Here come the lawsuits, obviously.

Twelve years after the brand’s launch, Jordan filed 80 LAWSUITS against Qiaodan. And surprisingly, Chinese courts kept ruling against him until 2016 when they granted the rights to the Chinese characters of his name, 乔丹.

The courts ruled that Qiaodan couldn’t use the characters anymore and would have to issue an apology and admit the connection Jordan. BUT they could still use the English name of the company (that sounds like Chinese Jordan) and because of the ways trademarks work in China, it had been over 5 years since the company’s trademark filings so they were able to keep everything, including the logo of Jordan doing a layup.

Jordan and Nike tried to fight this but China has a first to file law that made it legal for Qiaodan to do everything it did - and continue to keep operating the same way to this day.

I mean none of these look like Jordan’s, maybe a bit of Luka’s or GT-Cuts but a lot of basketball shoes are starting to look similar these days.

Funny enough, Qiaodan sued Nike for $47,500 in 2018 because they claimed Nike used Qiaodan’s logo.

None of it makes sense but now I lowkey want a pair of Qiaodan’s.

An AI has An Agent

So that whole thing about AI taking our jobs - it’s getting real, man. Especially if you’re an actor.

I’m exaggerating (for now) but the internet’s latest AI sensation is definitely making the film/TV world take notice.

Meet Tilly Norwood:

Tilly is an AI actor out of Particle6, an AI production studio out of Europe that’s making A LOT of noise on the interwebs, mainly because of Tilly Norwood.

Earlier this week at the Zurich Summit, Zurich’s conference paired with the Zurich Film Festival, Particle6’s founder, Eline van der Velden mentioned that multiple talent agents have been interested in Tilly Norwood.

Not so effen fast

Actors guilds galore have denounced Tilly as nothing more than lines of code. It seems as though Hollywood will do everything in its power NOT to have an AI actor in the midst of its ecosystem - at least for now.

Their main worry is that the source of data for an AI actor gets so diluted as it picks up on all kinds of things that you can’t trust any kind of transparency that may be used to explain how the AI functions.

This all said, Tilly starred in her first short earlier this summer which you can see below. This is not the last we’ve heard of an AI actor, that’s for sure - esp with OpenAI’s recent Sora 2 app launch.

I personally can’t wait to make my film using all AI.

The Great Virgil Abloh

I think our generation will always hold Virgil Abloh as one of the greatest designers, innovators, and cultural leaders of our time.

In what was seemingly a small window of time, Virgil gave us so much reimagined art. Every clothing line, every exhibition, every release and collaboration - they all had this special touch where you knew Virgil did it.

From collaborating with iconic brands like Nike and Ikea to leading Louis Vuitton’s Menswear division, to starting Pyrex Vision and later Off White, to DJ-ing and being a creator director to Kanye for so many years, to museums and art exhibits, holy cow the list goes on an on.

Earlier this week on September 30th (Virgil’s birthday) The Virgil Abloh Archive^TM in partnership with Nike launched “Virgil Abloh: The Codes” at the Grand Palais in Paris showcasing over 20,000 objects from Virgil’s vast archive from his artwork to music to design to prototypes and the list goes on and on.

The mission of the archive is to keep Virgil’s ideas alive while expanding public understanding of his works within his archive for those who want to study and build upon his ideas.

On Nike’s official page for the exhibition there’s hint at this very first Europe one being the first of future exhibitions. Given how much work was left when Virgil passed, I wouldn’t be surprised if we see an exhibition pop up at least once a year.

Beyond the hypebeast nature of what the exhibition means on the surface, I’m just happy this exists.

My kids have asked about the big green coffee table book with a bunch of shoes in it. It would be cool to show them a Virgil Abloh archive collection one day. Given the imaginative nature of how he approached design, and with this anything-is-possible outlook, more kids should know about who Virgil Abloh was, what he did, and what he stood for.