Welcome Digest [1.28.26]
Surrealist toe shoes, Hermès boombox bag, 'The Moment' makes history, and more
Welcome To January 28th
Today’s Important Headlines
👞 Surrealist toe shoes up for auction
Pierre Cardin’s rare pair of surrealist men’s shoes, inspired by Margritte and crafted circa 1985, will be auctioned at Christie’s in Paris this February. Starting bid is currently set at €8,000. The shoes are the product of a collaboration between Cardin and Chilean-born sculptor Carlos Peñafiel, who molded brown pebbled leather into sets of toes.
🎬 “THE MOMENT” starring Charli XCX is the fastest-selling limited release in A24 history
With more than 50 screenings already sold out, the Aidan Zamiri directed mockumentary style film that depicts Charli struggling between artistic and commercial incentives, is setting records ahead of its debut this Friday. Nobody will be surprised that the sub-35 demographic is doing the heavy lifting.
🚫 AI Image misattributed to famous 1900s painter
Purported to be a famous watercolor by Austrian Expressionist Egon Schiele, the image has been seen by hundreds of thousands, many of whom are outraged. Rendered in the style of a Schiele drawing, and titled with the name of a real 1917 work, the dupe fooled many viewers before the experts chimed in. This is just one example of the AI quasi-foragery phenomenon that is becoming more rampant in the fine art world by the day.
🧳 Hermès made a functional boombox bag
Debuted at Véronique Nichanian’s final F/W 2026 show, the bag does actually work, with functioning dials and a built-in cassette wallet.
🗽 Mamdani got a custom “Mayoral” Carhartt jacket
Embellished by Bushwick-based Arena Embroidery, the jacket has ‘Mayor’ embroidered right on the arm, ‘No problem too big / No task too small’ on the inner collar, and a script The City of New York on the chest. Is this blue collar stolen valor, is the question.
🧾 Yorgos Lanthimos directed a commercial starring Emma Stone
It’s for Squarespace and will debut during the Super Bowl. You can see the teaser online now. We do now live in a world where commercials have teasers. There was a time where this sort of thing would be considered Selling Out…
Headline curation and words by Mikail Haroon (@mvkail)
Moodboard 025
Today’s inspiration supplement. Click through to view.
From The Archive
An extra piece of content from the Welcome Archive for Magazine subscribers only.
Daft Punk photographed by Minoru Inoue for BUZZ magazine (1999)
In 1999, Daft Punk were photographed by Minoru Inoue for BUZZ magazine between the release of ‘Homework’ and the start of the ‘Discovery’ era.
Their faces were obscured using overexposed flash instead of helmets, reflecting an early approach to their anonymity before the robotic personas were fully established.
Excellent curation here. That Daft Punk photo from '99 is facinating because it shows their evolving relationship with anonymity. Back then they were just experimenting with overexposure to hide faces, but wtihin a couple years that became the full robot thing. Honestly kinda wild how much more intentional their brand became after that era.