DESIGN DISPATCH

Adidas Sells Reebok for $2.5 Billion, and Other News

Our daily look at the world through the lens of design.

The Design Dispatch offers expertly written and essential news from the design world crafted by our dedicated team. Think of it as your cheat sheet for the day in design delivered to your inbox before you’ve had your coffee. Subscribe now

Have a news story our readers need to see? Submit it here.

Adidas offloads the struggling Reebok to Authentic Brands Group for $2.5 billion.

When Adidas acquired Reebok for $4 billion in 2005, it aimed for Reebok to create a rival to Nike. The German sportswear giant is abandoning that mission 16 years later after announcing that Authentic Brands Group would acquire Reebok for $2.5 billion. The company has recently been acquiring struggling brands such as Brooks Brothers and Forever 21, and “had our sights set on Reebok for many years,” Jamie Salter, CEO of Authentic Brands Group, said in a statement. “Reebok not only holds a special place in the minds and hearts of consumers around the world, but the brand also has expansive global distribution.” 

Humans used up all of the earth’s renewable resources for the year by July 29.

The earth generates a certain amount of renewable resources within a one-year time frame, but humanity’s demand for those resources is far outpacing the rate at which they can regenerate. According to the Global Footprint Network, humans used up all of the ecological resources generated by earth this year by July 29. In the U.S. and Canada, that date falls much sooner: March 14. Humanity first went into “Earth Overshoot Day” in the early 1970s, when it fell on December 20, but that date has been steadily moving up the calendar ever since. “Any efforts that we make to conserve are very impactful for the rest of the world,” Eric Miller, director of the Ecological Footprint Initiative at York University, tells the Toronto Star. “We pay for the present by depleting the future.” 

The wooden coffee table from Parasite will go on display at Milan Design Week.

We all remember that scene from Bong Joon-ho’s Oscar-winning film Parasite (2019) where the Kim family hides underneath the Park family’s luxurious wooden coffee table shortly after their break-in. Along with the Park family’s bracing modern house, the stair-shaped table designed by Bahk John-sun endures as one of the key props that helps visualize the film’s themes of socioeconomic class divisions. It’s going on display next month during Milan Design Week as part of a showcase of Korean craftworks called “All About Attitude” that dives into our relationship with nature and objects as the climate crisis intensifies. It’ll be on display at Palazzo Litta in Milan from September 5–10. 

Pornhub removes online “Classic Nudes” art tours of works from the Louvre. 

A couple weeks after museums filed complaints about Pornhub unlawfully including famous works in an online “Classic Nudes” guided tour of international collections, the adult video streaming platform has removed them. Tours for works of the Uffizi in Florence, the Prado in Madrid, and the Louvre in Paris have all been removed. Though the Uffizi seemed the most vocally opposed and quickly drafted a cease and desist, other museums don’t seem to mind. The Met, for example, cited an Open Access program that “provides public access to hundreds of thousands of images of works in our collection, and we generally don’t seek to regulate the wide range of uses of these images.” 

Banksy confirms responsibility for a string of new murals in coastal England.

A few days after rumors swirled that Banksy was behind several murals that popped up in coastal England towns, he confirmed everyone’s suspicions. The anonymous British artist posted an Instagram video that takes viewers on a tour that he called the “Great English Spraycation” that pictures each mural, which picture children wearing paper pirate hats, hermit crabs holding up signs that say “luxury rentals only,” and a couple swing dancing next to an accordion player. The murals can be found in the towns of Lowestoft, Gorleston, Oulton Broad, Cromer, and Great Yarmouth. 

After allegations of cultural appropriation, Chinatown Market debuts a new name.

Chinatown Market faced criticism earlier this year after the AAPI community accused the white-owned streetwear label of cultural appropriation and demanded a name change. Now, the label is back under a new name—MA®KET—after consulting with members of the AAPI community on how to move forward. “[The name change] wasn’t about the product we were making,” founder Mike Cherman told Highsnobiety. “It was about a name that wasn’t ours to own and acknowledging and moving forward from that. The classic DNA of the brand, all those motifs will continue.” The first MA®KET collection, which features graphic hoodies, sweats, and shorts with the new logo, is available to shop online.

Today’s attractive distractions:

This agency probably designed your favorite D2C brand’s identity.

Rem Koolhaas doodles on American Express’s new Centurion Card.

Iwan Baan shot Yayoi Kusama’s Pumpkin before it washed out to sea.

Naomi Osaka hits big with a custom racket from Takashi Murakami.

All Stories