Welcome to Blackbird Spyplane.
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Check our Ultimate Spyplane Guides to Tokyo, Kyoto, and Osaka, Naoshima, Teshima & more.
We marked the Five Year Anniversary of Blackbird Spyplane last week.
Today? We’re celebrating some of the foremost design talents and pinnacle slapper achievements of the last 5 years — a period future scholars might refer to as “The Early Spyplane Era.”
If TIME did an issue saluting the most iconic industrial designs of the 20th century, they’d likely include the Coca-Cola bottle… Dieter Rams’s Braun SK5 turntable… Jony Ive’s iMac… If TIME saluted the most iconic garment designs of the 20th century, you’d probably see the Levi’s Type II trucker… Stan Rays… the Barbour Beaufort… Nike Air Force 1s… the Carhartt Detroit…
In that spirit, we’re saluting 35 Iconic Creations of the Early Spyplane Era: Epoch-defining achievements from designers and lines who’ve freaked it with distinction during the past five years.
In some cases, the creations existed previously, but truly hit during the E.S.E. — and there’s a couple crucial garment-adjacent triumphs woven in, too.
The list is numbered, but not ordered. You might prefer reading it in a browser. If you’re on desktop, use the horizontal bars on the left side of your screen to toggle quickly between all 35.
Let’s get to it —