Drop out, chune in
Big swag totes with a DIY option, audacious handmade homes, hiking-sandal excellence, beautiful Philly melodies & more
Check out our monumental list of the 50 Greatest Shops across the Spyplane Universe.
Our guide to the best natural-fiber activewear is here.
Why are we addicted to standing in line for treats? A profound Spyplane investigation.
Our travel chat, full of recommendations for destinations worldwide, is bustling.
We don’t run ads, and we don’t use affiliate links on any clothing. We do use them for books on the independent bookseller Bookshop. We broke down our position on affiliate links and spon here.
This means the only people we owe anything are our readers.
— Jonah & Erin
Blackbird Spyplane by your side once again.
A quick note up top: Since day one, we’ve proudly upheld a no ads, no spon, no-affiliate-links policy. That’s because we want everyone to know we write about clothes with no upside beyond “putting our subscribers (the beautiful & blessed members of Spy Nation {who are the only people who give us any money}) on to cool things we f--k with.”
Whenever Erin and I (Jonah) come across publications that do use affiliate links — no matter how cool, honest & tasteful the people behind them may be — we trust their recommendations less. Affiliate links enable kickbacks if people click through and make a purchase. So they create a financial incentive for people to encourage you to buy more clothes, which also conveniently happen to live on the affiliate partner networks they get commissions from.
Peace as always to anyone who’s found a way to make the numbers make sense while operating on an independent level. But lining Sh*pMy’s pockets just so we can get a taste is not the path we choose.
All of which is to say that, until this month, we had a carve-out in our affiliate-link policy for used clothing on eBay and Etsy, and for books on the very cool independent online bookseller Bookshop.org. We’ve never used affiliate links for new clothes, ever. And as of August 1st, we’ve stopped using them for everything but books. Thereby making ourselves ~33.3% more pure, saintly & enlightened ; )
If you’re curious to read our post from last summer about how you can in fact practice ‘f--k a bag’ mindset every now and then, it’s here.
Shout out to Spy Nation, and a huge thanks to our Classified Tier subscribers, who make Blackbird Spyplane possible.
Today we’ve got:
Big swag tote bags, including a very cool homemade option that one of the homies at Mfpen put us on to,
A unisex “Hiking Sandal Realness” intel addendum,
A fascinating new photo book about dropping out of mainstream society and building your own house in the woods,
And more unbeatable recon.
Let’s get to it —