The spiciest drop of the season: "The Mojito Collection"

Limited-edition homages from Blackbird Spyplane x And After That to Miami x Mann

In today’s sletter we are deviating from standard operating procedure because we’ve got something special: A limited-edition exclusive jawn drop for all our Mach 3+ mojito fiends out there, produced in collaboration with the Certified Big Gang SpyFriend Edgar Gonzelaz from And After That… !!

As longtime readers know, we here at BBSP love ingenious bootlegs, deep-cut movie & T.V. crew gifts, and the films of Michael Mann. We’re also longtime appreciators of what Edgar at AAT has been doing since he launched his tiny operation in Texas back in 2020 to help raise funds for his brother’s DACA application, gradually turning it into a sub-cultural behemoth in the game. If you live in close proximity to cool clothes-rockers you have probably seen his tees and caps out in the wild, and since you’re reading this you may likely own some already.

We especially love And After That’s s**t when Edgar creates imaginary IYKYK movie slappers. So picture the delighted frequencies we were vibrating upon when the following went down:

Earlier this year, we were re-watching the director’s cut of Mann’s highly underrated, sneakily avant-garde 2006 feature-length version of Miami Vice. After an opening boat-race sequence that was cut from the theatrical release, Jamie Foxx and Colin Farrell stride down a Miami dock, each one looking like the f**king man in squared-off sunglasses and sick matching t-shirts that say “MERCURY” (real-life engine builders) and “MOJO” (the fictitious name of Sonny & Rico’s “go-fast boat”):

Now here’s the thing. These MERCURY - MOJO shirts look good as h*ll, but the official Miami Vice movie merch you’ll find out there ?? To put it plainly, it’s a bummer: Ho-hum tees that capture none of the artistry of the movie, none of the swag of its stars, and none of the panache and vision of its auteurist-hall-of-fame director. Universal seems to have printed most of these on gross heather-charcoal blanks, to make matters worse, and the harder-to-find all-black versions aren’t much better:

I sent a screenshot of Foxx and Farrell rocking the MERCURY - MOJO tees to Edgar, because of his gift for slinging banger homage cinema jawnz inspired by obscure / buried / delightful artifacts of movie history. And because here, in a deleted Miami Vice sequence, was a true hidden gem that checked all those boxes.

Edgar hit me back with another major discovery — during production on Miami Vice, in 2005, Mann turned a version of the Mercury - Mojo shirt into a very rare CREW GIFT, with a list of shooting locations on the back, under a fuzzy shot of the MOJO boat itself:

A couple of these tees have sold on eBay, which is where the images above originated, but none seem to have cropped up in a minute. I emailed a plug at Mann’s production company in L.A, on the off chance they had a box somewhere full of these, and she kindly checked for me but turned up zilch.

It was obvious what had to be done: Blackbird Spyplane and And After That had to unite, take matters into our own hands, and fill the Miami Vice vibey-jawn vacuum.

Yes! We whipped up a t-shirt that pays tribute to the crew-gift tee, but with the logos rendered a little bigger (and in the film-accurate orientation), plus “Spyplane, AAT” added to the list of cities on the back, and a sicker image of the go-fast boat on the back, bathed in a rich BLUE HUE familiar to any Mann scholar:

O yes

Then we f**ked around and devised a delightful brass-buckled embroidered strapback cap to accompany it, with the black-on-black “Spyplane, AAT” stitching on the verso — this hat would go dummy dockside after a race, or while simply parading down the streets on the way to wherever you parked yr d*mn 2004 Ferrari F430 Spider, tipsy off these mojitos !!

Believe it

Introducing the Blackbird Spyplane x And After That “MOJITO COLLECTION” — made to order, and open from now through this Sunday, 9/25.

The caps are made in Fullerton, CA. The tees are made in L.A. The screenprinting and embroidery goes down near And After That HQ in McAllen, Texas.

You can follow Edgar on IG here, and hit the limited-time-only DROP ZONE here:

P🛥️E🛥️A🛥️C🛥️E🛥️ till next week, when we will publish possibly the most important essay across all media in 2022 — Jonah & Erin

The Cla$$ified SpyTalk chat room is here, full of very cool people with very cool recommendations.

The Blackbird Spymall, full of rare gems, is here.

Our Profound Essays, Mindsets and “Unbeatably Spicy Takes” are all here.

The Master Jawn Index, featuring earth’s best Spyplane-approved things, is here.