Welcome to today’s Blackbird Spyplane ! It’s the time of year where we get “unbeatably retrospective” — Tuesday was our 2021 Holy Wisdom Spectacular, and next week we’ll be going dark for a Spyplane Solar-Panel Refuel, but NOW, as promised, O baby, we have a special event:

A celebration of the year’s SLAPPINGEST S**T, otherwise known as —

Yes!

We are handing out a “dope panoply” of awards to the slappingest BOOKS, SONGS, and MOVIES we encountered this year; the slappingest FASHION COLLABS; the slappingest PROFOUND LIFE-IMPROVING MINDSET we didn’t write about; the slappingest THINGS TO BRING TO A PARTY TO SHARE WITH FRIENDS YOU LOVE; the slappingest PEOPLE WHO WEAR CLOTHES EXQUISITELY; and more …

ALSO? Thank YOU, the slappingest readership, from the bottom of our enormous hearts.

That goes double for our Cla$$ified Subscribers, who keep our s**t Mach 3+ and who will be able to enjoy the entire sletter today ; )

Jonah & Erin

P.S. There’s some SLAPPING caps & tees in the Blackbird SpyStore:

Cop Limited-Edition SPYPLANE SOUVENIRS

🖐️ NO. 1 SLAPPINGEST BRAND OF 2021

🍃 For the 2nd year running, Blackbird Spyplane’s No. 1 jawnmaker is … And Wander! We could have picked another line for the sake of variety, but then we’d be perpetrating “jawn fraud” because And Wander’s s**t remains unmatched.

The pieces are hyper-technical but a touch avant-garde in the way you’d hope from a Japanese outdoor line founded by 2 ex-Issey Miyake ppl, scrambling together the functional with the FANCIFUL, and conceived with such ingenuity (& finished with such close attention to detail) that every time I pull on one of their pieces I feel a gorpy mixture of REVERENCE and JUBILATION.

And as hypey / trendy / f*cc-boi-adjacent as GORP has gotten — and even though And Wander is superior to every other GORP brand enjoying “streetwear’s embrace” — most people are still sleeping on ‘em.

Runners up: the muted but sumptuous stylings of Auralee, Evan Kinori, The Row, Lauren Manoogian, and tha undefeated pants gods at Lemaire.

🖐️ NO. 1 SLAPPINGEST COLLAB OF 2021

The Jil Sander x Birkenstock Berlins — did Jil & Co. merely freak a colorway on an existing silhouette the way most “collaborators” nowadays seem content to do … ??

… NO, DOGGY, she tweaked every detail to her own Germanic specifications, threw a slightly exaggerated outsole on that s**t like as if it was an ELEGANT LIL BUMPER CAR, and the result is DEUTSCHE-ON-DEUTSCHE EXZELLENZ.

Runner up: The Nike x Comme des Garçons Foamposites, which nail the “graceful gloopy molded-plastic body-horror geometry” aesthetic with playful / hypnotic deftness.

🖐️ 9 KINGS (IN THE GENDER-AGNOSTIC, NON-MONARCHISTIC SENSE OF THE TERM) WHOSE MF FITS INSPIRED US TO HAVE FUN GETTING DRESSED!