Unlock the power of the Trojan Horse Slapper
Spyplane Exclusive Sample Sale with Xenia Telunts, a deep-cut home-goods plug, and serendipitous sneak attacks
Check out our comprehensive new Home Goods Index.
The B.L.I.S.S. List — a helpful rundown of Beautiful Life-Improving Spyplane Staples, from incense to sweatpants to underwear — is here.
Mach 3+ city intel for traveling the entire planet is here.
Blackbird Spyplane back with you once again. In today’s sletter:
One of our favorite small designers is doing her first-ever sample sale in today’s sletter as a BBSP exclusive, offering up “nearly 300” singular pieces, most of them made in London, many of them “priced at or below cost,”
The power of the Serendipitous Trojan Horse Slapper,
And more!
Let’s get to it —
Spyfriend Happy Menocal sent us a fantastic question the other day on the subject of “SERENDIPITY,” as she put it:
“Like, things that enter your wardrobe randomly that don’t necessarily suit you, but somehow become integral to your whole deal,” she wrote. “A mysterious sweatshirt left in your car that you eventually just work into your rotation… A promotional water bottle that you initially sort of hate, but use so frequently you grow to love it. A merino turtleneck from the Talbots outlet that your stepmother gives you for Christmas. Just kind of a relief to a person like me (and presumably most Spyplane readers) who CONSIDERS every morsel of their wardrobe to death.”
She put this so evocatively that I (Jonah) am reluctant to even attempt an answer. We all have pieces like this. I’m actually wearing a version of the “promo water bottle” as I type this sentence: a heavyweight freebie logo hoodie a brand once tucked into the box unsolicited when I placed an order. I didn’t want it, much less need it, much less really like it, but rather than let it go to waste, which would have been depressing, I started rocking it inside-out on chilly morning hikes. It gradually bled from there into “cold mornings at the cribbo loungewear” duty, and from there into “morning errands around town” duty. It gained in sentimental / talismanic importance over time, precisely because I was thoroughly un-precious about it, wearing the f**k out of it, sweating into it, machine washing it repeatedly on hot, etc.
What we see here is that a seemingly mundane act — simply using something a lot — can have profound effects on a piece over time. But the hoodie is still a piece I keep on the margins of my whole mf gestalt. Whereas Happy’s theoretical “mother-in-law Talbots outlet merino turtleneck” exemplifies something slightly different: The Trojan Horse Slapper, where a garment sneaks past the barriers of your sense of taste and judgment and winds up worming its way into your heart, shifting those barriers in a way that something you loved off rip in familiar ways never could.
This is a relative of what we’ve called “Automatic Dressing,” where you throw things together in a rush and unlock unconsciously swaggy juxtapositions by getting out of your own head. It’s also a relative of “getting into fights” with your clothes and testing the limits of your comfort zone.
With the Trojan Horse Slapper, though, it’s a garment that’s wrong in exactly the right way, meaning it fits into the rest of your wardrobe at a productively oblique angle, helping you to see new things about your clothes, and the way you like to dress, that you might not have seen without this kind of outside intervention.
Let us know if you’ve got a great tale of garment serendipity along these lines…
Wow —
One of our favorite small designers is the UK’s Xenia Telunts, whose clothes we’ve shouted out repeatedly over the years. She’s probably best known for her fantastic wool rollneck fisherman’s sweaters — which come in pullover and vest versions — and for her great knits generally. But there’s a ton more where that comes from: garment-dyed heavyweight organic-cotton tees; high-waist wide-leg Japanese-poplin pleat pants; quilted gilets; waxed-cotton trenches; etc.
Like me (Jonah) and Erin, Xenia is an adherent of Cop Hardly Anything On Sale (C.H.A.O.S.) Mindset — she doesn’t wanna buy something just because its price has been reduced, but because she actually wants it! And, as is the case with several sick independent lines we f**k with, she never puts her clothes on sale, either.
Xenia reminded us of both these truths the other day when she dropped us a line asking if we wanted to … host a BBSP Classified-Tier Xenia Telunts Sample Sale?
She was hesitant to even frame it as a “sample sale,” since that term has been abused to the point of near-meaninglessness. But “we do have a lot of genuine one-of-one samples or slightly imperfect pieces (dyeing mistakes, sweaters with accidental side vents) that need a home. Many are rare, one-off pieces that never made it to production. There are nearly 300 pieces total.”
And get this: “We’re very grateful for the respectful approach and enthusiasm we’ve had from customers who’ve discovered us from Blackbird Spyplane — we can usually tell them a mile off,” she added. “So we’d love to give them priority on these pieces, a lot of which are quite sentimental.”
Wow. Xenia clearly knows that the way into our hearts is to 1. invoke beautiful one-of-one garments, and 2. sing the praises of Spy Nation, the most discerning & kind clothes-appreciating readership across all media.
So starting today, until this Monday, Nov. 25, at 4 p.m. PT / 7 p.m. ET / midnight GMT, our Classified Readers can cop these rare Xenia Telunts pieces at cut rates — in many cases priced “at or below cost.”
There’s pieces for the fellas & Spyplane Hot Lady army alike, from hooded waxed-cotton hiking jackets to a flotilla of knits to overcoats to linen dresses to cotton-ripstop piped-lapel “pajama” shirts to wrap skirts to wideleg easy pants to typewriter-cotton pleated trousers to elastic-waist shorts to cotton cagoules to textured-cotton tote bags and on & on. (Almost?) everything was made in London.
Maybe there’s a Trojan Horse Slapper or two in the mix? These are killer pieces and the prices are nice. To honor the calm C.H.A.O.S. spirit, though, feel free to take your time browsing, see if there’s a model pic elsewhere on Xenia’s site for a given piece, be sure you want something before pulling the trigger. Each listing should include measurements and specify if there are any imperfections. Shipping is available worldwide.
And to be clear, the Spyplane makes no money from this. Our “comp” is simply being Blessed Conduits between one of earth’s coolest small lines and Spy Nation, who remain the only people we owe anything.
The Exclusive SpyLink and Classified Passcode are at the bottom of today’s sletter!
Meanwhile —
This past Tuesday we published our legendary G.I.F.T.S. List for 2024 — a deep & vibey round-up of “Mach 3+ gems of affection & friendship for everyone in your life.”
Another way to find great gifts, of course, is via great small shops whose owners have taste, skill & vision when it comes to finding & stocking sick objets.
And a cult IG storefront with great pieces (and fewer than 5k followers) that Erin has admired for a minute just launched a webshop yesterday: