Blackbird Spyplane | Unbeatable Recon | Style•Culture•Travel

Blackbird Spyplane | Unbeatable Recon | Style•Culture•Travel

Your exoskeleton is showing

New journeys into sauce, plus intel on small-run bags, caps & sandals

Jul 23, 2026
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Welcome back to Blackbird Spyplane. And first off today, shout out to Sam Anderson of the New York Times Magazine, who spoke to me (Jonah) for a piece he published earlier this week about embarking on a journey of self-discovery through swag and taking some initial steps into the strange, wonderful, contradiction-rich world of cool clothes.

It’s a funny first-person account of feeling fully “fashion”-allergic, in the way many people are prone to do, but also being curious and open-minded enough to challenge that feeling, taking a trip to a great independent clothing shop, and finding a bunch of pieces from small lines that, lo & behold, resonate with you… And then grappling with novel feelings of sauce & self-consciousness as you put on an unfamiliar exoskeleton and wear it out in the world!

In today’s Plane, we’ve got a bunch of exoskeleton-enswaggening intel for you, including:

  • Singular new sandals from one of Earth’s best small lines, which you can rock at home, put on pavement-pounding duty… or, if you bring them to the beach, apparently they will glide across the damn sand rather than sink into it?

  • Sick caps from a Japan-based headgear master who is both a veteran and highly slept-on

  • Roomy new shoulder bags made start to finish by a single maker in the UK we’ve admired for a minute

  • Unexpected color-rocking-inspiration epiphanies

Let’s get to it —

While we were doing unbeatable recon in London last month, we had dinner one night with Spyfriend (and screenwriter of the terrific The Invite) Rashida Jones, who showed up rocking a very sick unisex cap she’d just bought…

It had a detachable scarf / neck-flap, pictured A. below, which fits right in with the headwear in our recent guide to How to Dress Well When It’s Too Hot.

The hat was made by an under-the-radar Japanese headgear master with a major cosign from one of our favorite clothing labels. He has a bunch of other great styles where that one came from:

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