The Backpack: Issue #90

• Trend Alert:  Corpcore hits collector prices
  
• What's new in commonsku: skubot comes off the bench!
  
• Can’t Miss Content: One-star hoodies, Sharpie sneakers and a $2 grail
  
  

OpenAI Supply Co.

OpenAI's employee merch store went public in July and the internet did two things at once: mocked the $70 ChatGPT basketball, and bought every single one. That's the tell. Tech merch has graduated from conference-bag filler to proof you were in the room, and there's now a real resale market treating it like vintage band tees: employee tees pull $250 on eBay, and one hoodie thrifted for $15 flipped for nearly that. One reseller told Forbes that someday, people will brag about the OpenAI shirt they scored back in the roaring twenties. (He's not wrong.) Palantir, Figma and Shopify built the corpcore lane — now the AI labs have merch stores too. Nobody pays $250 for a tee. They pay $250 to prove they were early. Every software client you have is watching this unfold, which makes this the right week to bring them a merch idea before they go looking for one.

Summer of Food Merch

Modern Retail put a name on what every food brand has been doing since June: it's the summer of food merch drops. Gap x Los Tacos No. 1. Dunkin' x Parke. Starbucks x Dandy. And our favourite, a Lands' End tote built to the exact dimensions of a Wawa Shorti hoagie — gone in two hours. (The tote fits the sandwich. That's the entire creative brief, and it's perfect.) The sharper move came from Wendy's, which stopped giving merch away to everyone and started gating drops behind its rewards program — free totes gone in 90 seconds. Same tote, but now it's a status symbol with an app login. So here's the pitch: your QSR and franchise clients don't need another uniform order. They need a drop calendar, a members list, and something that fits the sandwich.
 

The Luckiest Ambassador Deal in Merch

American Eagle signed Lamine Yamal to an ambassador deal in January. In July the 19-year-old won the World Cup, and AE got the kind of luck money can't buy — then moved like it had planned it all along: renaming itself "Lamine's Eagles" for the weekend, rebranding a bestselling jean "The 19 Jean," and taking over Times Square. (He wears 19. He's 19. He won on the 19th. Sometimes the universe hands you the campaign.) The capsule itself lands September 3, timed to back-to-school — or as their CMO put it, "From Yamal to the mall." Cute line, smarter calendar: Barcelona's season starts a week before the drop, so he's back on every screen right as shoppers hit the mall. That's the takeaway for promo pros. The merch didn't chase the moment. It was scheduled to meet it.