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September 15, 2026·Edition 47

Who approved that subway ad?

Internet Microdoses

Duolingo wants you to stop guessing how to say Loewe. Timed to New York Fashion Week, the app is teaching users to pronounce designer names like Hermès and Jacquemus. So basically just French or Spanish, but as expensive as possible. Get your designer pronunciation in order →

Buy a breathtaking converted synagogue on the Lower East Side. Owned by textile artist Dana Barnes, this $10.95 million studio includes soaring ceilings, sacred light, and an asking price that will have you thinking about selling your kidneys. Tour the studio you won't stop think about →

Robots in Japan now have their own ambulance. Rather than hauling a broken machine back to a shop, the unit races out and fixes them on the spot Robots have it so much better than us. Who do the robots call in an emergency? →

A Berlin street artist turned Stuttgart into a playful paradise. Artist The Wa painted crooked doors, purple curtains, and big, colorful splotches on a house in Stuttgart. It’s the logical conclusion of the old art adage “my kid could do that.” See the exhibit for yourself →

Nike is leaving the S&P 100, the index of 100 major U.S. blue-chip companies, after an 18-year run. The company has lost around $200 billion since its 2021 peak, and the CEO they coaxed out of retirement in 2024 can’t seem to bring it back. Why sneakerheads won’t just do it →

Calvin Klein’s NYFW runway was a sculpture gallery. Creative director Veronica Leoni focused the show on six wardrobe staples, staging it inside a 19th-century Chelsea freight warehouse, backed by polished steel works from the legendary Walter De Maria. Step inside the steel-rod showroom →

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Aesthetic Study

Hand-Painted Signs

For nearly a century, storefronts got their letters from people on ladders (also known as wall dogs, in the trade’s own slang) until cheap vinyl showed up in the ’80s and put them out of work. Now, the brush is back in fashion as painted signs take over once more.

To understand the appeal of the handmade, look no further than the New York City Subway. The walls are covered in bizarre AI ads, all written in the same flat voice one comedian called “slop voice” — panties that think, a wearable AI grandfather, software that offers to replace you.

The paint’s been bubbling over a decade ago. Graffiti legend Stephen “ESPO” Powers opened Icy Signs in Coney Island more than two decades ago, where, by his account, his team became the first sign painters in 40 years to paint knishes that actually looked like knishes. In São Paulo, studios are ditching minimalist logos for hand-painted storefronts and menus brushed onto the wall. It’s a beautiful way to say agradecemos a preferência.

The painted sign revival is yet another way we fetishize the past, much like physical media cycles or fashion trends. But despite the hand-brushed aesthetic, there’s a decidedly online reason we love this look. As the co-founder of the marketing company Colossal Media will tell you, the ads themselves are less powerful than the photos of them that get posted across social media.

  • Visit the New York Sign Museum
  • Hand-painted signs are back in Mexico too
  • Learn the art of sign painting
  • The hunt for Toronto’s ghost signs
Cover of Hand-Painted Signs collection
Hand-Painted SignsBy @sequencebycosmos
An image uploaded on Sep 15, 2026.
An image uploaded on Sep 15, 2026.
An image uploaded on Sep 15, 2026.

September 15, 2026·Interview

Blake Abbie

From a Berlin stage to a Shanghai book deal, Blake Abbie is always someone else. Here, briefly, he’s just himself.

Blake Abbie
Blake Abbie

A moment with

Blake Abbie

From a Berlin stage to a Shanghai book deal, Blake Abbie is always someone else. Here, briefly, he’s just himself.

Blake Abbie has spent his life moving through other people’s worlds. As an actor, he vanishes into a character. As editor of A Magazine Curated By, he invites and works with a new designer each issue to make the publication their own (We can’t tell you who’s curating the next one, but it’ll be worth the wait — they’re an icon of design.) This October, he’ll star in Strawberry, Arizona, a new play written just for him, premiering in Berlin before heading back to Shanghai where he’s working on a book project and TV show. Here he tells us about the places that stopped him cold, the people he'll revere forever, and how, after a life about others, he finds his way back to himself.

Three places you’ve felt inspired by.

This last year's places that come to mind are the following: Garibaldi Provincial Park; Louisiana Museum's lawn, looking north towards the sea; and Chorsu Bazaar in Tashkent, Uzbekistan, where an auntie is selling potato dumplings in tomato sauce at a food stall.

What's your hot take?

We're in a state of forgetting the humanity of the people around us. I see there's a dissolution of compassion, in particular, in the creative fields. Not sure that's a hot take, but no one dares to talk about it and connect. Relationships and community are all we have to hold on to as the world around us is completely collapsing.

What do you listen to on repeat?

This summer has been a lot of Katseye and Hikaru Utada (’First Love’ and ‘Automatic’ in particular). Most of the music I listen to is is to take me out of my everyday. Otherwise you’ll generally find me listen to a book on Libby.

What are the most worthwhile investments you've made?

This past year I've been looking more into my time in my faith. As someone who travels all the time, I make sure I block off time to spend at a temple or place of worship; it's incredibly important for my mental balance. I also go to Lagree and hot yoga all across the world; it's the only way I keep sane during fashion week and/or on a production. Recently I've also purchased on a friend's recommendation these lymphatic drainage brushes and a wooden massage gua sha acupoint tool that I have with me every day now.

What is an unusual habit, or an absurd thing, that you love?

People would be surprised to hear I spend a lot of time alone. With all the face time and socializing that are needed for both of my jobs, I need to take time away. I travel alone, I have dinner alone with a podcast, and I go on very long walks alone. Making sure there's a distinct separation between my life and my work is important — I'm not sure a lot of people in the creative industries do that or have regular reality check-ins. I also love durian. People think I'm crazy for that.

Who is your forever inspo?

Always my mother. And Takeshi Kaneshiro. And Lou Ye.

Write us a fortune cookie.

一叶知秋

“A single falling leaf heralds the coming of autumn.”

Check out Blake on Instagram and Cosmos →

Object Love

Ornamental Hands

Ornamental Hands

Jennifer Crupi studied at Cooper Union and now teaches metalwork at Kean University in New Jersey. Her body of work is all about body language: sterling silver devices that lock you into gestures, working off the idea that holding a pose can make you actually feel it.

Ornamental Hands: Figure One is a set of fine chains and finger braces that hang from a wrist cuff and hold your hand, marionette-style, in one of those elegant poses from old portraits. It works like a splint, getting your fingers to sit just so. It’s in the Smithsonian collection now. Slip it on and your hand looks like it belongs in a painting.

Quick Hits

  • Princess Diana’s revenge dress hits the auction block
  • A new book explores what David Bowie listened to
  • Maison Margiela made a trailer for a movie that doesn’t exist
  • The latest privacy move: dirty your own data
  • Rimowa partners with Faber-Castell on a case that is an artist's dream

Community Question

Last week we asked, what's something you still love about the internet?

Here's our favorite reply:
Laura Petrucci said: "Remember that sense of wonder you got as a kid walking around observing whatever you had around you? I love that the Internet can give you back some of that feeling: you can go down the most random rabbit holes anytime you feel like doing so, and you can wake up and research everything there is to know about ancient times, some weirdly named animal that's almost extinct, Ukrainian music or blue crabs. The Internet feeds curiosity of all kinds, and I love it."

Now for next week:
What’s something you find beautiful that nobody else seems to notice?

Until the paint dries,

Tania