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When did Summer get Branded? · Design Darlings

• Ro Rich: Hello, darling, said Allie: Hello darling, I'm Allie. Ro Rich: And I'm Robin. Welcome back to Design Darlings, the podcast where we obsess over what makes, breaks, or bakes a good design in the world. And darlings, it is summertime, and the thermometer is reading Get Inside. Mercury is in retrograde, and it's also in the hundreds, babe. So Yowza. girl, she is hot. She is schwitzing. ⁓ And episode, we are going to talk about iconic summer designs. Allie: Whew She's Picy. Ro Rich: Flip flops, flamingos, inflatable pools, and a thousand other ways to stay and be cool because we are all in the northern hemisphere experiencing summer right now, my dear. A collective experience, if you will. Allie: It's summer. She's hot. She's feisty. Ro Rich: we kinda eased in in June and then July just said, Boom, we're done. ⁓ Allie: ⁓ if you had to rank the so hot warm take. but I think might be my least favorite season. Where does summer fall on your season ranking list? Ro Rich: I feel like it would be lower only because I have to work. Look, if I was still a student or I was on a regular university schedule, I would love summer 'cause I would be off. And that means I could go to the pool whenever I wanted. I could go to the beach whenever I wanted. And I think the cruel thing about adult summer is that you have to work and you don't just get to be off and ⁓ and enjoy the season and just sitting around and reading and being bored or I don't know, flying down a slipping slide. So I think that summer is one of those things that as an adult, summer is not as fun as when you're a kid and you're off from school. So Allie: The Life of Leisure. Yeah. Only seen in Saltburn. That's the kind of summer I'm Ro Rich: ⁓ my gosh. Allie: Without all the murdering and deceit and you know, Ro Rich: Mutter on the dance floor. yes. So I mean it's hot for us. Down there in lovely Australia. I mean, they're winter. I'm a little jealous. I think you know what that would be a great summer trip is to go down under and be there for winter. That would be super interesting. And then they get summertime Christmas vibes. Like they get tropical Santa. ⁓ Allie: Mmm would be fun. I like a tropical Santa. Also, I don't know if you're a Zara Larson fan, but I'm very much ⁓ I'm a in life discoverer of Zara Larsson and I I really think this is like her summer. You know, she literally the Midnight Sun song is popping off and she's really doing a lot for Norway. She's really making Norway cool this summer. ⁓ Yeah. Are you a Zara Larsson girlie or no? Ro Rich: Really? I'm I'm gonna have to look that up. I'm I'm like that name hits me, but I'm gonna have to listen to this, so I'll get back to you. Allie: Yeah. She has a great album. She kinda did a Charlie XCX deal ⁓ where she put out an album that she did remixes of her main album with all different pop people. And she has this great one called Euro Summer and it's like a duet with Shakira. It's a banger. If you need a good summer Ro Rich: Mm-hmm. I might have heard that My Spotify says I have a song that I liked of hers, so now I'm like, which one is it? Okay. is she like it girl for summer? I know that you were talking about some twenty twenty six summer aesthetics. So what's the vibe this summer, Mama? Allie: Ooh. Yeah. we have to credit it back to Megan the Stallion because she really started making this cool. When you think about summer, I feel like the past five, six years, when did we start branding summer? I mean hot girl summer. What summer was that? Twenty twenty? Ro Rich: Hold on, I'll look. Brat Summer last year? Allie: Brat summer was twenty twenty-four. Yeah. That was Brat Summer. But we had Hot Girl Summer. And then we had I think that was coming out of the the pandemic. And then we had Brat Girl Summer. Last summer was Tomato Girl Summer. ⁓ Ro Rich: Okay. Mm-hmm. Allie: With a I think a Tomato Girl Summer, right, so think like Mediterranean. We were obsessed with sardines last summer and tomatoes and anything remotely Mediterranean. And then I think Tomato Girl Summer there was a lovely counterpoint to that, which was Feral Girl Summer. They really were just like Ro Rich: That's right. Ha ha. Allie: The girlies were beefing in terms of aesthetic because you had either the perfectionist girl summer, and then there's the opposite end of the internet culture, which was like, No, gonna look like a rat ⁓ and gonna be disheveled and you're gonna accept this. So I was trying to do research of what is the summer of 2026. the only thing I could find, which just honestly just feels like kind of a cop out. was we're in cool girl summer. So I'm like, that's not original. That's that feels that feels like a cop out, which maybe signals to me, the of having a branded summer. maybe the trend is downward. are we exhausted trying to have a branded summer? Ro Rich: Okay, I'm gonna give you snaps for your Megan the Stallion. She did first coin the phrase Hot Girl Summer in twenty eighteen in tweet on April fourteenth and it was like a personal catchphrase for a year. Then it went viral in July twenty nineteen when she did the single Hot Girl Summer with Nicki Minaj and Taidala. ⁓ Allie: That's what it was. 'Cause I remember WAP came out the summer of twenty twenty and we were all popping in popping in the club, aka our apartments ⁓ to WAP. Ro Rich: she trademarked that phrase in that September of twenty nineteen. Good for her. Allie: Have you have you been following the drama around the branding of the hot girl walk? Speaking of? So you know the phrase like hot girl walk. Like let's go on our hot girl walk. Ro Rich: No? No. ⁓ like I'm going for my walk for my stupid mental health. Allie: So let's get our little like Lululemons, our Stanley's, let's go on a little walk for mindfulness, get our matcha, go on some cute walk. So I think some influencer or somebody started using it and then just became a colloquial term. We just started using hot girl walk. in everyday language, it just was part of the zeitgeist. ⁓ then one of the original creators ⁓ actually filed a copyright for it, saying that she was the first person to use it public like s in a large media sense. ⁓ And now she's going after ⁓ individual actually trying to take action and make remove content if they're using Hakro Walk without her permission. ⁓ Like what ⁓ Ro Rich: ⁓ my gosh. That's okay. Like, you can't bogart a phrase. Like, if you want it to be a phrase, it's like my gosh. I that I that's like ⁓ Dee Stalin' gonna go after everyone who's talking about hot girl summer. No, like she can own it and that's awesome because she coined it. I I'm all about that. But to go after people for just using that term ⁓ what's so not cute. That's that's like not cute petty. Like if you wanna be smart petty and you wanna clap at someone ⁓ Or I mean, come on, really? Allie: why be so pressed? Summer's lovely. Go out, enjoy the outdoors, entertain, live in excess. ⁓ why not pursue legal Like that's not what summer's for. Legal curl summer. ⁓ Cease and desist summer. Ro Rich: No, I'm gonna I'm gonna come after you for my IP. You know what? It's legal girl summer. Legal girl summer. What the hell? Season desist summer? ⁓ my gosh. You should you should go ahead and trademark that and then make it a thing. Like you know what? That's there's always like the the the hot girl summer counter girl like summer movement. Have you seen the Neil the Seal summer of like that big elephant seal is back in Tasmania and just destroying everything? Yes, everyone's like, I'm gonna have a Neil the Seal summer, wreaking havoc, eat doing what I want, shouting at passerbys, ruining signs, destroying property. That's my summer. Allie: Yes. I feel like Cease and Desist Summer is something that would be on like a RuPaul's Drag Race episode. He'd be like, Cease and desist, you're sued for looking fabulous or just something so stupid. Ro Rich: Or because that that look is not looking, babe, guess what? You better cease and desist, bitch. glow, honey, no, that spray tan is not working for you. Cease and desist. Shut up. I love this. This could be a thing. Alright, you better go trademark it now so you can you can go cease and desist everyone next summer. Allie: Hand out fabulous parking tickets that are bedazzled. ⁓ Ro Rich: Yes. ⁓ my gosh. all right, so this I think maybe sets us up into what we're gonna talk about because as I was thinking about summer and American summer, I thought, you know what American Summer makes me think of is pop art and I think so pop art coded because of the primary color schemes. You have blue, ⁓ yellow, and red, you swap out yellow for white, and you've got your red, white, and blue. Old Navy, what did I see? That July 4th is the old the old Navy met gala. And I was laughing at that so hard. and so then I started to do some research about it. And a name for this. It's called Pop Lux, ⁓ Poppy Lux. And Thomas Hine coined this term for 1954 to 64 summer aesthetic. And it's what we think of like turquoise and melon and fiestaware and this whole this whole thing that preceded pop art, which was, you know, Warhol's Coke bottles and Liechtenstein's comic dots. and the reason it happened is because after the war, when folks came back, there was the boom and they were selling the idea of doing summer road trips and doing summer activities. Allie: Mm-hmm. Ro Rich: And it ended up becoming a ⁓ a marketing thing. So we think about this iconic American summer because by nineteen fifty nine, ninety percent of them had televisions and the homes and so the ad dollars all followed. And so you're getting this inundation of ads and kids are off for school in the summer. And so we're having this idea of summer sold to people. And I think that branding has still stuck with us in the bright colors and everything that's fun because we also had postwar technology that was allowing us to make coolers and make make different things but in these really fun colors. And I was like, why are we so So primary color focused in summer. I think it started there. Allie: yeah, the boldness and the saturation of the color. There's a sort of the dopamine decor, dopamine objects. It's bright, it's fun. You know, when you're talking about I immediately th thought of like David Hockney. Like David Hockney paintings kind of is the he's building this sort of Ro Rich: Mm plus. Allie: Like an aspirational lifestyle, the colors, the fun, the California living. There's this great scene in Mad Men. where the family, Betty Draper and Don and the kids, they go on this picnic it's just it's just like quintessential family summer picnic. ⁓ And at the end, ⁓ I watching it with my mom because at the end, Betty Draper, she takes picnic blanket with all the garbage. And then she sort of fans it out on the grass ⁓ and then packs up of her picnic basket stuff and then they go back into their perfect little car. And my mom Ro Rich: Yeah. Yeah, that's so funny because we had the industrial complex of the war that could mass manufacture and things and we were What are we gonna make? And so like you're saying, we started to make cheap, disposable goods. We used to just make things that people could consume quickly. And so it was like in nineteen forty nine, Madison Avenue spent twelve point three million on ads. The next year it was forty point eight. And then after that it was a hundred and twenty eight million dollars. And across the decade the spending was greater than the gross national product, personal income or any other economic index, which is nuts. Allie: thinking about this, there I know there's a term. There's a term for this of the accessibility of of cheap objects by like mass consumers. ⁓ let's pre Ro Rich: Anyway. Allie: Pre-Great War, pre-World War One, pre-World Wor War II, this idea of summering was a luxury. summer. I'm going to the Hamptons. I'm going to Nantucket for the weekend. I'm going to Rhode Island, to summer. that was just something elite families did, whether it was in Europe, ⁓ whether it was in the US, it was around the world. Ro Rich: Mm-hmm. Allie: And the average working class ⁓ lower class family, you didn't summer. You didn't have the economic ability to summer. And so what you're saying is post-war we were creating products services and experiences that allowed people to summer in a way that they hadn't been able to before. Summer became a verb for everybody versus just a season. ⁓ Ro Rich: Yes. So we were selling the idea of summer and if you think about suburbia being built and people moving out of the cities and like they were closing public pools because also integration was happening and was the idea that you would have your own little personal pool in your backyard with your people and it was s you know, selling also like the nuclear family postwar ⁓ ideal. So it was absolutely all of that. Allie: And bringing this back full circle to our Tomato Girl summer, a way, Instagram is the new Madison Avenue ⁓ ⁓ we live through our phones and we see ⁓ aspirational aesthetics and experiences and influencers showing idea of a summer that at the end the day, most people can't have this aesthetic. you can DIY ⁓ a cute little outfit or crafts to cosplay is that aesthetic. But yeah, it's an it's an interesting paradox about how we made it accessible and now we're now it's become inaccessible again. Or we've j we've increased this like social media has allowed us to raise the standards ⁓ for what we think our summer should ⁓ be. And hasn't made us more isolated or alienated more self conscious ⁓ that we're not living to some standard of what summer should be. ⁓ Ro Rich: Or is it fragmented where that's why you get the hot girl summer versus like fearal girl summer, which I super I love that, right? The Neal, Neil the Seal, or Neil the Seal summer. Listen, I would like a mix of all three, please. ⁓ with red solo cups and everything else. It's it is funny because we're still being sold the idea of what your summer should be. Like you're saying, or you're still being sold a style, but I think that original OG summer that we think of as American summer, it absolutely is Allie: Or seal summer, who's the seal again? Neil seal summer. Yeah. Ro Rich: those colors and that picnic and that's the nostalgia part of summer maybe. So ⁓ are are we doing like a need to summer for hot girl summer, or is it like, I want nostalgic summer and I want popsicles and slip and slides and that sort of thing. What if you mash it all up? Allie: Yeah. Yeah. like I ⁓ interesting 'cause there's nostalgia but also this new standard that's not nostalgic. It's I guess depends on what corner of the internet you're on. ⁓ But when feel like everything you see is, some ⁓ person some glamorous sundress and they're some gorgeous meal by the ocean or they're on some yacht or some boat, like that's not nostalgic. That's just like An aspirational lifestyle. But is that actually how those people are living? How much of that is authentic versus how much of it is posed? Ro Rich: For sure. That makes me think of those influencers who like rent condos and rent places or like rent they go sit on a private jet just to take a picture and then they get off because yes, how insane is that? Allie: Yeah. No, couldn't be me. Ro Rich: so you've got aspirational summer, you've got nostalgic summer. What are like the summer essentials? what are quintessential things that have defined how we experience summer no matter what? like linen has always existed. I actually saw this cool video about how ⁓ consumers want really soft linen now, but it used to be in the day you would buy the linen and it was stiff and you eventually over time you wore it in and that was part of the appeal of the fabric is that it was so long lasting. And so now ⁓ we're buying linen that's essentially been t stone tumbled and different things, so it's soft. But it didn't used to be that way. There's an aesthetic in wearing linen, Allie: The kind of irony of getting soft linen too is the way they have to make that soft is they have to kind of mess with the fibers to kind of rough ⁓ up a little bit to make ⁓ softer. But in doing so, it actually weakens the fiber. ⁓ you're you're getting this perception of ⁓ you're getting softer linen, but you're actually basically guaranteeing this thing you're buying is gonna last maybe a tenth as long as it would have. ⁓ Ro Rich: Yes. Allie: had you just bought the coarse linen and let it naturally soften over time. Yeah. Ro Rich: Yes. Exactly. Allie: Yeah. ⁓ trend I was seeing in terms of ⁓ was kinda started with interior design, kind of backyard and home trends for the summer, ⁓ but I think in the US, given it's two fifty this year. ⁓ Ro Rich: Mm-hmm. Allie: We're seeing trends that are leaning patriotic. ⁓ So you're things that maybe have a slightly preppier vibe, the sort of coastal vibe. You're seeing designs ⁓ and objects kind of reference Americana federalism, hand braided things, that show either handicrafts or weaving which I was interesting. Ro Rich: Mm. Tell me more tell me more about Federalist aesthetic 'cause I I do I can't reference it. Like I can reference like the New England preppy like Cape Cod vibe. I can I have a reference point for that, but I don't prefer Federalists. Tell me more. Allie: Yeah. So f federalism design ⁓ and I don't the exact years, but generally it's gonna be, seventeen sixties to early eighteen hundreds. ⁓ So is sort of the style of when you think about think like founding fathers. Think, you know, Ro Rich: Okay, okay, I gotcha. Allie: the guys on Antiques Road show, there's these two guys who they ⁓ over to see these two men, like an old lady, an old 80-year-old grandma, will bring I have this side table that I've had since I was a small girl, and it's just been sitting in the corner collecting dust. And it'll be like this Federalist end table, and these guys, they they lose their mind. So, anyways. So federal design, there's a usually a lot of woodwork. Ro Rich: Ha ha. Allie: There's gonna be simple, slightly organic wood cutouts. ⁓ You're gonna get little, minimal flourishes. So in furniture, you're gonna get a lot of dark woods, a lot of turning. So you're gonna get a lot like wood turning details and legs, yeah. Ro Rich: Turned up turned legs, okay. Allie: In architecture, that's where you're gonna see a lot of crown molding. And then externally you're gonna see a lot of ornate columns. gonna see again lot of trim on the exterior. Everything's also very symmetrical. So most government buildings, at least in DC, are in the federal style. ⁓ And in home design, you're gonna see a lot of wood, antique furniture things that were look handmade and have lot of craftsmanship to them. Ro Rich: Okay. So ⁓ that makes me it was almost like Okay. To me that's like a Quaker design style that's it's all handmade and it's something that yeah, that you associate with colonialism. Allie: Lot of brass, a lot of copper. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Where colonialism it's still a little primitive. It's still a little simplistic in its construction. Federalists is like, let's take all of the craftsmanship of colonial design and then let's just like crank up the the bouginess just a little bit. It's not full Art nouveau bouginess and swirliness, but it's like tasteful flourishes. Yeah. Ro Rich: Okay. Mm-hmm. Okay. Okay. It's like setting me in Boston. I'm feeling very Bostonian for some reason. Okay. I dig that. I feel I feel like one of the things that every now and then I see a pop of here and there across summers are parasols. And really love a parasol. It's such a vibe. I particularly like a Japanese style parasol. I think those are super fun. ⁓ Allie: Awesome. Yeah. Yes. Mmm. I love a parasol. Ro Rich: Can't get ⁓ wet, so like not working for summer rainstorms. But if you're in you know in a dry heat or a a place that you can it away, I parasols are so cool. And you know the Egyptians actually started the parasol vibe. So like girl, we've had parasols since Egypt. Isn't that nuts? Allie: Mm. I love that. Were the Egyptians by the Nile and having little picnics. ⁓ Ro Rich: I mean, yeah, Like talk about a summer, a summer by the Nile. I mean, thousands of years of summer, I wanna know if that vibe is still maintained over there. All right, we're taking a field trip to Egypt one summer. Allie: Let's do it. Let's go. You know what's beautiful about Egyptian design and think there's some similarities with Grecian ⁓ because they're both, you along a major coast. the craftsmanship and just the attention to detail ⁓ even the smallest things ⁓ are incredible. ⁓ whether it's even just the smallest little bowl ⁓ or a earring or a ⁓ box to a writing utensil in, everything was just a ⁓ beautiful jewel of an item. didn't we weren't building things with with plastic So there wasn't this idea consumer culture, designing every single thing in your life to be a thing to have as long as you could possibly have that and to make that object as decorative and beautiful as you to of reflect your story, your your taste, ⁓ your ⁓ Ro Rich: Well, I we've like I almost wonder in terms of pendulum swings, we over index on one thing and then we swing back to the other. So like we've injection molded, printed out everything we can think of. And so in the era of people pushing back against AI and over manufactured and over sleek design, the handmade human touch of something is very appealing. you we're we're looking at events that are not online, they're totally offline, you know, there's no phones. And so I wonder if if we see that return to design ⁓ more broadly of of handmade things and people ⁓ feeling a different sort of appreciation for things made in a industrial way. Like they see even buildings before you could put an elevator in a building. buildings in New York and they still have some they were no taller than like five stories because nobody wanted to walk up more than five flights of stairs. And so when you see a building or you have like there's a scale of when you walk through a neighborhood that the buildings are shorter there's something that humans feel connected to because they're like, ⁓ another human made this space. And it feels more accessible to you. So Allie: There's a realism. That was something that I saw as well in a summer design trend was intentional interior spaces, yards, that anti-AI. Like how do you build ⁓ a vacation, a party, a backyard barbecue ⁓ that does have this handmade feel to this slightly imperfect quality ⁓ that feels lived in and human. ⁓ Ro Rich: It's funny because when I think about the what you know, like this whole like pop camp summer that was manufactured in the fifties that we've had for a long time. And not to say it's not fun and that's not lovely, I love a fun, whimsical summer. I grew up in Florida. Girl, we've got camp everywhere. ⁓ But before that, like you were saying, people would go to coastal homes or They would exist with summer that wasn't manufactured or sold. The before mar summer could be marketed to us. and maybe we're returning to summer of yeah, I don't want it manufactured. I want it to be more timeless. Allie: ⁓ Cause I modern summer loves plastic molding and cheap stuff. The real hero ⁓ of is different plastic techniques from blow mold injections, blowforming, injection molding. all there. Ro Rich: Absolutely. I saw a really cool video the other day it was actually an homage to plastic chairs, especially in countries like Thailand and Singapore and other places you just grab those chairs and everybody's hanging out and chilling. ⁓ and it was after the Bad Bunny show. They were talking like the sets that they had. Like those plastic chairs are perfect designs. when we think about what is a good design. Allie: Yes. Yeah. Ro Rich: We have we have taken good design. We were able to make it plastic. It's functional. It's lightweight. You can grab stuff and move it around. the fact that we have plastic as a as a medium to make things with is actually incredibly cool and has a has a wonderful place in the design canon of just making objects. Allie: Yeah, 'cause ultimately cheap plastic things don't judge. traveled a lot in in countries where pull up and it's dusty and it's a little messy and you got ten of these cheap plastic chairs and you're sitting around barbecuing, having a beer, talking, laughing. It's ⁓ I was thinking a lot about that with summer, but like the summer aesthetic. There's this juxtaposition of we're going to the Hamptons and we're bringing our gorgeous linen s seersucker suits and we're gonna have drinks on the coast. But my summer was plastic. It was ⁓ kitty pools and big box grocery store ⁓ cupcake. containers with the super sugary cupcakes and cookies and kind of were talking about nostalgia earlier. That's nostalgia for me for summer is cheap plastic stuff. And we had a blast. ⁓ Ro Rich: Well guess what? Plastic can get wet, babe. And especially when you live in places that are tropical. Hello, Florida. Or those countries you're talking about. I think about Anthony Bourdain when he went to Vietnam. I think it was Vietnam and he met up with Obama there. And they were sitting at like, you know, a small plastic table. I'm like, yeah, in tropical places it rains and you need plastic to get wet and dry because you can't keep having furniture out there. ⁓ So like the functionality of that is so ⁓ Awesome and just it's it's timeless in its own right, you know? it's very cool. speaking of popsicles, I was looking up, I don't know if I told you this, when ⁓ popsicles were invented, in the early nineteen hundreds. So this guy Frank Epperson left ⁓ soda outside. It wasn't this in San Francisco. Allie: Yeah. Ro Rich: with a stick in it, he'd been stirring it and he left it outside overnight and it froze. And so he was like, Huh. Ten years later, I think he actually patented the design for a popsicle, but he called it an Epsicle. And the ⁓ Allie: What is Epsicle? What what's the entomology of Epsicle? Ro Rich: Frank Epperson. Okay, so here it is. Frank Epperson accidentally invented it in nineteen ⁓ five as an 11-year-old boy in the Bay Area. He was left soda water with a stirring stick on the porch overnight. Then he patented it in 1923. then in the Great Depression, they made a two-stick version. Do you remember two-stick popsicles? And there was so you could share it with your friends. Yes, and so they made this version so two kids could split one for a nickel. And that Allie: Yeah, you could share it with your friend. Ro Rich: Awesome. I was like, ⁓ that's such a cool design th that that would be patented. Like freezing something with a stick is a ⁓ And was like said in the patent application something about like the stick handles the mess, so you can eat this frozen treat or whatever. Allie: To live in an era where you could patent a pops skull. That's incredible. Yeah. Ro Rich: Right? Well, I I mean I think the nostalgia of it is also fun, we like fun. Design of fun is really important. And I feel like it's you know, there's a lot of cheer in things that are easy and don't too precious. Like also talking about plastic, plastic doesn't feel so precious that you have to be delicate or reverent with it and it can just be functional. Allie: Yeah. Ro Rich: In a way that brings the joy in. Like, I don't have to worry about this. It can get wet, it can get whatever and it's just it's fun. Allie: when I think of plastic objects of summer, ⁓ of the things I think about is little kitty pools you'd get from the hardware store. ⁓ And talking about the sort of preciousness of things, would tear those things to shreds because you'd fill them up with water and the best part of them was in letting the water out and so you'd kind of push the plastic down. Ro Rich: I can't. Jump it over. Yeah. Allie: We'd wash our dogs in them. You'd fill them up with ice to put drinks in. ⁓ it was the workhorse of summer plastic gatherings. Like it wasn't a summer party or a summer if there wasn't some kiddie pool being tossed around or filled with something or rolled around or and by the end of the summer it's just it's broken and snapped and there's holes in it. And then next summer you just get a new one. Ro Rich: Mm. I mean, I know that we have to be more of our plastic use and consumption as a whole, as a society, because we overindexed on it But the idea of plastic just as an innovation and as something that could be molded ⁓ and ⁓ made into literally anything is so fascinating, honestly. Allie: what is your iconic plastic summer object? ⁓ And if this is yours, I don't wanna steal it. But I don't think we could talk about cheap summer plastic items without exalting the pink flamingo. That's a But pink flamingos are year round. I don't think they're just for summer. You could have a pink flamingo any season. Ro Rich: Okay. ha ha. Listen, if you live in Florida there every season, I've never had a pink flamingo. I have neighbors that have I mean, you just drive by, they're in the yard. I should probably get one. They also have now Halloween flamingos, so as soon as fall hits you can get a a black and white flamingo that looks like a skeletal flamingo, which is so fun. I thought about getting some of those. I'm actually looking at it's sitting on my porch. I have this igloo cooler. ⁓ It is bright yellow with pink handles and a turquoise top. I remember having the little ⁓ the like little personal igloo coolers, remember ones? They kind of look like a house. They have like the the handle goes. Those are such a cool thing. And again, you know, plastic cooler. an igloo started in forty seven when I was looking it up ⁓ and they galvanized steel first. Because they were for Texas oil field workers. They were like water dispensers. but then Dow Chemical developed styrofoam, which was a replacement, and it got repurposed into ice chests. So it's funny because again, these functional objects that were functional for the wartime and for workers, and we talked about it in the ⁓ even in the cup episode. And yeah, end up being repurposed into Allie: A Stanley episode. Ro Rich: backyard fun or family time picnic objects. and colorful and it's fun. And so Yeah. I love it. ⁓ Allie: My dad had one of those igloo coolers and he brought it he packed his lunch in it. He I think he used the exact same igloo cooler with that kind of triangular top that would fold down. Yeah, I think he used the same lunchbox literally every day for forty years. Yeah. Ro Rich: Yeah, if like slipped, you push the button on the side and it would flip. I remember having one as a kid and they're just they're so cool and so useful and Igloo has been doing these really fun re-releases of like their nostalgic colors. So every year I'm like, do I need a new cooler? No girl, you do not. But I do I want to buy one? Yes, yes, I do. I want one in a hundred colors because they just bring they bring joy and I like it. Allie: Mm. Ooh, should talk about solo cups and the innovation in solo cups? ⁓ Ro Rich: Yeah, do you wanna take that? You wanna tell us about the solo cups, Mama? Allie: I mean, I don't know much about the history of solo cups, but I think culturally they are an iconic object of summer. And I think again, it's this everyman quality, this every person quality where there's a versatility. You can have a solo cup at a frat party, you can have a solo cup on a boat, you can have it At a graduation backyard party. You can have it in the park. There's this the solo cup is for all. And we love it. has the stackability, the portability. It was it's a it's a workhorse of an object. It was really designed for disposability, which we don't love, but the amount of use and then the versatility you can get out of this cup is pretty impressive in terms of, as far as drink wear goes. ⁓ Ro Rich: Yes. All right, I'll give you the quick history. ⁓ because we talked about it the other day. mullet of dinnerware. The so ⁓ Mullet of Dinnerware. The Solo Cup Company started in nineteen thirty six. Leo Huselman started making paper cone cups. Remember those when you go to the cooler and pull out a paper drinking cup? Allie: Yeah. The mullet of dinner, yes, that's what I was looking for. I despise a paper cone cup. Ro Rich: They were waxed, ⁓ my gosh. Because I guess in that era they were pushing people towards more disposable, more sanitary drink wear than people swigging from the same tin cup or whatever. ⁓ so the red solo cup didn't show up until the seventies. His son Robert developed it in polystyrene and then let his kids pick the color. Red, blue, peach, and yellow. Red won by a landslide, and it still outsides blue by a really wide margin today. Allie: Fair. Ro Rich: but yeah, it's so iconic. Actually I have a friend from Australia and she was like when I came here and she w she came to grad school at SCAD and she said, I went to my first party and I was like, ⁓ my gosh, red solo cups, that's a real thing. we think of it as a stereotype, but she goes, I was so pleased and delighted when I went to my first party and I saw that. And then her friends came over to visit and they were like, ⁓ Red Solo Cup to the party. She's like, Yes, this is totally it. Allie: She's like, I've truly experienced America now that I've seen a solo cup. Ro Rich: ⁓ my gosh. The grooved rings that are in there, yes, are for measuring. They were added in two thousand and three and they are a gauge for shots and beers and whatever. and so it's because we we talk a lot about form and function also and we're obsessed with that. So this cup that was set out to just be really functional has become an iconic design because it's that good that you know Now it is ubiquitous, another one of my favorite words that you can't imagine summer or certain parties without that. And I love it so much. I have one last object that I want to talk about. Flip flops. Allie: Yes. Ooh flippy floppies. Ro Rich: Flippy floppies. Listen, okay, if you grow up in Florida, I'm guilty of this. You have many different types of flip-flops. You have your good flip-flops, you have your beach flip-flops, you have your pool flip-flops, you have your going out flip-flops, and then you have like your ratty flip-flops that you wear around to like kick around in the dirt and whatever. And when I you flip shit. You do. You have different. Allie: These are my black tie flip flops. These Ro Rich: Flip-flops for different occasions. even when I went to Florida State and it was cold, girl, I was running around campus in flip-flops. It was like 30 degrees out, and I was like, I'm not giving up my flip-flops. I was in my reefs. But flip-flops, ⁓ okay, ancient Egyptians also had flip-flops. Surprise, they had girl, they did. Allie: Mm. The Egyptians they really knew how to summer. They they lived in the desert. They understood hot weather. Ro Rich: Listen, OG Hot Girl Summer is Egyptian friends. Legit. With their parasols and their papyrus sandals. and the rubber version we have was kind of an accident after World War Two. Japan rebuilt cheap footwear using rubber reserves and they remade the traditional Zori sandal. An American soldier stationed there brought them home and by the nineteen fifties a flip-flop was slang for the sound they made. Allie: Yeah. Yeah. Ro Rich: ⁓ Javiana's launched in nineteen sixty-two and basically we've been wearing this awesome ⁓ and rubber, shoe ever since. And I mean it picked up, you know, in California surf culture and all of that. So as a tried and true ⁓ flip-flop girly, can I can give you some serious recommendations on like the best flip flops to wear. Allie: Shout out to flip flops. Yeah, no, I'll take your Rex. I have one pair of flip flops in my whole household. Ro Rich: one is not enough. I can't you only have one pair of flip flops. I'm like ⁓ Allie: Yeah. ⁓ Okay, you were talking about watershoes. Have you been seeing that jelly shoes are also majorly trending this year? As water shoes? Well, they're taking idea of 80s jelly shoes. Though the true jelly shoes, jelly shoes, I think two years ago were kind of a thing. Now we're trying to make them classy. So two proof points. One, ⁓ believe Chloe has this viral ⁓ they call it like the Cinderella. Ro Rich: ⁓ you mean like eighties jelly shoes? Allie: Jelly shoe. Yeah, they're just called jelly mules, but people are calling them the Cinderella shoe because they're jelly material, they look a cute little ⁓ mule of pump. Very cute, but From what I've heard, incredibly uncomfortable. then the other one is Skims. They've just come out with like a w a quote, a water shoe, like a two hundred dollar water shoe that's basically a jelly shoe. So, yeah. ⁓ Ro Rich: You kn my sisters had jellies. I didn't like them because when it's hot in the summer your feet are sticking to those and I was like, No, I am not wearing Allie: You get blister. jelly shoes are not good because a sweaty feet against plastic creates friction. What friction does is creates blisters. That makes your feet hurt. So folks, if you take away nothing, don't wear jelly shoes in the summer. I don't care if they look cute. You're gonna be in a lot of pain and you're gonna have a lot of blisters. Ro Rich: No. Function over form all day every day. The form is cute, the function is not cute. Allie: Yeah. My preferred summer footwear, especially if I'm being like outdoors outdoors. mean I ⁓ still rock a Birkin. I to this day I I love a Birkin. ⁓ even Love a Birkin. I love a chunky like hiking sandal, specifically the Echo brand. I know people really ride for Tevas. I'm an Echo girl. They're Ro Rich: ⁓ I have tons of Birken socks. I love ⁓ I rise for Tibus. What a echo. Allie: It's E C C O. They're not cute at all, but they are by far the best hiking sandal like I've ever worn. I've literally had pairs that I've r like had run holes through. I wore them so much. And Ro Rich: I didn't know hiking sandal was a genre of shoe. Girl, what? Wow, I'm looking at these. They do look like the orthopedic of summer sandals. Allie: Yeah. ⁓ yeah. Yeah. They're definitely orthopedic, but you can get a lot of longevity out of those those bad Ro Rich: Some mileage you're walking some mileage in these. I wonder what the Egyptians would have thought. Wow. Allie: Mm-hmm. For orthopedic arches. Ro Rich: I mean, they were walking. I mean, you either in the river on a boat or you were walking somewhere in that desert. So amazing. So of summer design objects. How do we ⁓ do we tie this all together? How are we what are how are we setting up a summer vibe? What's the experience? I mean we started talking about aspirational summer. What are people what kind of vibes are people trying to make for summer? Allie: Mm-hmm. Yeah. Ro Rich: There's the aesthetic, there's the color. You could have beige girl summer. You could have brat summer where everything was green. ⁓ but about those experiences of how we have a barbecue or get together a backyard or ⁓ hang out on the porch for drinks. ⁓ I feel like timeless summer design is also designed to be easy and breezy. Literally, because you're like, I don't wanna fuss. It's hot. I'm already hot. I'm hot. I'm schwitzing. I need a cold beverage. And I feel like the most iconic summer designs are things that get you a shortcut to comfort. So here's a quick chair, pull it up and sit down. Here's your solo cup drink. you can drop it and it won't break. Don't worry. throw on your rubber flip-flops. when I think about those things that you have as a kid, summer is easy and fun, ⁓ and there is that that not breakable aspect of summer that doesn't feel as precious mean, you're in your play clothes, and that's a really good time. Allie: Yeah, and I think that kinda leads the a trend summer design ⁓ this idea of functionality, that everything like using the solo cup, the kitty pool, ⁓ is an example. Ro Rich: Mm. Allie: Everything should have function, even in sort of architecture, ⁓ if you garden, shrubs that both look beautiful, but also maybe are edible, like having berry shrubs, ⁓ or having plants are drought resistant or ⁓ pet friendly, or that also help with privacy in your home. having objects that you said, like you said, resilient to summer conditions and the sort of the ⁓ the messiness of summer, but also still have an aesthetic quality. So really things that that have that blend of form and function are important. ⁓ Ro Rich: Yeah. And then if you stir them all together, that's where you get like your vibes for your experience, right? So can you do like an aspirational summer experience with red solo cups, my friend? That's my my question to you. Allie: Make Red Solo Cups classy. love it. Ro Rich: Could you have like a Federalist design summer with red solo cups? Is that like the the perfect high and low you know, old Boston classic, o ⁓ architecture vibes and I've got red solo like Allie: I think you've just described a BU frat party. Yeah. I think one other trend that's interesting is everything's back and forth, everything's a pendulum swing. We're both craving things that feel, handmade and human and authentic, but we also still love a Ro Rich: It still exists, everyone. It's still in the wild, nature's healing. Allie: We love a trendy little thing. Or things that will ⁓ make summer more ⁓ Whether a robotic lawnmower some at the ⁓ or some ⁓ smart shoe we wanted to appear handmade quaint, ⁓ we also Ro Rich: Hm. Allie: there's th there's always gonna be those like those gadget people who are gonna want it to also be be smart and have some sort of little little extra zhuzh to it as well. Ro Rich: I feel like there's a lot of great gadgets marketed around grilling. And sometimes they're hit or miss. Like you can read the temperature of your grill from in the house ⁓ because it's so outside, you don't want to stand by the grill, babe. Like if you're living in Florida, ⁓ you're like, well, so hot, I'll just run out there and put on the sausages when the grill is hot. and you set up this thing. And I feel like we got my dad one, and I can't remember it ever worked for him or not. And he's like, listen, I can just go walk outside and read the grill. But grilling there's always fun gadgets And then there's always grill innovation too. And every I'm like, ooh, I should buy that new grill. I'm like, no, I shouldn't. ⁓ But have you seen those blackstone flat top griddles that everyone wants to buy? It's like a Allie: No, is that the new is that the new big green egg? Ro Rich: Girl, yes, that's the new big green egg. And it's like a flat top cast iron. It's kind of hibachi style, mama. And it's got like four burners on it, but it's just all flat top. And so you can sear stuff. But I have I have a a cast iron griddle that I can put on the grill when I want a flat top. otherwise I'm like girl, you ain't getting those grill marks. You're not getting that flame on your burgers or whatever. So I'm a purist. Allie: There you go. I you know, it's not summer if you don't eat a little bit of char. You know, a little dose of carcinogens with your hot dog. That's what I want. Ro Rich: Yeah, absolutely. I think it's Listen, it yeah, yeah, it's all right. It's good for you. Allie: I feel like birding is really trending right now. Millennials have just really entered their birding era. So I'm seeing a lot of like gadgets for like birding gadgets or Ro Rich: Needs. What kind of gadgets beyond binoculars might one have? Allie: there's smart bird feeders where they have little video cameras and then they can tell you what kind of bird they're seeing. ⁓ personally, my parents, they we live in a very rural area. They have a a deer camera and so they love their deer camera and like every morning they wake up and they're like, ⁓ d was there a deer deer camera last night? And like, you know, so things that allow you to see and understand animals. Gadgets that can do that. Ro Rich: What? Yeah. The nature surveillance. Listen, I do love those videos of birds online. And I saw one this morning about this owl. her eggs weren't viable. And so she left the nest and they swapped out her two eggs with two little orphaned owlettes, which is the proper name for baby owls. And she was like, ⁓ my god, babies, and came and like here are her babies. And I was like, I'm not crying, you're crying. So I do love a nature cam video to see animals and birds and all of that. I'm here for it. Allie: Summer innovations that just allow us to be our inner snow white and just commune with nature. Sink with all the woodland creatures. Ro Rich: Yes. Allie: ⁓ All right. ⁓ Should we close out with our design of the are there any are there any stones or burgers left unflipped ⁓ that we did not talk about? ⁓ That burning you want to talk about when comes to the aesthetics of summer design. Ro Rich: You know We have not yet talked about little Edie, unless you want that to be your design, darling, and you can about ⁓ Allie: It is not, but I th yeah, we can we just need to sidebar real quick on Great Garden. Ro Rich: how can you think about Summer without thinking about little Edie and her flag dance? Allie: ⁓ my god. What a what a gem. You know, she really was ahead of her time. If little Edie had social media, ⁓ god, she would have been unstoppable. We Ro Rich: Girl. She really would have and I feel like I it's almost gonna be a cross between like Britney Spears knife videos and, you know, twirling batons. It's kinda it's kinda giving the same energy. Allie: Yeah, I think the only modern day understanding that we have of ⁓ Edie, how she would have been received, is Monsoon's impression of her is a barometer. We also the Bill Hayter and Fred Armison mockumentary. That's incredible. Ro Rich: Little E Little Edie's so iconic, there's a Broadway musical, as you informed me, about Grey Gardens. There is also the other film that Drew Barrymore was in as Little Edie. Like Little Edie has been a cultural phenomenon and case study made and remade because people cannot get enough of her. I mean, she succeeded. She is an icon. Allie: She's an icon. wanted fame and she got it. ⁓ Ro Rich: ⁓ honey, did she ever? Allie: Hm, making the Hamptons both creepy chic. ⁓ a video you can watch of ⁓ the current homeowners, the people who own Great because I think it was, ⁓ you well after the documentary, ⁓ but developer bought Grey Gardens ⁓ and ⁓ just did full they didn't tear it down, which I thought was really incredible of them, but they ⁓ they did a full to bottom complete renovation and ⁓ I don't know if ⁓ architectural digest or Vogue but there's videos where you can talk to like the current homeowners and they'd like bring you through it and it's great. ⁓ Ro Rich: Wow. Makes me want a hot dog real bad. Allie: Also another of summer, Jennifer Coolidge. Ro Rich: ⁓ my gosh. Well I I mean summer's also blockbuster time because everyone's hot and so they're going to the movies to get out of the heat and so Odyssey is about to be a big it's dropping I think next week. Also th have you seen this ad for the RuPaul train movie, the Glamour train or whatever it is? I wanna go see it. Allie: Like w what's the title called? Like Stop There's a Train or like The Trains Off the Tracks, Darling? What's the name of that? But yeah, I was actually just listening to an interview with ⁓ with Matt Rogers. because he's Rue's of staff. Ro Rich: Hold on. Yes. stop that train. That's what it is. I need to watch it. Allie: ⁓ that looks Ro Rich: talk about iconic summer movie. But yeah, I mean like everything crazy, like big movies Jaws, Jurassic Park, Wet Hot American Summer, how many like summer camp movies, dazed and confused. Like there's so many movies that we make about American Summer too that have just been, you know, exported around the world that even even if you've never had an American summer, my friend Abby has now, but you might ⁓ you've never had a summer in America, but you know what exactly what it looks like, how it sounds. Allie: Yeah. Ro Rich: What's what's at the party? Like you totally know that vibe. Allie: Yeah. ⁓ Wet Hot American Summer ⁓ basically a documentary. ⁓ my favorite is the the comic where he's like, ⁓ I'm so old that when I went to camp, camp counselor was Jesus and my campmate was Gronk and he went Ugh. So stupid. That's a great movie. Ro Rich: Ha ha ha ha. ⁓ my god. That's insane. Allie: Yeah, we could just have a whole episode just talking about the aesthetics of of camp. I don't know if you were a summer camp family, but I Ro Rich: ⁓ I went to music camp in the summer because I was a music camp nerd. ⁓ I'm a serious nerd. Yes, horse camp girl. Yes. ⁓ my gosh. Allie: I mean, I went to a horse camp for one week, so Best week of my life. It was a YMCA camp. We'd go ride horses for four hours. Ro Rich: That's amazing. my goodness. ⁓ I do feel like this is a great segue into our design darling of the week. Would you like to proceed with your darling, madam? Allie: Our design darling of the week. So let's raise a glass to an iconic symbol, object interaction system that represents the design summer. And my design darling of the week ⁓ is the summer hostess, ⁓ the hostess the most this is Ina Garden. I don't feel like ⁓ you can about summer. Ro Rich: I knew you were gonna say that. Yes. Yes. As soon as you're like the iconic summer hostess, I was like, I'm a garden, here she goes. That's it. Allie: my personal mantra of her sort ethos is joyousness, excess, only with the best ingredients. And what I love about Aina is she's both just she's incredibly brilliant. She worked in DC for years as a nuclear budget analyst for OMB, which if you don't know OMB, they basically manage the budget in DC. Marries her lovely hus husband, Jeffrey. They met through Dartmouth, which I also just Jeffrey's a whole other conversation. He just like somehow mysteriously appears at the end of every episode and is like, ⁓ Ro Rich: Wow. Allie: I just got home from work with my job that I can't tell you about. Like, look at this beautiful bread you baked. Anyways, so she works in government for years at this very important job. And then leaves, and in nineteen seventy-eight, at the age of thirty, she purchases this sort of little in the Hamptons called the Barefoot Contessa. And she as a And think her dad ⁓ was a nutritionist. And so she up ⁓ loving food. But she wasn't ⁓ unquote an entrepreneur. She just like had a passion ⁓ for and she had a passion for making ⁓ food gorgeous ingredients and bringing people together. ⁓ And then ⁓ is when published the Barefoot Contessa, her cookbook, and I think from there kind of the rest is history. But ⁓ I how balances ⁓ relatability, but she's also with the details. And then I think she ultimately has a sense of community. warmth, ⁓ able to design that are both approachable. But you are obsessed with details, she has like an entry point for you. And that being able to be accessible ⁓ to both kinds of people ⁓ I think is like a really rare gift. Like her the joke is like Storebot is fine. Like she wants you to be excellent. Like she's gonna give you the hardest path to get somewhere to make a puffed pastry. she kinda might be judging you if you do go buy the store-bot puffed pastry. But ultimately she's gonna meet you where you are, ⁓ and the end of the day, she just wants you to like ⁓ create something that proud of that you enjoy that'll help you bring people together Ro Rich: I wanna go to one of her backyard parties and meet Jeffrey and drink wine with them. Allie: ⁓ my god. Bucket list item. She I don't know if you listen to Amy Polar's podcast. Ro Rich: Total. Allie: But she went on Amy Poehr's podcast recently. It was a great interview. And Amy Pohler on her set. She has this tower of fake food as just like a funny little backdrop thing. And Ina Garten brought Amy Pohler a gift. And Amy was like, No one ever brings me gifts on my podcast. are you kidding me? She brought a plastic figurine of a spatchcock chicken. ⁓ it was Ro Rich: Stop it. Allie: ⁓ incredible. It was like a to scale plastic thing of a spatchcod chicken. And Amy's like, this is now my most prized possession that I own. Ro Rich: Listen, talk about the versatility of plastic, first of all. do you remember all the fake plastic food you had as kids? it was part of your play sets that you had. But then also I remember my grandmother having I guess it was wax before that. Remember wax fruit that people would put in bowls and put out on tables? And then innovation came along, and now you have plastic, spatchcock chickens. What a time. ⁓ my god. That actually you mentioned the meme, and I was gonna say my favorite Ina Garten meme is coming up for fall where Allie: Yeah. Yes. Great. But yeah. Ro Rich: He's in a witch's hat and it's like if you can't summon the flames from hell, store bot are fine or whatever that is. Allie: Yeah. I love that. It's not fall until you post that. Yeah. Ro Rich: ⁓ my gosh. Allie: All right, Robin, what is your design, darling? Ro Rich: my design, darling, ⁓ actually a Liechtenstein piece of art. ⁓ And if don't know who Roy Liechtenstein is, Liechtenstein? Liechtenstein? Allie: Ooh. think an English pronunciation is Liechtenstein. Like you wanna be like Liechtenstein, like you're gonna be like, yeah. Ro Rich: Licton? All right. I mean, I I I I don't have that good of a German accent. But so there is a piece that he did, and June is holding up a beach ball, and he took that picture and he remade it and he we're coming full circle with pop and pop art ⁓ and primary So he painted Bend A dots. And the Bende Dots, you know them from comics in the 50s because they were a cheap way to print fake to fake color on gradients, but on primary only presses, because you had CMYK, which is cyan, which is blue, for those of us playing at home. Magenta is your red, yellow is Y, and K is your black. And so those were your colors that you have. We still have those in print today. Like if you're printing something, guess what, babe? Your inkjet at at home is CMYK. So what was in the comics that you seen from those comic strips like Archie and Bazooka and all of those, they were CMYKs. So Lichtenstein would do a mural size of those and he would paint those, he would hand paint those dots in the CMYK. and so it's cool because he took that manufactured part of consumer culture, the CMYK prints, And blew them up so you could see them really big. And if you ever looked closely at those comics, you saw it. But he did that picture of June Springer holding the beach ball in his CMYK Bende Dots. So w ⁓ it made me think of the fifties and It'sy Bitsy Teeny Weenie Yellow Polka Dot Bikini and that whole like, you know, summer beach boys, ⁓ groovy kind of vibe. So I thought that was pop summer art and coming full circle. Allie: I hadn't thought of art as the sort of indicator of summer. But you're right. Legend sign and pop art is a great example of the and the sort of enthusiasm that we to over the season. Ro Rich: Yeah, And even Warhol, he was an advertiser. He was drawing to sell shoes. And then he made that first silk screen print, I it was like sixty-two, he did the Coke bottle. I mean he basically was like, ⁓ that ad that you liked? Here, I just mass produced it and I signed it. he selling consumers' goods and he decided to make ads art and obviously you know all the rest of that, but it's funny because he was almost satirizing it, so It can't it kinda like snapped together and made me think of the the nostalgia part comes from that fifties inception of being sold summer. So here we are. Rockin' summer, ⁓ know. ⁓ my gosh. Allie: Well, lovely. Well, it's July. We only have so many precious weeks of summer left. ⁓ So out with your solo cups, your Pajmina Afghans, flippy floppies. ⁓ Yeah, get on boat. pack a picnic. Fill up your igloo cooler. get a pool noodle. We even talk about pool noodles. That's a whole other thing. Ro Rich: All these Your parasols. ⁓ my god, one of my favorite objects. Listen. Sweetie. If you them in the pool, you have to check the inside hollow for spiders because spiders would like to live in there. Allie: Pools. We even talk about pools and pool noodles. Ro Rich: So they can hold you up while you have a beverage in one hand and you talk to your friend and you just kinda hang out. All right, pool noodles can be their own. We'll have to do a whole episode on like foam and foam Allie: Ooh, foam objects. Alright. Well, go find a body of water to float in. And ⁓ enjoy your summer until next time. Ro Rich: Yep, stay cool, darlings. More soon. Bye. Allie: Cool. All right. Ta-ta. Bye.