The Weekly Roundup (week of 4.22)

starting my new job next week as a NYC reservation reseller

1. Why You Can’t Get a Restaurant Reservation

Prospective buyers browse a list of restaurants organized by locale. Frey designed an algorithm that determines the most popular places based on reservation requests; in New York, 4 Charles, Tatiana (an Afro-Caribbean place at Lincoln Center), and COQODAQ (Flatiron Korean fried chicken) currently top the list. Users can click around a glitchy Google Maps plug-in, or type a restaurant’s name in the search bar. You can buy a limited selection of “instantly available reservations”—an indoor Friday-night four-top at Don Angie, a modern Village trattoria, for two hundred and twenty-five dollars—or place a bid, for a restaurant and a time of your choosing. Then individual resellers (for instance, FlirtatiousCanvas69, ExpeditiousFork45) can accept the bid and fulfill it by any means necessary. 

I guess it was inevitable that someone called FlirtatiousCanvas69 would be a top restaurant reservation reseller. The fact that restaurants are missing out on this extra value seems like… a misstep. Someone somewhere is probably working on a new start-up after reading this piece.

2. AN AMERICAN ODYSSEY: THE ADVERTISEMENTS OF RALPH LAUREN

One thing is certain: Lauren defined American style for a generation, if not several. Over the years, his signature mixture of sportswear and prep garnered him financial success, critical acclaim, and cultural gravitas. Unlike other brands of similar scope, Ralph Lauren has managed to maintain its integrity amid a tangled net of diffusion lines. From Purple Label and RRL to Polo, Lauren’s empire has managed to successfully target almost every type of customer, while sustaining its relevance for over half a century.

Ralph is the blueprint. Read the full piece for a critical review of the iconic, timeless advertising of Ralph Lauren.

3. Before you cop a piece, flip it inside out

Get educated on seams and finishing to get a true understanding of whether or not you should cop your next piece. Luxury does not always = quality finishing. Read here.

4. The Meta-morphosis of Mark Zuckerberg

Mark Zuckerberg’s rapid transformation and rebrand from the hated robot humanoid-lizard billionaire to the somewhat swaggy and personable (Mark Zuckerberg has rizz??) billionaire is something I will always give him credit for. He can definitely thank Elon for replacing him as the most hated man in America, but Zuck is definitely doing something right. His approach to PR and media has been on point and the guy certainly knows what he’s doing. Read here.