Hot dogs are the hottest thing in design right now
According to The Future Perfect, Gohar World, Herman Miller, and me.
When I get behind something, it becomes sort of a fixture of my personality, not by force necessarily, it just evolves and if you post enough pictures of any one thing, people do begin to associate you with it. Sometimes people randomly send me interesting chairs with a quick “thought of you,” other times it’s a wall of Haribo at a bodega in a foreign country that prompts a text, but for the last 6 months it’s been a lot of hot dog content.
It started when I declared Dogma, the no-frills hot dog stand near my house, “The best restaurant in Miami” and picked up when I posted to my story, “Bury me at Dogma.” I’ve never read the menu board and my simple order never sways: a hot dog with ketchup and mustard, and a cherry coke. Whether I’m having the worst day, am uninterested in cooking, or simply fed up with Miami’s astronomical prices, Dogma has never let me down (not sponsored), and honestly hot dogs in general haven’t.
But it’s not just me who’s been gearing up for a “glizzissance” as one of my TikTok followers put it. The design world is pushing this agenda forward too. And honestly, I’m very happy about this– pairing hot dogs with $5,000+ chairs is both kitschy and chic.
Take, The Future Perfect, for example, who hosted my dream party for Frieze LA. After roleplaying homeowners and exploring the installations throughout the Hollywood estate, we stepped out to the backyard where a giant hot-dog-shaped Tale of the Pup hot dog stand and a man passing around Pure Beauty joints with a pair of tongs were waiting for us.
Flash forward to a couple of weeks ago when the press releases for nyc design week started to hit my inbox. I noticed something. Hot dogs. At first it was subtle, but then Herman Miller’s PR reached out with an invite to celebrate an archival release (my favorite).
Throughout the 1970s and 80s, Herman Miller hosted annual company picnics complete with rides, games, and all the necessary fair things. The beloved tradition inspired a yearly poster of a quintessential potluck item, designed by the brand’s first in-house designer, Steve Frykholm. Of the 20 posters, Herman Miller would release the 1973 Hot Dog Picnic poster. Did they not start with the 1970 poster because hot dogs are hot?
In any case, to celebrate the print release, the brand would host a “picnic” this week at their nyc store, complete with a Herman Miller branded hot dog stand. I responded, “When does the embargo lift?” aka code for how soon can I talk about this.
A few hours before that embargo did lift, I found myself on Gohar World’s homepage. Two men posed holding up a giant hot dog on the Coney Island Pier. I thought to myself, “Even a brand known for silk baguettes bags and metallic aprons is having a hot dog summer.” I immediately filmed a TikTok.
Tiktok failed to load.Enable 3rd party cookies or use another browser
Days after that, I noticed indie design show JONALDDUDD’s posters for design week. Every single one featured a hot dog, sometimes the main attraction, other times, a subtle easter egg. I needed to know why. I dug until I found Masha Chernyakhovskaya, the creator of ‘Hot Dog O’Clock’ featured in the show and center-stage of press releases. On her site, she also has a ‘Hotdog lamp.’
At BDDW on Friday night, the Soho furniture showroom hosted a carnival adjacent evening. Upon walking in, they handed everyone a golf pencil and scrap paper, instructing to write your name and phone number. In the main room they had the most legit raffle ticket collector I’ve ever seen. At the end of the night, owner, Tyler Hays, stood in front of the crowd with a mic announcing the lucky recipients of ceramic vases, all the way to floor lamps and a reading chair. I didn’t secure any of those things, but they served dressed hot dogs from behind a makeshift bar so I’d call that a win.
What does this all mean exactly? Yeah, there’s the fact that hot dogs are cheap, convenient, and delicious. And we’ve been in this high/low juxtaposition for some time now. But I’d like to push it further and say that nostalgic fun is re-entering the chat just in time for summer. It’s not that no one was having fun before, but I do think we started taking ourselves a tad too seriously in design, fashion, and even food. And it is a bit ironic that in the height of food art (I spoke to 10 food artists for Arch Digest last summer) and surrealism, classic hot dogs were the top dog at design week.
So how do I see this playing out? In brand land, it’s the perfect moment for someone to do a custom fun house or moon bounce. Or maybe we just leave it to Herman Miller to bring back their annual picnic (and invite us).
The super trendy Alaia Teckel is the hotdog of the handbag world.
this is art