What happens when you fuse a high-tech hoodie with the rarest of CryptoPunks? For Colby Mugrabi, founder and CEO of new fashion brand mmERCH, it’s a next-level luxury streetwear extravaganza that’s destined to impress web3’s most passionate collectors.
From September 25 to October 2, mmERCH will collaborate with Austrian crystal company Swarovski and digital artist Claire Silver to launch a series of hoodies inspired by Punk #8348, the only CryptoPunk to feature seven characteristics.
The iconic punk is owned by Daniel Maegaard, better known by his alias “Seedphrase,” an art collector and investor whom Mugrabi calls a “dear friend” with a deep connection to luxury goods and physical art.
Since purchasing Punk#8348in May 2020 for just under $18,000, Seedphrase has promoted the avatar as part of his personal brand, even donning life-sized punk and DJ masks alongside Steve Aoki and Diplo.
“It felt like a match made in heaven,” Mugrabi told OpenSea. “Not only is Seedphrase an advisor and investor in mmERCH, but he’s honestly one of the most respected figures in the space, both as a collector and as a champion of digital art.”
The collaboration between mmERCH and Seedphrase began with Autoglyph
The collaboration between Seedphrase and mmERCH began in March 2024, when the company had just raised $6.4 million in investor funding and was preparing for a high-profile launch of its Genesis Drop Egg Collection.
Seedphrase allowed Mugrabi to print his Autoglyph, a work based on CryptoPunks creator LarvaLabs’ on-chain generative art project, for an April launch event. These early conversations opened the door to more collaborations, and before meeting in person, they shared early prototypes of what would become the Punk#8348hoodie.
Next, the two met during NFT NYC, and “we had a few meetings while he was in town to discuss some ideas and prototypes,” Mugrabi said. “Things just kind of progressed from there.”
As a CryptoPunk owner (Mugrabi is the proud holder of Punk #954), she enthusiastically accepted the challenge of designing a hoodie based on the ultra-rare Seven Attribute Punk.
She noted: “Seedphrase’s punk style is a big part of his identity, both in the NFT space and as a DJ, and we wanted to abstract his punk elements and present them in a way that reflects his personality both digitally and in real life, while keeping everything streamlined and rooted in quiet luxury.”
The seven colors in the collection are inspired by the color palette of Punk #8348
The design team at Mugrabi and mmERCH pulled color schemes from Seedphrase’s iconic punk to come up with a look that will stand up to even the most seasoned of web3 collectors. Available in seven different shades, the hoodie is put together in a color scheme that echoes the punk design, giving everyone a reason to feel cozy.
Compared to mmERCH’s first release, which featured six hoodie features (the hood, body, pockets, each arm, and straps), Mugrabi and team added a new element to the collection to reflect the rarity of the punk’s seven features.
“We added the drawstring to the hood as a seventh feature,” she explained.
The second auction also gave mmERCH the opportunity to refine its curation process, with Mugrabi noting that one of the key lessons learned from the first auction was that the value of fashion items also depends on their appearance and design, unlike PFP artworks, where demand is often linked to rarity.
During the first auction, Mugrabi observed that collectors wanted to buy the hoodie they could imagine themselves wearing, not necessarily which color was rarer.
With this insight, the mmERCH team redesigned the new products to ensure each piece reflected what Mugrabi calls a “core style.” Each piece has varying degrees of rarity, but each design is carefully curated.
In short, these are looks you’ll want to wear out and about, and the new offerings come in nine core styles: solid color, hoodie, right-hander, bundle, trilogy, diptych, left-hander, varsity, and scatter, with each of the seven colorways appearing once in solid color hoodie form.
There are 322 outputs in total, corresponding to 322 hoodies available for purchase, each made from hand-dyed Italian neoprene that’s produced in a factory near Lake Como and then cut and assembled at mmERCH’s Los Angeles facility.
Swarovski crystals add a touch of luxury to the hoodie
For 22 special ultra-luxe designs, mmERCH added Swarovski crystals to the end of the drawstrings, a feature found in only 7% of the entire collection.
“Since the drawstring is the seventh feature, we wanted to highlight it.” Mugrabi says the colour of each drawstring was inspired by a specific Seedphrase punk trait: seven drawstrings are red and black, reflecting the punk’s top hat, six are amber and orange, representing glasses, four are white and orange, representing cigarettes, three are yellow, representing earrings, and two are colourless gemstones, representing buck teeth.
While most rope tips are made from Swarovski crystals, the bucktooth design is made from real diamonds hand-set in 14-karat white gold.
This is where the fun starts: To cater to collectors who don’t want to leave their purchase to chance, mmERCH is partnering with Christie’s to auction off five ultra-luxe hoodies, “a great way to test which distribution method collectors prefer.” Mugrabi says, “We’ll find out if collectors prefer auctions where they can choose their own products, or if they still like the gamification and chance element of public minting.”
The auction begins on September 25, with one of the diamond hoodies going to auction through Christie’s and the other to be included in a public mintage.
Exclusive artwork by Claire Silver sets the series apart
Creative AI-assisted artist Claire Silver (also part of the Punk family and owner of Punk #1629) also plays a central role in the upcoming mmERCH launch.
“When I think of pink-haired punks, I definitely think of Claire,” Mugrabi says. “She’s incredibly talented and has a deep understanding of the genre.”
Each of the five hoodies being auctioned by Christie’s will come with a 1-to-1 artwork by Silver, which will be revealed during a claim window during which holders can redeem the physical garment.
Additionally, Silver has created nine edition pieces corresponding to each hoodie style, which will be released as minted NFTs alongside the physical apparel, with all artworks depicting characters wearing the new owner’s respective hoodie.
Mark your calendars: important dates for minting and public sale
The mmERCH x Seedphrase collection is now live and can be viewed on the mmERCH website , and from September 25 to October 2, Christie’s will auction off five of the ultra-luxe hoodies, one of which features a Swarovski diamond bucktooth rope end.
Whitelist minting for the remaining hoodies will open at 10am ET on October 1st and close at 10am ET on October 2nd, after which public minting will open at 11am ET.
Designs will be revealed shortly after the collection launches, and the pick-up window for the physical hoodies will be open until October 18th at 11:59 PM ET, with production of the hoodies to be picked up beginning October 21st, and expected to start shipping in early December.
Mugrabi stressed that every part of the collection, even the rarest pieces, was designed to resonate with the punk and mmerch communities, while redefining sustainability in fashion with the help of technology.
“Technology is at the heart of everything we do at mmERCH,” Mugrabi said. “It touches everything.”
In fact, the tech shines through with the hoodie’s unique NFC chip feature, which transforms the garment into a wearable wallet with added benefits.
For example, Genesis Hoodie holders can scan the garment’s NFC chip to confirm attendance at the collection’s launch party in New York City on September 24, and attendees who wear the hoodie will also receive a commemorative experience token for the event.
With this tech-first, understated-luxe ethos, Mugrabi proves that when you combine a touch of Swarovski with a dash of crypto-punk, you can not only make a hoodie, you can make history.
#cryptopunks #mmERCH #NFC #OpenSea
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