Sean Wotherspoon may well be the hardest working man in sneakers. Now, that may sound like a generic accolade – a platitude, even – especially in the streetwear world; a fashion niche where the terminal velocity and perpetual motion of drop culture mean that everyone involved is working up a constant creative sweat. Nonetheless, when it comes to the Round Two founder and MNTGE co-founder, it’s a title very much earned.

To that end, that Wotherspoon – whose list of illustrious collaborators includes adidas, Porsche, Nike and ASICS, to name but a notable handful – has something new to offer us should come as no surprise. Nor should the fact that “something new” is actually “something old” – as well, it happens, as something borrowed and something blue, if we’re looking to complete that familiar set.

This latest release then, treads Wotherspoon’s familiar ground of vintage fashion – Round Two being one of the most tightly-curated and highly-regarded vintage joints in Los Angeles – but also the much newer territory of Web3. Coming courtesy of MNTGE, the creative director’s project with Nick Adler and Brennan Russo, the drop consists of digital wearables extrapolated from Wotherspoon’s own now-legendary collection.

Unlikely to ever ditch these pieces, the digital release offers the chance to own items that will probably never come to market in a way that preserves their integrity without hoarding them and hiding them away from the world. The four iconic vintage items – including a treasured denim jacket from the 70s – provide not just an insight into Wotherspoon’s extremely desirable wardrobe, but also a window onto his life and the life of the garments through their wear and tear.

Discussing the jacket in particular, marked out as a particularly significant piece, Wotherspoon explains: “My ’70s denim jacket is very coveted, no only to me, but also to other collectors because of the immense amount of character and personality. Denim jackets always show great wear through years of being worn, but this one specifically is unique. There are repairs, patches, rips, stains, studs, etc. that have all been applied at different times for different reasons OR happened by accident. Now we see all these iniquities working together to create a 1/1 original piece that shows endless stories and allows your kind to wander into different decades. This is powerful to me.”

In terms of the technical details, the studio – which counts this collaborative effort as its first official drop – explains that “Every holder of the new MNTGE + Sean Wotherspoon collection will mint a special edition, digital 3D MNTGE trunk, inside of which will be two digital wearables — one of four digital vintage pieces curated by Sean from his archive, and one of three proprietary ink bottles designed by Sean.”

Making use of Web3’s inherent flexibility, owners of a MTNGE + Wotherspoon trunk (each of which forms part of an extremely limited run) will have the choice to keep their Ink and their wearables, or to roll the dice on taking those back to MNTGE to be pressed together into something even rarer: “By combining the piece of apparel with the ink bottle, it will render a new, dynamic version of the garment designed by Sean – one that combines the construction and detail of the original with a stunning, nature-inspired animation that could only exist in the virtual world.”

Available now, with the first 1,600 going exclusively to MNTGE pass holders, and the rest strictly limited to 1500, check out the MTNGE + Sean Wotherspoon collection over on the studio’s website. And, to hear more about the brand’s wholesale approach to digitizing vintage, you can listen to our recent Progress Over Perfection podcast with the founders.