American designer and die-hard vintage clothing connoisseur, Sean Wotherspoon, known for his Round Two brand and significant record of collaborations with names like adidas, Nike, Porsche, GAP and more recently brought his flair for fashion and sneakers to Bangkok, Thailand.
During a two-day pop-up event titled “Round Two by Sean Wotherspoon,” held at one of Bangkok’s luxury shopping centers, EmQuatier, hundreds of guests showed up to purchase limited edition merch, created in collaboration with local and global brands like Carnival, Ari Football, HOLDEMDENIM, modernform furniture and Budweiser CLUB.
Speaking with Hypebeast, Wotherspoon shared that collaboration was an important element of the pop-up, explaining “It’s nice to work with local brands and highlight some of these companies, put them on a global platform and help put some money in their pockets — we wanted to come here and be a positive part of the community.”
As for why the event took place in Thailand, to begin with, we learned in a conversation with the designer that it was thanks to a long-time Bangkok-based supporter named Nithitat “Popeye” Sawaengsat. He further explained, “It was because we connected with Popeye — we’ve been dying to do something, I’ve been all over Asia and have somehow skipped over Thailand despite having such a big fan, friend and customer base here, so this just made sense for us.”
Helping to facilitate the entire event and secure the collaborations, Popeye shared more on why local partnerships were important, expressing “Thai people don’t know much about Round Two but they do know Sean, so that’s why it was important for us to collaborate with local Thai brands.”
On the same note, Wotherspoon added, “It’s nice to work with local brands and highlight some of these companies, put them on a global platform and help put some money in their pockets — we wanted to come here and be a positive part of the community.”
Of all the collaborations, having attended the first day of the event, we noticed that Carnival and HOLDEMDENIM appeared to be getting the most traffic, with constant queues throughout the day. Other queues, were a result of Wotherspoon signing hundreds of items, including some rare examples of his past collaborations with brands like Nike and adidas.
Other notable aspects of the event included a custom-wrapped Tuk Tuk, which is what is essentially a cycle rickshaw, that Wotherspoon and his team used to navigate the city during part of their stay. In addition to this, there was an official collaboration with Vespa, featuring custom corduroy seating and Wotherspoon’s signature colorful design.
Carnival was among the first collaborators to sell out of their merch and ended up having to raffle one of their most popular items due to demand, and item Anupong “Pint” Kuttikul, the owner of Carnival, expressed was his favorite item of the collab, stating “it’s something that we put imagination and creativity into, it’s great to see it happen.”
In addition to the figure, Carnival also facilitated the raffling of Wotherspoon’s latest collaborative shoe with adidas, the Originals “Sean Wotherspoon” Gazelle, which came with a free limited edition Towerbox storage box.
Outside of the event, Wotherspoon was doing some shopping of his own in Bangkok, interested in learning more, we asked him what his favorite pick up was so far, to which he shared “My homie Aum just opened a store in Siam and I got a Babar button up form him and I’m just so in love with it.”
While it’s not officially confirmed yet, both Wotherspoon and Popeye have teased at the idea of a permanent Round Two location in Bangkok, with the creation of a “Round Two BKK” Instagram handle being another indicator that it’s a serious consideration.
