For all of TradeMutt's new workwear prints, we also write a print story to help talk about where the print's come from, what's inspired us, and give us some creative direction for our weird launch videos.
Read Rainbow Road's Mario Kart-inspired print story below. Then shop the Rainbow Road collection before this limited edition print sells out.
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Rainbow Road
You’re in second place and the finish line’s in the middle distance, unignorable, and ahead of you is the mighty monkey squeezed into his too-small kart and powering along. Six others trailing behind you unimportant. Stars and shells and mushrooms and bouncing fireballs flying around you are distracting but not enough. You’re focused. Eyes on the middle of the lane of the Rainbow Road down which you’re racing.
You veer right to snag a double stack of mystery boxes and from within you get a green shell and three bananas. You hold the shell high and you aim it forward but it goes wide. Next a banana and you miss again so you steady yourself, a deep breath, and you aim with one eye closed and your tongue out for better focus. When you throw it it goes sailing over the head of the monstrous monkey and touches down right in front of him, right before he can slow down, and he hits it and spins and spins and waves a fist as big as your head at you as you fly by into pole position.
All around you except the wheel and the checkerboard finish line ahead just a hypercolourful blur. Your kart scrapes the rainbow bricks beneath you. The cool breeze of open, starry space all around you. Small, bespectacled turtles in clouds following you with cameras to broadcast your determined mug around the world. You wonder what you look like from a distance as you cruise around the second last bend. You hear someone draw close.
That monstrous monkey, huge in every way, weighing his kart down but pressing it forward as you crest the last hill. The flags ahead start to wave and you both get closer and closer. No gears left and one corner to go. From somewhere in the magic ether of the void around the track music rises and swells and nothing else matters except you and your challenger veering down on you. You’re faster, more nimble, lighter, and the bend’s tight and you’ve got a hand on your e-brake to drift in and through it with control and then a boost of speed to get you over the line.
The road turns and so do you. You rip the brake up and you slide well right in the edges of the track where the road gives way and there’s just emptiness below into which to fall until one of the cloud turtles pulls you back up. You cannot afford it. Nor can the monkey who takes the corner on the inside and tries to cut you off but he’s not as smooth. He bogs himself down a bit too much and he’s too wide on the line and you’re still ahead by half a wheel.
The kart rocks under your speed and your handbrake grinds and the wheels keep spinning and the motor roars and the jet engines behind you shake and only then do you let go. The brake off and your foot down and you zoom off with fire out behind. One last gold coin ahead and it’s yours as you race clear of the monkey.
The devious ape smacks the track with his heavy hand and the thin road wobbles and then waves and it catches you and flings you into the air forward still with skyward momentum. The monkey now third in your rear view and the gap between you and the fresh second too wide to close. Only stragglers competing for points behind.
Airborne, you sail with flames from the back of your kart and a golden aura about you. You glide over the finish line. The camera turtles swing around fast and smooth to catch you as you celebrate and now, outside of competition, you floor it. Immune to falling off the sides with the magic of first place.
Your victory lap comes easy, fast, and fun.
That’s the feeling we bottled into the ink we splashed all over the new Rainbow Road workwear print from TradeMutt. The satisfaction of a good, clean win in a nostalgic, colourful childhood. The joy of friendly competition. Start conversations with this funky collection of men’s and women’s workwear.
Shop TradeMutt’s latest print, Rainbow Road, before this limited edition collection races away.
