In the last few years, Duran Duran and their team have included some sort of discount on the official store as part fo the Duran Duran Appreciation Day celebration. This year was no different. Yet, this year also featured some new items, including some new merch, specifically focused on the upcoming release, Future Past. What was offered? Anything different?
New Items – Not Future Past Related
If you head to the official store and click on “new”, you would see a number of items with the first album logo, including three different caps, t-shirts and sweatshirts. On top of that, there were some items with the recent surreal collage style that was included in this year’s calendar, including the calendar itself, Collapsing Symphony art book, mugs and t-shirts. The other items felt older to me, which included the logo from the first album re-release, Big Thing, Rio and the special NASA show from 2019. None of those items felt particularly new to me.
New Items – Future Past Collection
So what about the new new items related to the upcoming album? What is included in the new collection? It includes your pretty standard items of t-shirts, caps, and tote bags. There was one unique product, a thermal bottle. Interesting. The thermal bottles come in either white or black and are pretty plain as they are one solid color with the words, “Duran Duran” and “Future Past”. When looking at the details, these bottles can hold 500 mL of liquid or about 17 ounces. They can be used for hot or cold liquids. Hot beverages will stay hot for 12 hours and cold for up to 20 hours. That’s pretty good, in my book.
The caps that are available to purchase are similar to the water bottles as they come in black or white and just feature the logo. There are two t-shirt designs. One is focused on the album cover while the other has the single cover for Invisible. That’s interesting. I struggle to think about other singles that are featured on t-shirts. It also sort of feels like Invisible is more important in that people can buy a t-shirt in black or in white while if you want the album cover, that comes just in black. Buyers have the same options when it comes to tote bags as people can either the Future Past image or the Invisible cover.
Did You Buy?
For many years, I did buy some merchandise to celebrate Duran Duran Appreciation Day. I did not this year. Part of the reason is that my sister and nieces were visiting so I was pretty busy, at that time. The other thing is that I would have only been interested in the water bottles. It felt silly to buy just one water bottle. Typically, when I do an order from the official store, I order a bunch of stuff because the shipping is so high, coming from the UK. What about the rest of you? Did any of you buy any of these new items? If you didn’t, anything interest you? Is there anything you wish that they would sell?
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