Bada bing bada boom! There’s a new fashion line in town with a New Jersey-Italian twist you know and love—it’s the Tombolo x The Sopranos collaboration, created in honor of the 25th anniversary of the beloved television show’s creation this year. The launch party was held at Mulberry Street Bar in the heart of New York City’s Little Italy.
Special guests included Tombolo’s co-founders Chris Galasso and Mike Sard, fashion editor Chrissy Rutherford, Tik Tok stars Nicky and JoJo Scarlotta, SNL comedian Heidi Gardner, and model Vanessa Fuchs, just to name a few of New York’s trendiest members of the fashion and art scene in attendance.
The event featured an open bar, dancers, complementary cigars and of course an Italian “family style” dinner with meatballs, gabagool, and more. Lining the perimeter of the dance floor were glass cases displaying the Tombolo x The Sopranos merch, which can be seen in the gallery above.
Tombolo is a “New York ‘escapewear’ brand offering spirited and original apparel that transports customers to a different time, place or state of mind.” To read more about the brand and see their clothes, visit their website here.
Chase is not known for his optimism, particularly with respect to TV. And he’s careful to note that he’s a bit out of the industry loop. But he’s not alone in doubting that the necessary conditions for bringing a project of The Sopranos’ ambition, originality, and cost to fruition exist in streaming-era Hollywood. As John Koblin, who with Felix Gillette co-authored It’s Not TV: The Spectacular Rise, Revolution, and Future of HBO, puts it: a quarter-century later show kicked off TV’s most recent golden age, “It’s extremely possible that the Next few years in television aren’t going to be quite so golden.”
This is the irony that must be acknowledged as we celebrate the 25th anniversary of a series that recast the small screen in its brilliant, violent, psychologically rich image—and whose prescience about the precarious nature of American life in the 21st century has made it even more relevant than it was when it debuted. It’s an indictment of an industry that squandered one of its most fertile creative periods by sacrificing quality for quantity, embracing franchises, spectacles, and reality TV. But, as new generations discover The Sopranos, it’s clear that audiences will always hunger for stories that plumb the darkest depths of human nature and societal dysfunction. The question is: Has TV as an art form become too debased to satisfy that hunger again?
