Mercedes revealed its latest collaboration at London Fashion Week, at the Moncler “Art of Genius” show, and it’s a looker. It’s called Project Mondo G and it’s essentially a Mercedes G-Class wearing a giant puffy jacket on what looks to be a moon-based country club. But why?
According to Mercedes, the Mondo G is the main show car in a media campaign designed to show off an “otherworldly winter landscape” that’s based in an “imaginary universe with low gravity.” If you’re staring at these pictures like that Nathan Fillion gif, you’re not alone.
To create Mondo G, Mercedes partnered with Moncler and took a G-Class, chopped its roof off from the B-pillar back, and gave it a strange puffy top, the inside of which can seemingly only be accessed via a giant zipper. Since Moncler is a fashion designer that specializes in outerwear, that zipper is supposed to be a reference to the versatility of both products. Sure.
They also widened the wheel track so the wheels are completely outside of the body, like an Moab-prepped Wrangler, and replaced the tires with huge inflatable puffy jackets. Lastly, the two luxury brands gave the body of the G-Class patina and a snorkel kit, to show off that it’s meant to be used as a rugged off-roader. Except all I see is what George Costanza would look like if he bought his Gore-Tex jacket from Dr. Evil’s moon base.
What is going on here?
The giant puffy G-Wagen is also positively enormous. It’s 4.6 meters (15 feet) long , 2.8 meters (9.1 feet) tall, and 3.4 (11.1 feet) meters wide. That’s about as wide as one and a half Lamborghini Aventadors. If you’re in an average American home, look up at your ceiling—the Mondo G is about a foot taller than that.
I’ll be the first to admit that I don’t understand fashion, so maybe there’s some brilliant artistic meaning behind this that I just can’t see. And maybe I just sound like an old man yelling at clouds but this just seems like the sort of absurdist fashion that rich people pat themselves on the back for pretending to understand. Or maybe it’s awesome and I’m just an idiot. But the only thing I can think of when I look at this inflatable G-Wagen is… why?
Got tips? Send ’em to [email protected]
