Fashion

A Conversation with Cody Rigsby, Peloton’s “King of Quarantine”

The Peloton instructor has emerged as a figure uniquely suited to a bleak moment, a rainbow in our collective cloud….

It’s another dark and dreary Tuesday morning in the time of rising COVID-19 numbers and winter scaries. Desperately seeking a mood-booster, I dig deep and find it within myself to mount the Peloton bike my husband planted in our living room. I power on the tablet affixed to the handlebars and select a 30-minute pop ride. Soon, I am giggling out loud.

“Indisputably… Kevin is the hottest Backstreet Boy,” instructor Cody Rigsby says with grave seriousness, pedaling furiously through a playlist of BSB, NSync, Destiny’s Child and Dannity Kane. “But A.J. is the most talented… Fight me!”

Rigsby, 33, is strapping, built like a Disney prince, with a perfectly coiffed mini pompadour and power quads that bulge from his bike shorts, and if only for this half-hour, he is a respite from the corona blues, a one-man warp to simpler times, with the fashion to match: He is no stranger to neon and sometimes wears a single, dangling lightning bolt earring. Immersed in Backstreet Boy power rankings, the gloom of the pandemic momentarily slips my mind.

“No matter where you are in the world, no matter how much money you have… we are all feeling this collective pain and this grief,” Rigsby later told me via Zoom from his New York apartment, wearing a hoodie and a Mickey Mouse baseball hat. In fact, the day he filmed the boy bands and girl group-themed ride, he himself was struggling through the early sundowns of daylight savings time. But imagining riders across the country, following along in dens and home gyms, he says, “it motivates me to be the light.”

As gyms and boutique fitness studios shuttered, Peloton boomed—the company’s revenue is up 172% over last year, according to one report—and Rigsby, with his unwavering cheer, sass and and flair for nostalgia, has emerged an instructor uniquely suited to a bleak moment, a rainbow in our collective cloud.

“I hate to say this, but someone called me the king of quarantine,” he tells me. “I was like, ‘I’ll take it.’” As a friend and Cody devotee put it: “I would be a much sadder human during this time without him.” Rigsby now records his classes (not just indoor cycling but strength, meditation and, pre-pandemic, deliciously fun dance cardio set to Marky Mark jams) in an empty studio at Peloton headquarters in New York, due to coronavirus security protocol. But there are legions of members tuning in—either to take the class live or at a later date. By the time I stream the boy band bonanza a week after it first airs, more than 100,000 Peloton members have tuned into the class for q-t with Cody (thanks to his continued presence in my living room, I consider us to be on a first-name basis).

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Entertainment

A$AP Rocky Turned An Entire Manchester City Kit Into His Album Rollout

Photo: DannyB Photos / Wikimedia Commons (CC BY 2.0)

A$AP Rocky doesn’t do album rollouts quietly, and this one recruited an entire Premier League club to help. Manchester City, PUMA, and Rocky teamed up on a limited apparel run tied to “Don’t Be Dumb,” his 2026 album, timed around his September 5th show at Co-op Live.

The centerpiece is a long-sleeve PUMA King jersey in black and archive gold, with “DON’T BE DUMB” running down the sleeve and AWGE branding worked in throughout. A bold “MANCHESTER” graphic covers the back. Fans could also add limited “A$AP 11” name-and-number printing onto the club’s actual Home, Away, or Third kits, while supplies lasted at retail.

There’s a players-only version too, and it never went up for sale. That one sticks closer to City’s usual sky-blue identity, with its own sleeve detailing and back graphic — the kind of piece that exists purely because a handful of people got lucky.

The whole rollout kicked off with a one-night pop-up on September 4th, when PUMA turned a spot in Manchester’s Northern Quarter into a pop-up cafe for the night, mixing football, music, and street style into one room before the wider release hit the stadium store the next morning. Some of those jerseys even came with golden tickets to the concert or that Saturday’s match.

Rocky has called the project true to his own design language, and it’s not even his only club collaboration this cycle — a similar drop with AC Milan landed around the same time. At this point, the line between fashion week and matchday has basically disappeared.

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Entertainment

Quavo And Lids Are Going All In On Atlanta With Their New Cap Pack

Photo: Finish Line / Wikimedia Commons (CC BY 3.0)

Quavo has never been shy about his hat obsession, and Lids just gave him another outlet for it. Their new “Atlanta” pack drops September 12th, marking another round in a partnership that’s been running strong since 2019.

The collection is a love letter to the city, spread across three very different caps. One mashes up pinstripes, script lettering, and Braves branding into a single design, working navy, red, white, and light blue into the mix. Another goes the opposite direction entirely — fully iced out in crystal detailing, done up in black and red, with both the Falcons and the Braves showing up in the design. The third strips things back to an old-school “ATL” trucker cap in red, white, and gold, the kind of understated piece that lets the city’s name do the talking.

None of this is new territory for Quavo. He’s talked before about waiting on hat releases as a kid, and that same excitement seems to be what’s kept this partnership going years past most celebrity collabs. His earlier Lids run leaned on one moment — the Braves’ 1995 World Series win — but this pack pulls from the city’s whole sports history instead of just one highlight.

Lids has called Quavo one of the rare voices who can blend music, fashion, and sports without it feeling forced, and this drop backs that up. Given how fast his past releases have moved, Atlanta might want to set an alarm for September 12th.

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