Five Cultural Visionaries Reveal The Art of Powerful Product Storytelling

Lukas Bentel

Role

Creative Director, MSCHF

Theme

Familiarity

A fluffy gray rabbit rests on a floral chair.

Lukas Bentel works with familiarity as both entry point and device. His ideas are designed to register instantly, using recognisable forms and cultural references to create immediate access, before revealing deeper layers of meaning through reflection. Familiarity, in Bentel’s hands, is not comfort - it is a mechanism for engagement.

As Creative Director of MSCHF, Bentel treats products as underutilised vessels for ideas - objects people already know how to use, wear, and interact with. By reworking iconic references and everyday forms, MSCHF projects invite participation, turning audiences into co-authors of the narrative. Within Job’s Not Finished, Bentel represents how storytelling can move fastest when it begins with what is already known, then quietly destabilises it.

Detail: Lukas Bentel

Detail is a series of one-on-one conversations with singular creatives, each centered on a specific project or body of work. The finished piece is only part of it. These conversations spend time with the people shaping how objects are made and what they come to mean, following the story held within a material and the ideas that often begin somewhere you wouldn't expect.

Detail: Lukas Bentel

Detail is a series of one-on-one conversations with singular creatives, each centered on a specific project or body of work. The finished piece is only part of it. These conversations spend time with the people shaping how objects are made and what they come to mean, following the story held within a material and the ideas that often begin somewhere you wouldn't expect.

Detail: Lukas Bentel

Detail is a series of one-on-one conversations with singular creatives, each centered on a specific project or body of work. The finished piece is only part of it. These conversations spend time with the people shaping how objects are made and what they come to mean, following the story held within a material and the ideas that often begin somewhere you wouldn't expect.

MSCF Big Red Boot

Heavily inspired by Astro Boy, the Big Red Boot is maybe one of the most instantly recognizable looks from MSCHF. The attempt to bring the cartoon shape into the real world went from art object to meme within weeks.

MSCF Big Red Boot

Heavily inspired by Astro Boy, the Big Red Boot is maybe one of the most instantly recognizable looks from MSCHF. The attempt to bring the cartoon shape into the real world went from art object to meme within weeks.

MSCF Big Red Boot

Heavily inspired by Astro Boy, the Big Red Boot is maybe one of the most instantly recognizable looks from MSCHF. The attempt to bring the cartoon shape into the real world went from art object to meme within weeks.

MSCF Big Red Boot

Heavily inspired by Astro Boy, the Big Red Boot is maybe one of the most instantly recognizable looks from MSCHF. The attempt to bring the cartoon shape into the real world went from art object to meme within weeks.

MSCF Big Red Boot

Heavily inspired by Astro Boy, the Big Red Boot is maybe one of the most instantly recognizable looks from MSCHF. The attempt to bring the cartoon shape into the real world went from art object to meme within weeks.

MSCF Big Red Boot

Heavily inspired by Astro Boy, the Big Red Boot is maybe one of the most instantly recognizable looks from MSCHF. The attempt to bring the cartoon shape into the real world went from art object to meme within weeks.

Key4All & Public Universal Car

The idea started with 1000 duplicate keys made for a single 2004 PT Cruiser that sold for just $19 each. What followed was a GTA-esq social experiment that resulted in the vehicle getting stolen, crashed, fixed by strangers and driven from New York to California. They lost control of it almost immediately, but maybe that was the whole point.

Key4All & Public Universal Car

The idea started with 1000 duplicate keys made for a single 2004 PT Cruiser that sold for just $19 each. What followed was a GTA-esq social experiment that resulted in the vehicle getting stolen, crashed, fixed by strangers and driven from New York to California. They lost control of it almost immediately, but maybe that was the whole point.

Key4All & Public Universal Car

The idea started with 1000 duplicate keys made for a single 2004 PT Cruiser that sold for just $19 each. What followed was a GTA-esq social experiment that resulted in the vehicle getting stolen, crashed, fixed by strangers and driven from New York to California. They lost control of it almost immediately, but maybe that was the whole point.

Key4All & Public Universal Car

The idea started with 1000 duplicate keys made for a single 2004 PT Cruiser that sold for just $19 each. What followed was a GTA-esq social experiment that resulted in the vehicle getting stolen, crashed, fixed by strangers and driven from New York to California. They lost control of it almost immediately, but maybe that was the whole point.

Key4All & Public Universal Car

The idea started with 1000 duplicate keys made for a single 2004 PT Cruiser that sold for just $19 each. What followed was a GTA-esq social experiment that resulted in the vehicle getting stolen, crashed, fixed by strangers and driven from New York to California. They lost control of it almost immediately, but maybe that was the whole point.

Key4All & Public Universal Car

The idea started with 1000 duplicate keys made for a single 2004 PT Cruiser that sold for just $19 each. What followed was a GTA-esq social experiment that resulted in the vehicle getting stolen, crashed, fixed by strangers and driven from New York to California. They lost control of it almost immediately, but maybe that was the whole point.

Global Supply Chain Telephone

The idea was a handbag designed by the supply chain itself. MSCHF passed a brief though four different factories across the world, each one amending the last design without full context. The project focused on making that invisible creative labor that happens on the factory floor and removing the designer from the equation all together.

Global Supply Chain Telephone

The idea was a handbag designed by the supply chain itself. MSCHF passed a brief though four different factories across the world, each one amending the last design without full context. The project focused on making that invisible creative labor that happens on the factory floor and removing the designer from the equation all together.

Global Supply Chain Telephone

The idea was a handbag designed by the supply chain itself. MSCHF passed a brief though four different factories across the world, each one amending the last design without full context. The project focused on making that invisible creative labor that happens on the factory floor and removing the designer from the equation all together.

Global Supply Chain Telephone

The idea was a handbag designed by the supply chain itself. MSCHF passed a brief though four different factories across the world, each one amending the last design without full context. The project focused on making that invisible creative labor that happens on the factory floor and removing the designer from the equation all together.

Global Supply Chain Telephone

The idea was a handbag designed by the supply chain itself. MSCHF passed a brief though four different factories across the world, each one amending the last design without full context. The project focused on making that invisible creative labor that happens on the factory floor and removing the designer from the equation all together.

Global Supply Chain Telephone

The idea was a handbag designed by the supply chain itself. MSCHF passed a brief though four different factories across the world, each one amending the last design without full context. The project focused on making that invisible creative labor that happens on the factory floor and removing the designer from the equation all together.

MSCHF BWD Shoe

A shoe with the toe box on the back instead of the front…If you operate in the shoe making world you understand the complications of this design. When the first sample came back from the factory they had flipped it around, assuming a mistake had been made. It hadn't. The Backwards Shoe is one of the clearest windows into how MSCHF thinks. Propose something that shouldn't exist, and see how the world tries to make sense of it.

MSCHF BWD Shoe

A shoe with the toe box on the back instead of the front…If you operate in the shoe making world you understand the complications of this design. When the first sample came back from the factory they had flipped it around, assuming a mistake had been made. It hadn't. The Backwards Shoe is one of the clearest windows into how MSCHF thinks. Propose something that shouldn't exist, and see how the world tries to make sense of it.

MSCHF BWD Shoe

A shoe with the toe box on the back instead of the front…If you operate in the shoe making world you understand the complications of this design. When the first sample came back from the factory they had flipped it around, assuming a mistake had been made. It hadn't. The Backwards Shoe is one of the clearest windows into how MSCHF thinks. Propose something that shouldn't exist, and see how the world tries to make sense of it.

MSCHF BWD Shoe

A shoe with the toe box on the back instead of the front…If you operate in the shoe making world you understand the complications of this design. When the first sample came back from the factory they had flipped it around, assuming a mistake had been made. It hadn't. The Backwards Shoe is one of the clearest windows into how MSCHF thinks. Propose something that shouldn't exist, and see how the world tries to make sense of it.

MSCHF BWD Shoe

A shoe with the toe box on the back instead of the front…If you operate in the shoe making world you understand the complications of this design. When the first sample came back from the factory they had flipped it around, assuming a mistake had been made. It hadn't. The Backwards Shoe is one of the clearest windows into how MSCHF thinks. Propose something that shouldn't exist, and see how the world tries to make sense of it.

MSCHF BWD Shoe

A shoe with the toe box on the back instead of the front…If you operate in the shoe making world you understand the complications of this design. When the first sample came back from the factory they had flipped it around, assuming a mistake had been made. It hadn't. The Backwards Shoe is one of the clearest windows into how MSCHF thinks. Propose something that shouldn't exist, and see how the world tries to make sense of it.

MSCHF 2X4 Shoe

Timberland's 6-inch boot is arguably one of the most culturally loaded silhouettes in footwear. MSCHF took it and doubled everything by wrapping the outsole around the entire shoe and embedded a nod to the Louis Vuitton blossom motif in the construction. The result looks like someone rendered Timbs in a video game. It was right enough for you to immediately recognize the source but wrong enough to make you look again.

MSCHF 2X4 Shoe

Timberland's 6-inch boot is arguably one of the most culturally loaded silhouettes in footwear. MSCHF took it and doubled everything by wrapping the outsole around the entire shoe and embedded a nod to the Louis Vuitton blossom motif in the construction. The result looks like someone rendered Timbs in a video game. It was right enough for you to immediately recognize the source but wrong enough to make you look again.

MSCHF 2X4 Shoe

Timberland's 6-inch boot is arguably one of the most culturally loaded silhouettes in footwear. MSCHF took it and doubled everything by wrapping the outsole around the entire shoe and embedded a nod to the Louis Vuitton blossom motif in the construction. The result looks like someone rendered Timbs in a video game. It was right enough for you to immediately recognize the source but wrong enough to make you look again.

MSCHF 2X4 Shoe

Timberland's 6-inch boot is arguably one of the most culturally loaded silhouettes in footwear. MSCHF took it and doubled everything by wrapping the outsole around the entire shoe and embedded a nod to the Louis Vuitton blossom motif in the construction. The result looks like someone rendered Timbs in a video game. It was right enough for you to immediately recognize the source but wrong enough to make you look again.

MSCHF 2X4 Shoe

Timberland's 6-inch boot is arguably one of the most culturally loaded silhouettes in footwear. MSCHF took it and doubled everything by wrapping the outsole around the entire shoe and embedded a nod to the Louis Vuitton blossom motif in the construction. The result looks like someone rendered Timbs in a video game. It was right enough for you to immediately recognize the source but wrong enough to make you look again.

MSCHF 2X4 Shoe

Timberland's 6-inch boot is arguably one of the most culturally loaded silhouettes in footwear. MSCHF took it and doubled everything by wrapping the outsole around the entire shoe and embedded a nod to the Louis Vuitton blossom motif in the construction. The result looks like someone rendered Timbs in a video game. It was right enough for you to immediately recognize the source but wrong enough to make you look again.