Hi, welcome back to Line Sheet. I spent too many minutes this weekend searching for 1984 Olympics merch, but also managed to squeeze in pool time with my kid and an early dinner on the garden terrace at the Chateau. My friends and I very much enjoyed the wild-and-crazy duo sitting next to us, wearing just-purchased Prada sunglasses with a giant Alexander McQueen bag by their side, who naturally grew more inebriated as the evening progressed. They were eventually escorted out, but honestly, I regret not asking what was in that bag.

More on the Olympics, and Paris, below, plus some notes on Chloé’s delightful comeback, an online luxury wars check-in, and a look at the state of Gucci. (It is, indeed, in a state.)

🚨🚨 Programming notes: Tomorrow on Fashion People, I’m joined by Bernstein’s Luca Solca, our analyst king, to make sense of the midyear results from LVMH, Kering, Hermès, and others. Plus, I attempt to get him to gossip. Subscribe here to find out if it worked. Also, I joined Nordstrom president and chief brand officer Pete Nordstrom on his Nordy Pod. I love shopkeepers, and I had a great time talking to Pete. Listen!

By the way, now that everyone is really on vacation, I’m taking reader requests. Is there a Line Sheet storyline that you’d like me to pick back up? Is there something major going on that I’m totally missing? Just hit reply to this email.

Mentioned in this issue: Jonathan Anderson, Gucci, Sabato de Sarno, Sarah Burton, Givenchy, the Olympics, LVMH, Celine Dion, Dior, Lady Gaga, Jeremy Allen White, Zendaya, Cheval Blanc, Hermès, Stella Jean, Laura Weber, Emmanuel Macron, Ralph Lauren, Thom Browne, Beyoncé, Solange, Richemont, Chloé, Chemena Kamali, Matches, Farfetch, Alessandro Michele, Kering, the Astor Place Starbucks, Danielle Goldberg, and many more…

• First, a disclaimer: You’re going to be inundated with Olympics fashion content for weeks to come, so I’m going to practice my version of extreme restraint, sticking with original reporting, essential citations, and what I hope are singular insights over the next few weeks. Personally, I’ll be following writers Lindsey Tramuta, Lauren Collins, Alice Cavanagh, and others.
• The R.O.I. on that €150 million…: I’d argue that LVMH has already earned a return on its sponsorship of the Paris games. The brand exposure has been simply staggering. LVMH is already larger—and, in some cases, many times larger—than the sort of mass consumer brands that traditionally align with the Olympics, such as Johnson & Johnson, P&G, Unilever, McDonald’s, Coca-Cola, and Nike. And yet, the company’s exposure raises an interesting, almost philosophical point. These days, a lot of consumption is virtual and doesn’t require the exchange of funds, so people are consuming LVMH brands all the time through imagery on social media without spending hundreds or thousands of dollars on a particular SKU.

  Even if I watched every inch of the Games, I wouldn’t be able to keep track of all the touchpoints, from Opening Ceremony performer Celine Dion glittering in Dior to the Louis Vuitton torch trunks. Alex Bigler, Puck’s V.P. of creative strategy and client service, asked if the basketball court was purposefully painted Tiffany Blue. (I’m told that it’s just a lucky coincidence.) Does it matter that most consumers won’t connect the dots from Dior to Berluti to LVMH? No. They also don’t know (or care) that Unilever owns Dove and Ben & Jerry’s. It’s cumulative.

  Also: Alex is heading to Paris this week. Feel free to invite her to things at Alexandra@puck.news.

• What the French think: I pinged a handful of people who are out and about in Paris—some who work in fashion, and others who don’t; some who think Emily in Paris is funny, and plenty who don’t. What’s the vibe? As I often say, the French typically like to get the negative stuff out of the way first… but not this time. “We are obsessed,” said one French friend, who can be very mean, from her South of France hideaway. “We won gold at rugby and everything is gorgeous.”

  “Everyone is rejoicing,” responded another friend, a dual citizen born in the U.S. and unafraid to speak her mind. Yes, there was a little rain, and Dior made a faux pas by putting Lady Gaga in an outfit inspired by Yves Saint Laurent muse Zizi Jeanmaire (I Deserve Couture’s Hanan Besovic explained why). But overall, this person said, “Everyone is like, Holy shit, we did it, we killed it.” This friend also ended her feedback with some real talk on the LVMH of it all. “The corporate imperialism is too much for me and a lot of people. The LVMH hegemony is veering on a kind of luxury Disneyfication of Paris, which just flattens the idea of luxury. It’s good for their business, but cringe for the rest of us.”

• Inside the LVMH Opening Ceremony party at Cheval Blanc: The Thirsty Thursday pregame at Fondation Louis Vuitton was worth the trek to the 16th for celebrities including Jeremy Allen White (he looked good), Charlize Theron, Zendaya, and Spike Lee (so did they). But the truly coveted invite came a day later: to watch the Opening Ceremonies at the LVMH-owned hotel Cheval Blanc. Louis Vuitton hosted friends at Langosteria on the hotel’s seventh floor, Dior at the French restaurant next door (no one can remember the name), both offering unobstructed views of the Seine and protection from the rain. (I’ve been up there and I will say that it’s pretty spectacular.)

  The real party, though, was on the rooftop, where approximately 50 people gathered—friends and family of the Arnaults, no celebrities, no press. Hermès C.E.O. Axel Dumas popped by Langosteria to say hello. If you were there, I can confirm that you are special—or lucky.

• Everyone has an opinion about the Opening Ceremony uniforms: It’s overwhelming. There were many votes for Stella Jean’s painterly looks for Team Haiti, beautifully tailored and fabulous. I liked Ireland’s all-white, double-breasted suits by Laura Weber. (Who is she?) When does Great Britain’s contract with Ben Sherman run out? They can do better. Telfar’s blues for the Liberian team were winning. Alexander Wang receives an honorable mention for the branded cummerbund worn by the retired French swimmer Laure Manaudou, sitting right behind Emmanuel Macron during the ceremony. I’m sure Wang didn’t pay for the placement, which was priceless anyway. People are funny.

  As for the Americans, who wore the Ralph Lauren piped blazers (in navy and white), whiskered jeans, and wrongly assigned white nubucks—everyone (meaning, people who spend too much time on the internet) is upset! (The nubucks were the greatest offense.) My preference would have been a more traditional suit, or something in a sporty, tech-y material. The writer Mikelle Street posted a great thread on Twitter about why it’s so complicated and expensive to outfit Team U.S.A. You have to dress 592 athletes, which, all in, costs millions of dollars that comes out of your marketing budget. Sure, Ralph Lauren makes money on the Olympics-related merch it sells, but those are two different lines on the P&L.

  Ralph is contracted with the Olympics through the 2028 games, and my guess is that they’ll be able to renew if they want to, since there isn’t really another American brand that can afford to outbid them. Would Thom Browne be great? Yes, of course, he dresses European football teams and NBA stars alike, and yes, his opera coat for Beyoncé stole the show. But I’m more interested in how the deals vary among the official brands—Nike, Ralph Lauren, and Skims. Also, congrats to Reading, Pennsylvania-based leotard maker GK Elite Sportswear, which created the gymnastic team’s spangly performance gear. Sometimes you have to choose the expert, no matter which high-profile designer is dying to dress you.

  Also, in non-Olympics news…

• At Chloé, it’s all happening: Is there molly in the water at Richemont? First, Pieter Mulier’s Alaïa popped off, and now it seems that Chemena Kamali’s Chloé may live up to her debut show’s promise. After the Met Gala misstep, the product is now landing in stores, with purchase intent—a combination of wishlisting and product views—for Chloé up 13 percent year-over-year in the past four weeks, according to the fashion search engine Lyst. Friends of mine are passing around links—especially the shoes—and stylist Dani Michelle quite successfully drenched Daisy Edgar-Jones in Kamali’s ruffles for the Twisters press tour. (As I have been saying, I am so glad D.E.J. chose Kardashian-linked Michelle and not the more obvious, English rose-adjacent Leith Clark as her stylist. It’s quite the Sliding Doors moment, as my friend Becky put it.)

  Anyway, proper credit should also be given to Chloé C.E.O. Laurent Malecaze and Alaïa C.E.O. Myriam Serrano, who are obviously doing a good job at merchandising their designer’s creative pursuits. There’s also something bigger happening that we’ve discussed at length: People are sick of homogenous fashion and crave personality, which Chloé and Alaïa both possess.

• One man down: The lack of fanfare around the closing of Matches (which went offline June 30, even though nobody noticed) got me thinking: What’s up with Yoox Net-a-Porter Group? Not much, it seems, even though its current owner, Richemont, put it up for sale months ago. And despite an incredible amount of speculation combined with layoffs, Mr. Porter never shut down. (Last week, the Porters even co-hosted a lovely looking party at the Herzog & de Meuron-designed Parrish Art Museum in Water Mill.) Perhaps now that I’ve brought this up, a deal will be announced. As for the other online players, it seems that Coupang still owns Farfetch and all its subsidiaries—even New Guards Group, poor things! Mytheresa, which I reported was in talks earlier this year to merge or acquire or do something with Net-a-Porter, is still a public company in America. The stock is actually up 29 percent in 2024, trading at around $4.13 per share. A ways away from its close-to $35-per-share high back in February 2021, but not as dire as it used to be. Want me to get back into this? Let’s talk!

In the end, there was no announcement, but instead a bunch of fake news rubbernecking over the fates of Loewe’s Jonathan Anderson and Gucci’s Sabato de Sarno, which started on Friday and crested over the weekend. Anderson, who is in the midst of developing several projects that require significant investment from LVMH, has not announced that he is leaving Loewe and heading to Gucci. One source who has worked with him on certain aspects of the business told me that they were surprised by the prospect of the rumor of Anderson taking over de Sarno’s job.

Of course, I don’t think the speculation is bad for Anderson, who benefits from these cultural reminders to LVMH that consumers idolize his work. As I reported a few months ago, I was told by someone close to Anderson that he had taken a meeting in Rome with Alessandro Michele, Gucci’s former creative director, now at Valentino. Sure, Anderson could have been soliciting career advice, shooting the shit, or asking pointed questions about Kering. Only two people know the truth, and even then, their truths could be completely different. But in an industry that views rumors like rocket fuel, the conversation itself is all that matters, and knowledge of the chat surely made its way back to Paris.

That’s not what happened, though. Kering hired de Sarno, believing that his talent for dressmaking would translate to the main stage. As we approach the anniversary of his first collection, however, counterfactuals are inescapable. For many reasons, the stars have not aligned: macroeconomic conditions, product delays, collections falling short of marketing fantasies (the sweet little dresses, the disco loafers). Meanwhile, Gucci’s sales continue to plummet and profits continue to shrink. The brand is overstored in certain parts of the world, including the U.S., where it may be forced to walk back its strategy of opening small-format outposts in tertiary cities like Detroit and Pittsburgh. The executive team—including C.E.O. Jean-François Palus, deputy C.E.O. Stefano Cantino, chief commercial officer Cayetano Fabry, and chief digital business officer Grégory Boutté—are only coming together now, which means the long-term strategy and any reorganizing that needs to take place has just begun. It’s going to require more time, regardless if de Sarno is the right designer or not.

If this was a private company, Kering could give de Sarno the two or three years a designer needs to make an impact. Alas, Kering is a public company whose stock, still predominantly driven by Gucci’s performance, is down 21 percent over the past six months. Part of the problem is China, where consumers don’t seem to be cottoning to the new products, which are arriving in stores too slowly to really hit with consumers. But it’s an issue in the U.S. and Europe, too: The fundamentals of de Sarno’s Gucci—the Jackie shoulder bag in crackly blood-red leather, the little navy jackets, the preppy tennis gear, the hiking boots—work, but have not been presented as fast and furiously as they need to create a moment. Nothing in the collection screams “must-have” like Alaïa’s mesh flats or Hermès’ Picotin feeder bag.

In September, de Sarno will deliver his second spring collection, this time with a new stylist. Alastair McKimm left the brand earlier this summer, I’m told. De Sarno and McKimm’s early collaborations—in particular, the campaign with Daria Werbowy shot at the Chateau Marmont—showed promise. But that was before de Sarno revealed a speck of clothing. Like many aspects of the Gucci-de Sarno era, the collaboration between the designer and the stylist never felt quite right. Perhaps the fall show is a chance for de Sarno to start over, with a new executive team around him, and new creative collaborators in place. It may be his last chance.

In August 1997, I turned 15 and went to the Lilith Fair. At the time, my entire personality was liking Jewel, Dave Matthews Band, and The Velvet Underground. Honestly, it was really awesome! What a time to be a teenage girl who thought NSync was gross! The next year, the Lilith Fair was even better. Missy Elliott sang “The Rain (Supa Dupa Fly)” wearing a big black inflated bubble of a coat, and it did indeed rain. Anyway, I can’t wait for the doc—actually, I can, most documentaries are really bad. Regardless, I enjoyed Laia Garcia-Furtado’s look back at all the fashion. [Vogue]

Laia also compiled a very fun roundup of personal stories about industry people crashing fashion shows. (I’m in there and—no surprise—mine was Céline Spring 2011.) [Vogue Runway]

I think it may actually be more important for every woman to read this Ballerina Farm profile than it is for them to read All Fours? [The Times]

The crossover of G9 Summit attendees and Line Sheet characters-slash-Fashion People guests is outrageous. Amy Griffin, please invite Strugatz and me next year. [People]

Bill doesn’t think Lina Khan is going anywhere. Sorry, Fashion! [Puck]

There’s a new racquet culture brand called Spence launching soon. [Instagram]

Why don’t artists take risks anymore? You can find the answers in Rocky IV. [Culture: An Owner’s Manual]

Danielle Goldberg is now styling Solange Knowles and I am into it. [Instagram]

What will the Olympics really do for France’s economy? [The Monday Economist]

If you, too, have vintage Olympics merch fever, check out this roundup. [Best Friends via Sarah’s Retail Diary]

On the subject of merch: 🐀. [NYC]

You really gotta know about Demetra. Really. [After School]

Until Wednesday,
Lauren