Hi, welcome back to Line Sheet. I just arrived in New York for the launch of my book, Selling Sexy: Victoria’s Secret and the Unraveling of an American Icon, which hits stores tomorrow, October 8. (Please preorder it!) My co-author, Chantal Fernandez, and I will be at McNally Jackson’s South Street Seaport location on Tuesday night to chat with Glossy author Marisa Meltzer. The event is sold out, but if you want to come after the chat and hang at the bar, we would love it.

Over the next few weeks, you’ll see Victoria’s Secret pop up several times in this email: October 15 marks the return of the runway show, after all. Luckily, there is plenty of stuff happening in the luxury world to give Line Sheet the high-low mix we all crave. Today, my not-so-final thoughts on the Mytheresa-YNAP deal announcement, an update on the Glamour global editor-in-chief search, and some intel on what LVMH is really planning in the throes of all these designer changes. The speculation has never been more intense.

Before we get started, I wanted to thank everyone who helped with the book, in big ways and small. If you don’t find yourself in the acknowledgements, just know that my original note was twice the length. For instance, I somehow missed Hillary Kerr and Eva Chen. Over the years, they’ve been the subject of my reporting (usually good things, although not always), but also extremely generous with their time and advice. Their support over the last two years in particular has meant a lot. All that said, if you haven’t subscribed to Puck but love saying that you have, fix that now because Hillary and Eva don’t like liars.

🚨🚨 Programming note: Tomorrow on Fashion People, I’m joined by the only person to get two shout-outs on the thank-you page of our book, designer Scott Sternberg (of Band of Outsiders and Entireworld fame). We’re talking Paris and Milan chaos, celebrity stylist switcheroos, LVMH’s offloading of Off-White, and more. Listen here and here.

Mentioned in this issue: LVMH, Bernard Arnault, Delphine Arnault, Mytheresa, YNAP, Richemont, Sidney Toledano, Alexandre Arnault, Michael Burke, Glamour, Sam Barry, Anna Wintour, Roger Lynch, Burberry, Giorgio Armani, Hedi Slimane, Gucci, Jonathan Anderson, sneakers, Saoirse Ronan, Danielle Goldberg, Ben Cercio, Dani Michelle, Edward Enninful, Off-White, Bally, and many more…

• The Mytheresa-YNAP deal has been announced, but the saga will never really end: This morning, Mytheresa finally acknowledged it is acquiring YNAP from Richemont, as I first previewed in March. The transaction, which is expected to close in the first half of 2025, is now pending regulatory approval. (Mytheresa shares jumped more than 10 percent on the news, and are up about 25 percent in the last week.)

  Who woulda thunk this is where we’d end up? As someone who has been covering the online luxury wars since 2007, the central debate has always been whether there would be one winner, or lots of winners, in this market. The final answer is sort of both. Farfetch, which was originally expected to merge with YNAP, was instead bought by Coupang, the “Amazon of Korea,” and its relationships with luxury brands significantly deteriorated. Saks and Neiman Marcus Group are set to merge, creating another mega-group (more on that later this week). Now, Mytheresa is integrating YNAP—which has excelled on the brand side, but failed on the operational side—creating yet another mega-group. As with Saks and Neimans, there are no plans to merge the brands; the idea is that consumers want to shop several different storefronts, even if they are owned by the same people. (Sort of like a publishing house, I guess?)

  The deal itself is complicated: Per the announcement, Richemont would recapitalize YNAP with €555 million, plus a six-year, €100 million line of revolving credit, in exchange for a third of Mytheresa’s shares. The narrative for Richemont is complicated, too: Sure, chairman Johann Rupert can claim to be realizing his longtime dream of creating a universal online shopping platform used by the entire luxury industry. But remember, the group paid €5.3 billion for YNAP in 2018. (Oof.) While Richemont is finally ridding itself of the operational headache of managing YNAP, it’s still on the hook for its success or failure.

  This new arrangement is certainly an improvement over the status quo for Richemont, which never should have bought YNAP in the first place. Anyone who has followed my reporting over the years knows that the platform was a mess when it came to technology and logistics, mostly due to some very bad decisions by former C.E.O. Federico Marchetti. (He was using an e-commerce platform created by IBM!) On the call announcing the deal, Mytheresa C.E.O. Michael Kliger was quick to remind investors that Mytheresa has only one centralized distribution center—a signal that he intends to fix the issues that vexed YNAP. In the clash of business cultures, this is German precision winning out over Italian chaos.

  Despite its mismanagement, however, the Net-a-Porter brand remains incredibly strong. (Thank founder Natalie Massenet, her original team, and current C.E.O. Alison Loehnis, who has worked there for 17 years—long before Marchetti entered the picture—for that consistency.) And Kliger believes there’s plenty of room to grow. On the investor call, he outlined plans to transform Net-a-Porter into a place for HNWIs and the “luxury curious” by selling a broader range of brands, while Mytheresa, the smaller of the two businesses, will continue to focus only on HNWIs.

  As for YNAP’s off-price properties, Kliger said the intention is to keep both Outnet and Yoox going, but operate the off-price brands separately from the full-price group—a move he believes will help them achieve profitability. Maybe, but I wonder if it would be more profitable to sell off excess inventory at the end of each season to an outside entity, rather than keeping it in-house. Excess inventory is killing the industry. Anyway, let’s circle back on this in a year or two and see if they’re still part of the group.

  The “medium term” goal of all of this, according to the Mytheresa team, is to get to $4 billion in gross merchandise value (the preferred numerical measure here because it’s a higher number than actual revenue) and an adjusted EBITDA margin of 8 percent or more. Will this please investors enough to make the Mytheresa stock a winner? My guess is no, because investors don’t get this business, and no matter how sharp Kliger may be, this integration is going to be tough. (Net-a-Porter, the best of the group’s brands, is apparently barely profitable on an adjusted EBITDA basis.) Instead, I would bet on a take-private in the next few years. Even this morning, on the occasion of this momentous deal, there were only two questions after Kliger said his piece. The call ended early.

• Did you apply?: Apparently there were a lot of parties interested in that global editor-in-chief role at Glamour magazine, leaving Sam Barry, the New York-based editor-in-chief of the U.S. edition, in a holding pattern as she prepared to host this week’s Glamour Women of the Year at a hotel in Times Square. (I don’t want to be too mean about that detail because, you know, the hotel itself is actually pretty nice.) Turns out, Barry has been given the title after all, just in time for the event on Tuesday. (Would have been quite awkward, no?) Anyway, if anyone has any idea why Barry wasn’t just handed the job outright, given all the shilling she does on behalf of the brand, let me know.
• F.Y.I.: The Bally folks sent me a statement after last week’s item regarding their hiring of RCS Real Estate Advisors to help them wiggle out of several leases in the U.S. and close stores. “Bally is currently reviewing its global retail strategy to secure key locations that align with the brand’s repositioning,” a spokesperson told me. “At this time, there are no additional updates to share.”

Among the more obvious portents of the coming transformation is that C.E.O. and chairman Bernard Arnault has begun replacing executives within his inner circle with people who could become his children’s closest advisors. Toni Belloni (former group managing director, Italian right hand), Chris de Lapuente (former head of group that includes Sephora), and Jean-Jacques Guiony (C.F.O.) are all basically out; Sidney Toledano (former Dior C.E.O. and Fashion Group head) is halfway out. Meanwhile, current heir apparent Delphine Arnault (Dior), Pietro Beccari (Louis Vuitton), Pierre-Emmanuel Angeloglou (Fashion Group deputy), and Cecile Cabanis (next C.F.O.) are still in, with more appointments ahead. Arnault may have no plans to retire, himself, but he appears to be unsparing about colleagues nearing retirement age. (Former Louis Vuitton C.E.O.-cum-Fashion Group head Michael Burke, by the way, is still around and active in the business—and under 70—so perhaps something else is in store for him.)

As I mentioned last week, I suspect there will be another shake-up soon. Toledano, who returned to help run the fashion group after Burke stepped back, won’t stay in that position forever. I’ve also been told to keep an eye on C.E.O. changes at the small-but-impactful brands owned by the group.

The younger boys are preoccupied with their timepiece businesses, which seem like threshold jobs. Jean, the youngest, is director of Louis Vuitton watches. Frédéric, the C.E.O. of LVMH Watches and also manager of the family office, is being introduced to more and more outsiders. Alexandre Arnault, currently the most compelling character in the quintet—he runs marathons, speaks perfect English, and wears Bode—is in the U.S. overseeing product and comms at Tiffany alongside longtime LVMH soldier Anthony Ledru. I heard that August sales at Tiffany were up year over year, which is a good sign for them both. But being in the U.S. means that Alexandre is missing out on the Saturday morning store calls, which Bernard Arnault does alone, or with a family member, every week. (During the Paris shows, he was spotted alone at Le Bon Marché conversing with sales associates.)

The Arnaults are a close-knit family by all accounts. And despite the hiccup with Burke’s semi-exit earlier this year, this is a carefully managed orchestration. After all, the Burke news leaked just six months after Arnault sent a letter to top executives saying that anyone who spoke about the family, or trade secrets, to reporters would be heavily reprimanded, and probably fired. The paranoia about leaks—people are afraid their phones are being tapped—indicates these are not merely cosmetic changes, but the first serious stages of succession planning. Remember, Arnault isn’t thinking two years ahead, he’s thinking 10 years ahead.

When I asked an LVMH spokesman about Stella in particular, he told me it was “fake news.” But whatever they discard after selling Off-White won’t matter as much as what they buy. Many people in the investment community are convinced that the group is about to announce a major acquisition, probably not on par with 2021’s $15.8 billion Tiffany deal, but perhaps as culturally significant. Burberry, which just got a new C.E.O., Joshua Schulman, was one of the names batted around. But despite an appealingly low $2.3 billion market cap, I wonder whether LVMH would want to assume responsibility for such a challenging turnaround.

The other name in circulation has been Armani, whose founder will celebrate his 90th birthday with a show in New York City next week. But I’m told the speculation there is utterly unfounded. In recent interviews, Giorgio Armani has said that he wishes to remain independent as long as possible, without ruling out a future merger. (In other words: Never say never, but definitely not right now.) Also, Armani’s decision to bring the design teams out with him for his runway bow is an indication that he hopes for continuity whenever he does, eventually, have to step down.

One of the reasons Armani came up so much last week is because of Hedi Slimane. The speculation among creative types was that he bought a property in Milan, and that he was headed to either Armani or another Italian house to design. (It’s incredible what can set off the rumor mill…) At this point, this one does feel like “fake news” to me, as my P.R. friend would say. And yet, Slimane could go anywhere and succeed. (Even an Italian house typically run by an Italian. They’d rather speak French than English, after all.)

Size-wise, though, the only other place that would make sense for Slimane in Milan is Gucci. Of course, he’s not the only LVMH designer whose name has been brought up in connection to that house. On Friday, everybody was talking about the email Kering employees received, indicating that all brands would pause social media and online advertising on October 6 and 7, spurring some to speculate that an announcement was forthcoming. (It was probably, actually, to avoid any kind of messaging during the anniversary of the Hamas-led attack on Israel, which makes more common sense.)

So no, an announcement didn’t happen, but I heard that certain employees were also told on Friday that if anyone asked whether Dior womenswear designer Maria Grazia Chiuri was headed to Gucci, they should say, “no comment.”

Just because Kering told folks not to comment doesn’t mean the Chiuri gossip is true. (The policy at most of these companies is to say no comment to everything.) As for Jonathan Anderson replacing her at Dior—or replacing both her and menswear designer Kim Jones—I’ve been reluctant to weigh in more than I already have because, as with all of this, it feels only half-informed. My understanding from people close to Anderson is that nothing is certain at this moment. (There’s a scenario in which Anderson goes to Dior, and Delphine is replaced by Burke as C.E.O., but that’s educated conjecture.) The only thing we do know is that Anderson has transformed Loewe, and LVMH will need to figure out a way to keep up the momentum if he leaves. For creative people, leaving on a high is the best way to go. For the executives—as the Arnaults know better than anyone—it’s imperative that all these brands outlast any single designer.

Saoirse Ronan switched stylists a few weeks ago, from Elizabeth Saltzman to Danielle Goldberg, and the results are pretty remarkable—she looks extremely hot—given that she also looked great before. I guess the lesson is that sometimes change is good, even when it doesn’t seem necessary. [Red Carpet Fashion Awards]

The truly loveable P.R. Ben Cercio is launching his own firm. [WWD]

Another stylist is on the denim beat. Dani Michelle, who transformed Daisy Edgar Jones into a Chloé girl, is now the creative director of Joe’s Jeans. [WWD]

Apparently, The Row has become big on TikTok, thanks especially to a knockoff of The Margeaux that’s available at T.J.Maxx. [TikTok]

I copied this outfit. [Twitter]

This profile of Erin Foster, the creator of Nobody Wants This, was great. You should also read Jess Grose’s interrogation of the show’s depiction of all women. I have a lot of thoughts about this that I am happy to share I.R.L., but until then, let me just say that the costume designer did a notable job making both Kristen Bell and Adam Brody look contemporary and of this world. (Often, costumes in films and TV shows set in the present day still look like actual costumes.) I especially appreciated Bell’s High Sport sweater (from Spring ’23, def no longer avail) and Alex Perry strapless blue dress (currently on sale), both worn in the finale. [NY Mag and NY Times]

Edward Enninful is back on Twitter after a year hiatus. [Twitter]

Until Wednesday,
Lauren