Hi, and welcome back to Line Sheet. Apparently, it’s… Friday? To give you the
proper brain massage, Sarah Shapiro, Rachel Strugatz, and I have banded together to offer up a look back at the week that was, and a peek into the future.
Up top, I’m contemplating a future that includes Chanel menswear (?!), Sarah breaks down Adidas’s latest financials, and Rachel critiques the rollout of Pat McGrath’s hotly anticipated
“glass skin” mask, inspired by last January’s much-discussed Maison Margiela show.
For the main event, Sarah offers a dispatch from the front lines of retail, with intel on everything from the deluge of Valentine’s Day merch and promos (blame Alaïa, or slow January sales) to the normalization of lab-grown diamonds. (We know the value of diamonds is a total construct, so it’s time to get on
board.)
Before we get started, just a reminder that this weekend in Paris, the men’s shows close out (I was sad to miss Auralee and Lemaire, in particular), making room for the in-between time before Couture, featuring Jacquemus’s shot-on-iPhone runway show and Peter Copping’s Lanvin debut. Wishing everyone the best of luck—I wish I could be there.
Mentioned in this issue: Pia Mance, Heaven Mayhem, Real Fine Studio, Alex Mill, Alex Drexler, Rare Beauty, Larroudé, Marina and Ricardo Larroudé, Staud, Alo, New Balance, Timothée Chalamet, Chanel, Matthieu Blazy, Bottega Veneta, Karl Lagerfeld, Bob Dylan, Pat McGrath, John
Galliano, Margiela, Phoebe Philo, Bergdorf Goodman, Neiman Marcus, Dover Street Market, Pieter Mulier, Alaia, Skims, and many, many more…
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Three Things You Should Know…
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- Chanel bros: Oscar nominee Timothée Chalamet’s haute-trailer park look, cultivated on his press tour for A Complete Unknown and inspired by Bob Dylan himself, is incredibly potent—reinforced by the pubescent facial hair. But nothing may be more indicative of the future of men’s fashion than his petite metallic Chanel bag, worn across the body with a bubblegum pink puffer jacket and a Chanel scarf. “Men and Chanel bags are gonna happen,” the
most insider of industry insiders posited to me the other day. After all, gender is also a construct, right, no matter what our government says? And guys carry Birkins now.
Unlike Hermès, of course, Chanel does not officially make menswear. For years, Karl Lagerfeld apparently ran into resistance on the subject from the Wertheimers, who were against the proposition of launching the category. But the world has changed, and there are
plenty of boys who are already mourning the discontinuation of incoming creative director Matthieu Blazy’s menswear designs for Bottega Veneta. My prediction is that Blazy will develop menswear at Chanel, too. After all, his title is artistic director of fashion activities, not womenswear. Jacob
Elordi, welcome to Rue Cambon.
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Sarah Shapiro
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- Riding the Samba
wave: As anyone who ever looks down is aware, Adidas is having a moment: It’s rare that a brand has so many popular sneaker SKUs at once. The indefatigable Samba has remained relevant far longer than I could have anticipated. The Campus 00s, a top Gen Z 2024 holiday gift according to youth-trend maven
Casey Lewis, is also succeeding, as are Gazelles. This multi-model momentum is rare in sneaker markets, where brands typically rely on a single hero product before consumers skip along to the next thing.
The hype was evidenced in Adidas’ strong 4Q2024 results, with currency-neutral revenues up 19 percent. Even excluding sales of Yeezys, which have now been fully
liquidated, core revenue grew 18 percent, demonstrating the brand’s successful pivot beyond what was once half its revenue stream. Operating profit in the quarter reached €57 million, compared to a €377 million loss in 4Q2023. While that profit number still feels tiny for a brand this size, what’s notable is the improvement from the same quarter last year. But with Adidas still feeling the Yeezy impact—having to sell at cost, plus a glut of inventory dampening U.S. sales—there is much more work
ahead. That said, operating income grew by more than €1 billion for the full year—a remarkable turnaround.
The brand also strengthened its fashion position through its Wales Bonner collabs. Indeed, Adidas has managed to succeed in both mass
market and luxury positioning with various lines in their stable. (After all, this executive team deployed the same strategy with Yeezys before everything went sideways…) The company, in short, knows how to maintain a balance of core product momentum while offering something exciting for the discerning fashion crowd.
The most impressive part of this turnaround, however, is that Adidas jump-started its revenue spigot while increasing margins. (Q4 gross margin was up 5.2 percent, bringing
the total margin to nearly 50 percent.) For me, this achievement signaled both successful premium pricing and improved cost management in an industry segment that can require discounts to move merchandise.
When I brought up Adidas with a highly seasoned trend researcher, he made a seemingly obvious but critical point: In a finicky and trend-driven business, Adidas needs to pipeline its hero products and lead the industry in what is next.
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Rachel Strugatz
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- Pat McGrath’s
new skin fetish: A year ago, Pat McGrath transformed the models in John Galliano’s Margiela couture show into lacquered, porcelain dolls, and created genuine internet hysteria. At the time, I wondered why McGrath didn’t use the fashion show, or the masterclass she hosted a month later, as an opportunity to launch an adjacent, more commercial product for her Pat McGrath Labs brand.
Of course, I was intrigued when I heard that McGrath had
finally decided to capitalize on the Margiela makeup craze. But I was confused when I actually saw the product, and realized it was a mask that quite literally replicated the Margiela runway beauty look. Besides the publications, editors, and influencer types who all posted a version of the same selfie video looking like actual porcelain dolls, I don’t know who would willingly want to
look like this. It’s not wearable, and even the box is creepy—very Severance.
So, alas, the most viral beauty look has turned into the least commercial beauty launch. This feels like a missed opportunity for McGrath, who could have created a liquid highlighter that gives a “glass skin effect,” or even a lacquered eye shadow or
multiuse gloss, etcetera. There are few artists (if any) who can create such cultural moments from beauty looks, but the key to commercial success is figuring out how to translate these moments in a way that appeals to mainstream beauty customers, not just packaging and selling what is essentially runway makeup.
The “glass skin” trend isn’t that literal, and while the internet may be freaking out about this “viral” product, I doubt the brand will sell too many units. McGrath’s
business has been in trouble for years: While a product like this creates conversation and buzz online, what the brand actually needs is meaningful sales.
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A lab-grown diamond play, another Alex Mill collab, Staud Sport (!!), and the most
brilliant and devious Valentine’s Day marketing tactics yet.
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These days, in the retail landscape, brands tend to expand into new categories via
collabs or strategic partnerships first. Ordinarily, creating a new beauty product can take at least 18 months of testing, learning, iterating, etcetera. But working with a partner can shorten the royal route to market, all while minimizing capital risk—duh, yes, I know you know this. Anyway, these moves illustrate how companies are carefully testing new markets to gain intel before making a more significant investment, themselves.
This week I noticed that Heaven Mayhem, a costume jewelry line founded by podcaster and influencer Pia Mance, partnered up with Real Fine Studio on a lab-grown diamond collection. Beyond acquiring new customers, Heaven Mayhem can now play at
a higher price point, while Real Fine can test whether its customers are interested in less-expensive alternatives to rare gemstones.
Also this week, Alex Mill returned to a past collaboration with Japanese denim brand OmniGod in the form of a men’s line that women can size down and wear, too. Co-founder
Alex Drexler originally worked with the brand a decade ago, and launched a successful capsule a couple years ago. The obvious lesson here: If a collab works, do it again. Also, denim is a winner when you are in the shoulder seasons.
Rare Beauty, meanwhile, expanded their top-selling Soft Pinch Liquid
Blush (there are powder blushes and lip oil, too) into the contour category with Soft Pinch Liquid Contour. This feels like a no-brainer and a low-lift expansion, development-wise. The company knew that the product was winning, the formulation only needed a tweak, and the packaging silhouette remained the same.
Another of the week’s category expansions came at Larroudé, Marina and Ricardo Larroudé’s shoe line. The company, known for ballet flats and platform heels and sandals, is dipping a toe into sneaker territory, launching the safe Stella sneaker during the slow month of January, which should offer them a new item to excite customers. A new marketing
campaign built on globetrotting imagery positions the product as a travel sneaker—perhaps chasing after the aspirational Loewe Flow Runner crowd with a shoe that’s a third of the price.
Fittingly for this era of experimentation, Staud is launching Staud Sport, a fitness line that could give Alo some competition. (Or more likely, Tory Sport.) Staud is no stranger to the workout space, having already tested the waters via collabs with brands like New Balance. Given all the foreplay, the company presumably understands now what pieces their customer gravitate toward, and what size ranges as well as inventory to invest in. The collection will be available on January 30.
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Everything
Else I’m Seeing Out There…
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After originally launching on its own website, Phoebe Philo has added a select few
retailer partners —Bergdorf Goodman in New York, Neiman Marcus in L.A., and Dover Street Market in London and Paris, to name a few. (Although Lauren visited Bergdorfs, and the collection that dropped on January 22 wasn’t in stores yet; she was told February 11.) Online, many pieces and sizes have already sold out, like this crisp tie shirt. I’m curious how the brand allocates inventory in stores for
those consumers who prefer to try before they buy, especially at that price point.
Meanwhile, it’s early in the marketing cycle for Valentine’s Day, which, like Mother’s Day, is a holiday in which the bulk of sales occur week-of. But it’s also become a meaningful economic event: Valentine’s Day spending in 2024 was more than $25 billion, with jewelry sales accounting for 25 percent of that
total. (The average American consumer spends just under $200 on the holiday.) It has also become a bigger online shopping holiday, with 40 percent of shoppers making their purchases on the web—up 20 percent from the year before.
A few new trends have cropped up this year. One is jammies—or PJs, or pajamas, or however you refer to the clothing you sleep in—a Christmas tradition that opportunistic retailers
and brands are attempting to copy and paste onto other holidays. Lake Pajamas, for one, created a Valentine’s Day landing page that caters to the whole family—babies, women, men… there’s even a maternity option. Hill House Home, which has built a business capitalizing on sleep-adjacent looks, is, naturally, out with a Valentine’s Day special edition
Ellie Nap Dress (also in mini sizes.)
Still, we have to ask: Why are we seeing so many hearts this far in advance of
the actual holiday? First, business is really tough right now. Unlike merchandise themed for Halloween or Christmas, Valentine’s Day products have a longer shelf life. Second, if you need something to pop on a floor, you can count on reds and pinks to say “Look here: fresh deliveries.” There’s also a high-end designer trickle-down effect at work: Pieter Mulier, at Alaïa, currently has the heart shape on lock as a signifier for the brand (as seen in these
Demi-Coeur earrings or the patent leather Coeur slingbacks). So it’s no surprise that more mid-tier brands are taking notice.
Finally, of course, let’s not forget the traditional lingerie purchases that happen this time of year.
Skims, which always leverages pop culture stars in its campaigns, featured Rosé from Blackpink this season. The shop includes PJs, intimate apparel, latex bodysuits, kitty bedroom slippers, and knit blankets—it’s the most SKU-intensive V-Day collection I’ve ever seen—which makes sense for a
brand striving to be a next-gen Victoria’s Secret. And if you don’t have intimate apparel, like U.K.-based mostly dress line Rixo, you collab with another brand that does. Rixo and Stripe & Stare partnered on a collection of underthings that includes this Love Heart set (here and
here).
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On Simone Bellotti’s anticipated Bally exit: “Agree that
Bellotti leaving Bally is bittersweet. Being Swiss, I was rooting for the brand. (Not that Bally is truly Swiss. Like most brands headquartered in the Ticino area, it employs almost exclusively lower-wage employees from nearby Italy, and the design team probably spends the better part of its time in a Milan-based showroom.) That being said, there are simply no resources left to build something. The brand is in pure cost-cutting mode. They are firing people left and
right. They closed the brilliant Fondazione Bally, which was headed by Vittoria Matarrese and headquartered in a beautiful villa on the shores of Lake Lugano. The brand has been switching owners seemingly every five minutes for the past 10 years or so, which obviously prevented any strategic retooling. So they just kept spending as usual, while trying out things more or less at random. I’m sure Bellotti—which is right—was more an accident than anything.” —A brand
consultant
On the LVMH constituency at the inauguration: “I tried hard not to message you regarding the Arnaults, but…: Engaging with a government is one thing, but attending the inauguration, vigorously clapping, and giving continuous standing ovations is another.” —A strategic advisor type
On the Oscar de la Renta inauguration takeover: “Don’t you just love having an excuse to call Alex Bolen? Love that guy.” —A writer
On my coverage of inauguration fashion, and Trump: “I love you! And I cannot with Trump Regime fashion reports. I beg you not to make this part of your beat. Don’t you feel icky being right there with
Bezos and Zuck and everyone bending the knee to those people? Usha looks gorgeous! But her husband talks shit about women! Okay, it’s their big day and night. But for the most part, can you please leave routine reporting on their fashion to lesser mortals? You are the Dean! Let someone else do that dirty work. Fashion is where I come to hide from those people. You may have to follow the money, but you don’t have to kiss its ass.” —Ruth Ann
Harnisch
On our lack of e-commerce recs geared toward men: “Men get the shoppies, too ;-).” —A lawyer [Ed. note: We hear you!]
On Sarah’s Vuori analysis: “Love the Vuori piece! Went to visit family in San Diego over the holidays and got into a big discussion over whether this can make it and
how their store felt bland. It’s located right next to Lululemon so we did both back-to-back and stood outside comparing. Family isn’t in the industry and they didn’t get my skepticism or critiques, but… all valid points! All that said, I type as I’m wearing their pants now.” —A brand marketer
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And finally… Did you know that Aritzia is not only knocking off The Row (a
given), but also knocking off The Row’s lookbook? (All the way down to the typeface.) Now that’s influence.
Have a great weekend,
Lauren
P.S.: We are using affiliate links because we are a business. We may make a couple bucks off them.
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Puck fashion correspondent Lauren Sherman and a rotating cast of industry insiders take you deep behind the scenes of this
multitrillion-dollar biz, from creative director switcheroos to M&A drama, D.T.C. downfalls, and magazine mishaps. Fashion People is an extension of Line Sheet, Lauren’s private email for Puck, where she tracks what’s happening beyond the press releases in fashion, beauty, and media. New episodes publish every Tuesday and Friday.
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