Hi, and welcome back to Line Sheet. Are you still hung over from the Met Gala afterparties? I rewarded myself for a whole week of extrovert behavior by staying in. Still, I regret missing Carlos Nazario with Emily Ratajkowski, Francesco Risso, Paloma, Raul Lopez, and Renell Medrano at none other than WSA, downtown New York’s unofficial canteen, for Peach Pit After Dark. (I need more WSA in my life… reply to this email and tell me all about it.) In other late-night news, I heard Ssense’s 11 p.m. starter was “gnarly” in the best way possible.

Today, I’ve got Met Gala winners and losers (plus a bit of fresh reporting from the big night). Most importantly: Rachel is back with the latest on Estée Lauder, one of my favorite companies to follow at the moment. Estée was invincible… until suddenly it wasn’t. It’s always fascinating to observe how the once-untouchable handle challenging times.

🚨🚨Programming note: Jacob Gallagher and I went ham on the Met Gala, Bode + Nike, LVMH + Marc Jacobs, and more on Tuesday’s episode of Fashion People. I also taped an episode of How Long Gone, but thanks to the A.I. of Otter.ai, the recording got screwed up, so Chris and Jason published a transcript instead. I’m so annoyed (with myself). Enjoy?

Mentioned in this issue: Estée Lauder, Fabrizio Freda, Vogue, Anna Wintour, Condé Nast, John Galliano, Jonathan Anderson, Christy Welder, Kim Kardashian, Margiela, Demna, Loewe, Balenciaga, Fernando Garcia, Lauren Sánchez, Rosalia, Michelle Williams, TikTok, Zac Posen, J.P Morgan, Amazon, Balmain, and many more…

By that measure, it was successful. It was also a thrill for the Vogue staffers toiling away in their war room into the wee hours of the evening. The photo of Wintour standing at the head of this year’s class in her Loewe headmaster robe—which was black, and not Chanel, her typical Met Gala outfitter—is one for the history books.

While the actual gala sounds like a hoot—no journalists, no photos, the occasional cigarette in the bathroom—the real value of the event, of course, is generated outside. This was Wintour’s great commercial insight. There’s still a great deal of social currency to being inside the room, but there’s more measurable R.O.I., as determined by the number of online mentions emanating from the red carpet. It’s the walk up the steps where the companies who pay handsomely for tickets and sponsorships stand to benefit most. (On Vogue.com’s own livestream, Condé Nast ran spots for this summer’s Vogue World in Paris; second-row seats are being sold for €3,000 a ticket—although a good deal of the profits will go to a charity.)

Obviously, there was plenty of eye-rolling in the industry over this year’s vague horticultural theme—there is a crisis of critical thinking in our culture, so everything needs to be dumbed down. Maybe that helps to explain all the beige and greige and frowns. It may also have just been a weird year. On Tuesday, I had coffee with a friend who was intimately involved with one of the exhibitions staged at some time during this past decade, and described the gala as more neutered every year. And yet, I’m certain that, in 2025, the total funds raised will climb once again. We are not a people that stops when we’ve had enough.

Balenciaga: People are hungry for pure glamour right now, and Demna delivered with Nicole Kidman’s black-and-white ballgown, inspired by a garment worn in an Avedon photo.

Loewe: They’re also exhausted by masstige. Balenciaga, Loewe, Alaïa, and the like offer something of an alternative to the $10 billion-plus megabrand. How good of a position is Jonathan Anderson in right now? He managed to convince Wintour to wear black. And don’t forget his big Challengers win.

Oscar de la Renta: Not only did Laura Kim and Fernando Garcia tame Lauren Sánchez in a bosom-minimizing bustier gown, they also dressed both Kris Kardashian and Kylie Jenner, whose pointy-bust, duchess satin dress grew on me as the night went on.

The brands that didn’t buy tables: Rosalia in Dior and Michelle Williams in Chanel were two of the best looks of the night. Sometimes, you don’t need to flood the market. As to why Gucci, Louis Vuitton, and Bottega Veneta opted out? I can dig into this further if you wish (and don’t hesitate to message me), but I’m sure their reasons vary wildly. Let me remind you that the going is quite tough right now. This is not the stage for gaining momentum, this is the stage for amplifying momentum.

Hair and makeup: So much matted hair, bad wigs, and goth eyeliner.

Denim on the red carpet: Zac Posen should have just made Da’Vine Joy Randolph a gorgeous gown instead of using denim because it’s related to his day job at Gap Inc. I’m sure the company who paid for his ticket wanted him to promote his work there as much as possible, but the end result lacked ease, and therefore was also not elegant. As for the other mall brand that put up cash this year to be in the mix: I thought the H&M looks were great, especially Adwoa Aboah in her red taffeta two-piece.

After all, Freda was once responsible for the company’s most stellar performance; under his leadership, revenue doubled to $15 billion between 2009 and 2019, before the pandemic—and a host of other unfavorable macro-economic factors, including an inability to evolve with the times—caused revenue to drop. The question, of course, is whether Freda is also the right person now to guide the company through this new, post-pandemic era. Some high-level employees are surprised that a rash of down quarters hasn’t resulted in some form of executive shake-up. “It appears that the family and board are still supporting Fabrizio,” said a source with ties to the Lauder family.

As part of Freda’s much-publicized “Profit Recovery Plan,” announced in February, layoffs are expected to begin on July 1, I’ve heard. If all goes according to plan, this will be the beginning of an exodus of about 3,100 people, or about 5 percent of the workforce. Unsurprisingly, the sentiment inside the company is bleak. “It doesn’t seem that the ‘brand’ people are that scared, it’s the corporate function people that are worried,” a senior-level employee told me. Indeed, it’s my understanding that most of the brands are “pretty lean” already, thanks to the last significant restructuring program, the “Leading Beauty Forward” plan, which kicked off in 2016 and extended through 2021. During that time, about 2.5 percent, or roughly 1,000 employees, were let go. A spokesperson for The Estée Lauder Companies declined to comment.

Taken within the broader luxury sector, Lauder’s travails are certainly unremarkable. But compared to the rest of the global beauty market, the conglomerate continues to lag behind its peers. L’Oreal’s sales were up almost 8 percent last year, and Coty, which reported its earnings Monday, said its prestige business in China “generated reported net revenue growth in the mid-teens percentage.”

At least a few people thought the post-earnings stock dip was an overreaction, similar to how Ulta Beauty’s shares tumbled last month after C.E.O. David Kimbell warned of a potential cooldown in consumer beauty. After all, these results were definitely promising after six consecutive quarters of sales declines (net sales are still down 5 percent for the first nine months of the year), and it’s not like Lauder’s the only one that’s had trouble in China. I heard from a person close to the matter that we’ll start to see more “tangible actions” as a result of the restructuring in the next three months, right in time for August earnings.

In the meantime, what’s a still-struggling, potentially on-the-mend conglomerate to do? After years of resisting the U.S.’s biggest e-commerce platform, as everyone knows, Lauder is going all-in on Amazon—something it should have done several years ago, especially with its more affordable lines like Clinique or MAC Cosmetics. It’s encouraging that Clinique has seen success on the Amazon Premium Beauty store, with Freda going so far as to call the results “extraordinarily positive,” but I still don’t think Amazon will be enough to make up for an enduring overreliance on China, at least in the near term––even if nearly all the brands are on board by year’s end.

The first product—“a new fragrance experience,” according to the website—will debut in September, presumably with a Fashion Week tie-in. I have yet to see marketing materials, product, or packaging—the perfume bottle-shaped purse Balmain creative director Olivier Rousteing carried at the Met Gala notwithstanding—but this is a big deal. It’s the first time Lauder has launched a new brand in a very long time… 18 years, to be exact.

And there might be more M&A on the horizon. There are currently a large number of attractive, moderately sized beauty lines in market (or about to be in market) that could potentially help close Estée Lauder’s generational gap with younger consumers, or even address its issues in China. “If there is a generational color brand out there, can Estée afford to not get it—particularly if it’s less than $1 billion?” said an investor in the space, who suggested that a smallish asset could “solve all of their problems.” Lauder, after all, still has the balance sheet to go shopping. Sure, the stock is down from its absurd, pandemic-era high, depriving Freda of some dry powder. But the very fact that Lauder is in a worse position to pick off smaller brands is precisely why it needs to keep growing.

On the Met Gala’s reason for being: “Reminder that the Costume Institute is the only department of the museum that is responsible for its own fundraising; a definite part of the reason the gala is so important.” —A marketer

On the facialist racket Rachel wrote about on Monday: “No one pays for the facials. Brands do, and the facialists use the product and give them to the stars.” —A stylist

On Condé schadenfreude: “Care to share the file of the call with Lynch, Carrig, Duncan???” —A voyeur after my own heart

On Nell Diamond’s pretty orange dress at The Met, she looked fab, love her: “I’m sure I’m not the only one tickled by Nell showing up in Hill House Home.” —A designer

Until tomorrow,
Lauren