Hi, and welcome back to Line Sheet. Happy end of New York Fashion Week. You made it!

Today’s issue is short and sweet because A) We’re all tired and B) Puck is OOO for its first-ever corporate offsite. (For those of you who have asked for intel from our two days of strategy sessions, I can exclusively reveal that… there were PowerPoint presentations. Lots of them.)

As this lands in your inbox, I’ll be getting ready for Puck’s third anniversary party, which is being held on the rooftop of Nine Orchard. (I bet you can guess who made my dress.) Happiest birthday to my favorite thing to read and my favorite place to work.

Our regularly scheduled programming (links, etcetera) will be back next week, but until then, send me some tips by replying to this email, and enjoy this pleasantly stuffed mailbag. Next week we can discuss all the brands fleeing Russia, LVMH’s potential F1 sponsorship, and whether Blake Lively is actually shadow-styling Taylor Swift, I promise.

🚨🚨 Programming note: Tomorrow on Fashion People, I’m joined by Danielle Goldberg, the stylist behind our favorite actors to watch on and off the red carpet—Greta Lee and Ayo Edebiri—both of whom she’s dressing for the Emmys on Sunday night. We talk about the business of being a celebrity stylist in 2024, a superior sourdough bread, and our favorite designers. Subscribe here and here.

P.S.: Remember the designer Kaelen Haworth? Remember that she opened a fabulous store in Toronto called Absolutely Fabrics? Remember that she just loves a dinner party? Well, on Sunday, Absolutely Fabrics and king of Hollywood-slash-What I’m Hearing mastermind Matt Belloni hosted a Puck Private Dinner for Hollywood stakeholders who were in town for the Toronto International Film Festival. It was off the record, like all Puck private dinners, but since I always find everything out, I can tell you with absolute certainty that it was a great night. Jealous? Reach out to Alexandra@puck.news to book one of your very own.

Mentioned in this issue: Ella Emhoff, Derek Blasberg, The Row, Ozempic, Aurora James, Eva Chen, Kering, Beyoncé, Katie Grand, Cathy Horyn, Demna, JCPenney, Amazon, Ferrari, and many more…

• The Row: Last week, I reported that the New York-based brand had sold a minority stake in the biz. I heard rumblings afterward that it was the Wertheimers, the family that owns Chanel, through their family office, Mousse. Others theorized that it was the Bettencourt family, which owes its fortune to L’Oreal. Turns out both theories were true, according to a report in Bloomberg.

  The reported valuation—$1 billion—makes sense to me, given that the revenue is probably between $250 and $500 million, and these things are usually valued at 2-4x revenue. My understanding is that Byron Trott’s BDT & MSD will maintain a position in the business, and that they are instrumental in making this new deal happen. Anyway, as I said this week, I’m not sure there’s a better scenario for founders Mary-Kate and Ashley Olsen, who wish nothing more but to maintain control. Who better to do that with than two of the biggest investors in luxury in the world? Jeez, they didn’t even show and The Row still made out best this week.

• GLP-1: I make a lot of jokes about Ozempic and Mounjaro and Zepbound and Wegovy, but in all seriousness, the effects of these drugs were more visible than ever this New York Fashion Week. There were people who had lost 60, 70 pounds over the past year. There were people who suddenly looked old. There were people who have always been skinny, but now look shriveled. Then there were the people who had probably just lost a little weight the old-fashioned way, but everyone thinks they’re on the shot because… why wouldn’t they be?

  I’m not judging any of it, really. These miracle drugs are saving and improving lives. And let’s not admonish people who take them just to get skinny. It’s very obvious that, despite all the kumbaya talk in fashion over the past decade about diversity and inclusion, purportedly dated ideals of physical beauty aren’t so dated after all.

• The Harris campaign: Not only did Kamala win Tuesday night’s debate (dogs and cats being eaten aside), Harris-Walz was everywhere this fashion week—and not only Ella Emhoff and her Secret Service detail. On Saturday night, Derek Blasberg and Aurora James co-hosted an “immersive experience” down on Mercer Street with Eva Chen and Emhoff. I still don’t know what the immersive experience really was, to be honest, but apparently the Harris campaign paid for it, and lots of fun people showed up: Karlie Kloss, Jenna Lyons, Cass Bird, Aminatou Sow. (I made Max Stein go.) They took selfies, posted to social, and left. What more could you want? Well, for those who wanted more, James and Vogue’s Mark Guiducci hosted a debate viewing party at Metrograph.
• Kering: The group was everywhere at the top of the week. The Caring for Women annual party, which takes place at The Grill, the Carbone Guys’ reiteration of The Four Seasons, is by all accounts a very good time. This year, Lindsey Lohan, Kim Kardashian, Oprah, Leo, and Lauren and Jeff all showed up. It’s also a clienteling opportunity, too. The brands (and some stores, like Neiman Marcus), buy tables and invite their top clients, who are thrilled to schmooze with real celebs. We love a good party!

  The next night, Balenciaga threw another good one at their new store on Greene Street, which has been in the works for five years. Uptown, another Kering brand, Boucheron, set up in the Cooper Hewitt in celebration of their new New York store. Leon Bridges performed. A nice little flood of the market.

• Alaïa: You know it.
• And before we really get started: Line Sheet reader and pioneering American model Bethann Hardison has even more intel on fashion shows at the Guggenheim. She replied to my last email, which mentioned that the Miss Sixty show took place at the museum in the mid-aughts, to inform me that the Guggenheim also hosted a Giorgio Sant’Angelo show in the late 1970s. (Learn more about him here.) “I was one of the models,” she told me. “We stood still in position and the audience circled us walking the rotunda.”

This feels so beneath GQ’s standards. Did someone else drop out? I always felt like they had pretty high thresholds for their talent (Brad and George, Kim K, Cillian Murphy, Timothée, R-Patz), but her whiskey getting pride of place on the cover? WTF!

I agree that it doesn’t look good, despite the fact that everyone involved is good. The whiskey, remember, is owned by leading advertiser LVMH, Beyoncé pretty much never gives interviews, so a Q&A is better than nothing, and it was exciting that she allowed Katie Grand to style her sans Shiona Turini. I asked a GQ-adjacent friend what happened and he said that, unfortunately, it appears to be a matter of wanting one of the biggest stars in the world and then realizing what you got isn’t what you wanted. Beyoncé is famously controlling about her press. She led the trend of celebrities not playing ball with the media, choosing instead to go direct to fans and own the narrative, herself. Sometimes, it works out okay. Mostly, though, it’s boring. People these days are looking for messiness. (See: TikTok.) It will be interesting to see if this bend on GQ’s part forces them to heed other similar demands…

What is Ozempic doing to the fashion industry? I have been reading that there will be a much more significant apparel surplus as more people discard their larger sizes. How is the industry adjusting its sizing runs?

They’re having conversations about it. But are they adjusting anything yet? Probably not. The thing with these weight-loss drugs is that they are inconsistent. Some people go on them for six months, lose a tremendous amount of weight, and then go off of them and put most, if not all, of it back on. Also, most fashion brands never offered much extended sizing anyway, because it’s too expensive and tricky to execute. They just acted like they did.

Would love to hear what you know about Cathy Horyn’s contract with New York magazine. She is the preeminent fashion critic of our time. Yet she only seems to publish a handful of meaningful articles per year. For The Cut’s September issue, she also didn’t publish an in-depth report, which is atypical. Is Horyn working on a book? What’s her arrangement?

All I know is that she’s not leaving, she’s earned the right to do whatever she wants, and she spent a lot of time on that essay she wrote for The Cut’s print issue. (In fact, she started discussing it with her editor way back in February.) Every six months or so, someone tells me that they heard Cathy is leaving the mag. It hasn’t been true yet.

Do designers need technical design skills anymore? Or do they just need management skills? I’m from a tech design background so, of course, I would say you can’t delegate without understanding what you’re delegating. On the other hand, factories feel more sophisticated than ever, and maybe it’s enough to just give them a vision.

I’m a big believer in knowing and following the rules so that you can break them later. With that in mind, I generally believe it’s good for a designer to have technical skills. If Demna didn’t have that foundational knowledge and proficiency, he may not have gotten so far. That said, is it cheating to use a TI-83 graphing calculator on a complicated math problem? Probably not. Many elements of technical design will likely disappear over time as technology improves and pervades this industry, like every other one.

There’s always room for something that’s good, but I think we often far underestimate the activewear opportunity. Not every brand will be as big as Lululemon or Alo. But think about how many different brands of denim are in the market. Look at the recent success of On Running and Hoka: Who would’ve thought there was such a huge opportunity in performance sneakers? If you’re launching a brand, the best thing you can do is be specific. The goal, early on, is to attract a following that appreciates the specifics. Then, suddenly, the specific becomes universally desired.

What makes a great fashion show?

It’s a mix of great music, great styling, and of course, great clothes.

Do you see the same faces at the shows you attend?

Yes, which is why it’s important for me to be there in addition to seeing the clothes in person (which is also important). I need to say hi to people and also see who is talking to whom, where they are seated (it says a lot about their position in the industry), etcetera. Sometimes I am seated across from people I don’t want to say hi to, and I avoid making eye contact. The first day of the season never fails to feel like the first day of school.

What are your thoughts on JCPenney? I was on a call with someone from their team yesterday, and they said they are for the “American working family,” and decidedly not striving for luxury, which I found extremely refreshing-slash-borderline exciting, based on the current trend of everything being luxury-slash-prestige, regardless of price point. I would love to hear what you think of this as a strategy.

The pendulum always swings. In recent years, everyone, not just rich people, have been trying to look rich. (See: Your aunt in Michigan embracing Qui*t Lux%ry.) For JCPenney, this isn’t a terrible idea. The terrible thing is that JCPenney continues to die a long, slow, still decades-away death.

What happens when Amazon, which invested in Saks via the financing event that merged the retailer with Neiman Marcus, expects Saks brands to be sold on Amazon? I hear that was part of the deal.

We won’t know if that was part of the deal until the deal officially closes. Saks knows brands would freak, so don’t expect to see Loewe pop up in your Prime account any time soon.

What is the industry consensus regarding Ferrari’s new(ish) high-fashion clothing line? As an automotive enthusiast, it appears to me that it’s sort of a vanity project for John Elkann, et al. There is a Ferrari store near me, but I have never seen anyone wearing the high-end apparel (versus the merch for F1 fans) in real life, and most Ferrari owners view the collection with derision. Nevertheless, analysts covering Ferrari seem to think the “lifestyle” stuff is really important, and Ferrari themselves are very conscious to present the brand as a true “luxury” brand—it certainly trades more like Hermès than other automakers, including Porsche. Moreover, take a look at Ferrari’s Board: Delphine Arnault, Francesca Bellettini (Kering), John Galantic (ex-Chanel)…

Analysts are not always very stylish and they often don’t get the nuances of the fashion industry. This is never going to be a thing, just as Porsche design has never been a thing. Car-brand merch is good. Car-brand fashion is bad.

Until Monday,
Lauren