Hi, and welcome to Line Sheet, where I’d estimate that the
overlap between our subscribers and the opening weekend audience for Babygirl was about 100 percent. 🥛.
On the subject of Babygirl, how absolutely correct does Nicole Kidman look on the cover of W in the best concept from Balenciaga’s spring collection? More on that—and the magazine’s ascendance in the context of their Saturday night
Chateau penthouse party—below. Plus, designer news from Jean Paul Gaultier and my by-request take on L Catterton’s acquisition of Okayama-based, Ametora-adjacent brand Kapital. For the main event, I’ve got an update on Khy and the state of the Kardashian industrial complex.
🚨🚨Programming note: Tomorrow on Fashion People, I’m joined by Zanna
Roberts Rassi, host of E!’s live red carpet show, to talk Golden Globes fashion, the W party, and plenty more. Listen here and here.
🛍️ For those of you with The Shoppies: One of the highlights of the W party was seeing Ali Larter, the queen of Landman, Taylor Sheridan’s ludicrous, highly entertaining Paramount+ series about big oil. This is the first show in the Sheridanverse that I’ve cottoned to, and let’s just say that Larter’s performance alone, all the way down to the way she wears her clothes, makes it
worth sticking around. She mostly looks good because of genetics (sorry sweetie, but those Levi’s aren’t going to fit you that way), but I’ll admit that she influenced me to finally—finally!—buy a pair of On running sneakers. It’s fascinating how On reverse-engineered cultural relevance: Instead of initially going after the fashion-literate class, they targeted the global sneakers-to-work aristocracy before hooking fashion types with their stellar, ongoing collaboration with Loewe.
Anyway, I got these (the Cloudflyer 4, reduced to $100) to use while training for a half-marathon.
Mentioned in this issue: Hedi Slimane, Sara Moonves, Sweet Baby Jamie, Nicolas Ghesquière, Bryan Goldberg, Anna
Wintour, Jean Paul Gaultier, Puig, Kapital, L Catterton, David Sedaris, Kylie Jenner, Khy, Skky, Kim Kardashian, Jay Sammons, the Gredes, the Emilys (Sundberg and Oberg), Emma Stone’s pixie cut, Golden Globes gowns, Louis Vuitton, Kemo Sabe, Ralph Lauren, and many more…
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Three Things You Should Know…
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- W’s night of the stars: Babygirl star Nicole Kidman came out to the penthouse at the Chateau Marmont on Saturday night, as did pretty much every other Very Important Celebrity on the planet these days (Angelina Jolie, Daniel Craig, Demi Moore) for W editor-in-chief Sara
Moonves and editor-at-large Lynn Hirschberg’s to-do celebrating their Best Performances issue. This is always a best-in-class spread, but this year, the Mert & Marcus-shot portfolio was sexy, and not just provocative. My favorites were Moore lifting a barbell in an Hermès bra top, Zendaya in a Chloé airbrushed flamingo swimsuit (tugging at her jeans), and Kidman in a Balenciaga v-neck sweater and a lace garter
belt.
Was this party—sardine-packed and teeming with great scenery, like a floppy-haired Hedi Slimane chatting in a corner with stylist Jamie Mizrahi and Nicolas Ghesquière—the “last great magazine party,” as one person said to me? And is W the “last mag standing,” which is how someone else put it? Bryan Goldberg, the founder and C.E.O. of
BDG Media, who partnered with Moonves’s Future Media on buying the magazine in 2019, seemed nearly overwhelmed by his good fortune to be rubbing shoulders with Hollywood’s actual elite.
Moonves—who you should listen to on this new episode of the very good podcast What’s Contemporary Now?—has somehow managed to keep
the brand feeling inventive, expensive, and above all, fun. Yes, the caliber of celebrity was impressive at the party, but there is not another editor-in-chief working today who could compel Slimane and Ghesquière to show up and just… hang out. Moonves is undoubtedly first in line to succeed 75-year-old Anna Wintour at Vogue at this point, which raises an interesting question: What happens to W, of which she is a part-owner, if she were to go?
Does it get sold back to Condé Nast? Too bad she can’t just buy Vogue, herself! But remember, it’s not for sale…
- Jean Paul Gaultier’s new designer: I hear that the Puig-owned brand, which is having a ton of success with men’s fragrance thanks to social media, has signed a permanent designer, to be announced soon. (If you know who it is, call me.) This will be the first time since Gaultier’s retirement in 2020
that the brand will have a full-time creative director. Since 2021, it has enlisted guest designers each season—including Sacai’s Chitose Abe, Haider Ackermann, and Glenn Martens—to create couture collections. Still, most of the apparel currently for sale are simply reissues or tweaks of archival designs, sold relatively cheaply and targeted to Gen Z, Diesel-wearing types. (“It’s a Ssense brand
now,” is how one insider put it.) While Puig makes most of its money from fragrance, it’s seen success with Dries Van Noten, which it acquired in 2018, and is now building the fragrance business off of strong ready-to-wear sales.
- Too bad for Visvim: I’ve gotten many a request to cover L Catterton’s acquisition of Kapital, the 40-year-old Japanese brand that deals heavily in Americana and is a leader in the country’s Ametora movement. (If you
don’t know about Ametora—which is essentially the Japanese co-opting of American fashion tropes—you should read my friend David’s book.) Anyway, people like menswear commentator Derek Guy seem annoyed that it happened. “Terrible,” he said on X.
“I haven’t seen one brand acquired by LVMH that hasn’t gone downhill in some way.”
Well, the good news for Derek is that LVMH has not acquired Kapital—instead, it was bought by an LVMH-linked private equity firm with an entirely unique portfolio. (Among other successes, L Catterton owned Birkenstock for a minute before taking it public.) Every investment is different, but generally L Catterton comes in to help scale retail for companies that generate between $40 million and $500
million a year. They do not always succeed, and I know people connected to brands that L Catterton controls who are not happy with the firm’s approach to their projects. But they invest heavily in their portfolio companies, and I’d say that simply identifying Kapital says something about their integrity. There are trendier brands out there, but a lot of rich, tech-adjacent guys I know like Kapital. Besides, David Sedaris wears it. This isn’t a cool-kid brand
(not everything menswear guys like is cool, okay?), but it is a lasting one.
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Kylie Jenner accessorized at the Golden Globes with Timothée, but
making things work with her “real” fashion brand, Khy, is proving more elusive. Meanwhile, Kim’s P.E. vehicle has come up short.
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I’ve been
anticipating Peak Kardashian since 2017, and have been constantly reminded during the intervening years to never underestimate our species’ craven desire for more from Calabasas. It wasn’t until 2019 that Skims launched, after all, becoming the most successful family venture in history. Lemme, Kourtney’s supplements line, rendered in
trendy gummies and packaged in lavender plastic, has also recently become a hit, with prime shelf space in the premium aisle at Target.
A few weeks back, however, a fashion entrepreneur shared with me a bold prediction for the new year: “We are at the end of the Kardashians era.” This person continued with their investment thesis: “We have moved to an era of raw authenticity meets podcasters and
YouTube. The Kardashians are neither raw nor have a P.O.V. that people care about. It’s all about the young talent: Jake & Logan Paul, Alix Earle, Alex Cooper, etcetera.”
Significant parts of the Kardashian empire continue to thrive—Skims, for instance, appears destined for a public offering in the next two years—but
there have been the inevitable misfires characteristic of any investment firm, which is essentially how this family business operates. (They’re still trying to make Safely, Kris Jenner’s cleaning products line, happen.) Most recently in maybe-that-wasn’t-the-best-idea news, Kim stepped down from co-managing Skky, the private equity firm she founded with former Carlyle Group consumer guy Jay Sammons, which has only
raised about 12 percent of the $1 billion-plus that it hoped to secure when it announced its launch in 2022. (People in the Kardashian camp claim that no one on the Skky side ever said raising that much was in the plan.)
In any case, it became clear that the Kardashian brand alone was not enough to sustain interest in the fund. Sources familiar with the deal for Truff, the stinky truffle hot
sauce brand—the only investment Skky has announced thus far—said that prospective limited partners were not impressed by the promise of Kim’s involvement, although I am sure anyone involved would deny that. Also, Skky began raising capital at a terrible time—after the collapse of the I.P.O. market in 2021, amid the spike in interest rates and the dawn of the A.I. era. What L.P. or sovereign wealthy fund was going to become giddy over a hot sauce brand backed by a millennial influencer
when the alternatives were so astronomically lucrative? (The dissolution of Carlyle’s own consumer practice is another proof point of the market’s transition.) But really, Kim had little incentive to go all in on a fund, anyway. She has potentially billions of dollars of equity value in Skims: Why would she take her eye off that prize?
While Kim has managed to help turn Skims into a sustainable,
EBITDA-positive business that is, arguably, not reliant on her celebrity to succeed, Kylie’s most successful venture, Kylie Cosmetics, has had a much choppier trajectory. A decade after its phenomenal debut, as Rachel Strugatz has reported here, the tactics feel outdated and the aesthetic is out of taste. And then there’s Kylie’s fashion brand,
Khy.
When I first reported on Khy in the summer of 2023, several months before its launch, the line was being touted as the family’s first
real fashion play. (The business raised about $13 million in a seed round, I’m told, although a rep declined to comment.) People on their side were using the word luxury—a near meaningless descriptor these days—while I heard that it would be their answer to fast fashion. So far, it’s been neither of those things.
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I’d reckon that, despite bristling at the comparison, Khy was meant
to be a competitively priced antidote to the likes of Shein and Fashion Nova, the ultra-trashy dressmaker sold online and in low-grade strip malls. Khy’s prices weren’t much higher, but the clothes were more polished, the selection was limited, and the aesthetic has been focused. Collaborations with the likes of French brand Atlein and Entire Studios helped define the point of view.
But while it’s a good
little business (I’d estimate sub-$30 million more than a year after launch, although the company declined to share figures), Khy has yet to pop—likely the result of a lack of demand and early production hiccups that led to some initial poor reviews.
There’s a chance that sales will pick up, but the onus will be on Kylie to envision the next phase of the business. Jens and
Emma Grede, the operators behind the holdco Popular Culture—where they’ve partnered with the Kardashians on several ventures, including Skims and Good American—started pulling back from the day-to-day operations of Khy about six months ago. In the meantime, Jenner’s team has been actively interviewing C.E.O. candidates, including Julia Hunter, the former C.E.O. of Jenni Kayne, whose consulting firm, Westview Ventures, now
advises the likes of Goop and Violet Grey on brand strategy. This incoming executive will need to help Kylie raise another, larger round of funding for a business that has yet to demonstrate either significant product-market fit or the
potential to scale. I reached out to all parties for comment, which they did not provide.
Why are the Gredes, who I’m told are minority shareholders in Khy, out? A source close to the Kardashian-Jenners said this was always the plan. But even if it wasn’t, the Gredes—especially C.E.O. Jens—have their
hands full and economic interests invested in the expansion of Skims, which is opening hundreds of physical stores as it grows into its $4 billion valuation. And, yes, it’s true that in the polite culture of partnering on business ventures with celebrities, it’s entirely possible that these important distractions allowed the couple to bow out without having to
articulate to a capital-K Kardashian that the opportunity wasn’t all that promising.
At the same time, the Gredes are expanding their business purview, with an investment last year in upscale knitwear line The Elder Statesmen and now the launch of NFL WAG Kristin Juszczyk’s new sports apparel play, Off Season, a pin on the Starter jacket for the White Claw generation. Grede and
Juszczyk have enlisted both the NFL and Michael Rubin’s Fanatics, which produces a ton of fan gear for various sports, as partners.
With 1.2 million followers on Instagram, Juszczyk already fancies herself a fashion designer—you can hypothetically order one of her custom jackets, on which the designs for
Off Season are based. Her profile—only a little media trained, not the right fake tan, and a provincial worldview that reads as authentic everygirl—is exactly what my entrepreneur friend predicted would work best in a post-Kardashian era. The Gredes’ business is called Popular Culture, after all.
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On the indie magazines
featured in the question about how indie magazines survive: “Wonderland and V are not B-tier. They are D-tier.” —A person who works with magazines on a regular basis
On the post-Great Recession luxury
rebound I mentioned last week: “While it’s true that Kering didn’t resume growth until the 2013-14 period (thanks, in large part, to Alessandro), LVMH actually rebounded much sooner. In the first half of 2010, LVMH’s sales were already up 16 percent and profits were up 33 percent. That company has been on a double-digit roll pretty
much ever since (except 2020/Covid) and now. In my opinion, the real story isn’t about the rise and fall of the macro-economy, but about China and Chinese travelers.” —A C.E.O. who doesn’t work at LVMH, I swear
When bad names happen to great podcasts: “I just love how much you hate the name of Print Is Dead (Long Live Print!).” —An editor
When too trendy shoes are too good to relinquish: “I can’t quit Salomons, unfortunately. They are soooo comfortable.” —A fashion editor
On CBK as a P.R.: “I listened to your pod with Sunita Kumar Nair. It was a thoughtful interview. Thank you! I was styling in L.A. when Carolyn
Bessette was at CK. She was my contact for pulling clothes for my shoots. She was really lovely and kind to a stylist working for smaller publications in L.A. Many P.R. reps were not. She always came through for me and I enjoyed talking to her. She made my job easier and made my stories look good.” —An entrepreneur
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What I’m Reading… and Listening To…
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My Golden Globes Best-Dressed List: Emma
Stone in true red, strapless Louis Vuitton and a pixie cut (the best she’s ever looked; the best LV has ever looked on the red carpet); Naomi Watts in Schiaparelli; Kerry Washington in Balenciaga; Viola Davis in Gucci; Tilda Swinton in Chanel; Mikey Madison in the final Matthieu-for-Bottega Veneta custom red
carpet look; Timothée’s Haider-for-Tom Ford scarf; Colman Domingo in Valentino; Adrien Brody with that epic snake brooch in Thom Browne; Jeremy Strong in a maniacal mint velvet Loro Piana bucket hat and matching suit. [Vogue]
Cherry Bomb founder and editor Kerry Diamond recommended this narrative podcast about the Liz Tilberis era of Harper’s Bazaar to me, hosted by two former staffers, and I also cannot recommend enough. It is amazing. I don’t get why more people aren’t talking about it. Actually, I do, but let’s fix that.
[BLOW-UP: When Liz Tilberis Transformed Bazaar]
If you need media drama that has very little to do with you but still imparts insights you can use, I suggest following Puck media guy Dylan Byers’s coverage
of what’s happening in political journalism, from the WaPo crisis to Politico poachings. [Puck]
I cannot believe I’ve never been to Kemo Sabe.
[WWD]
Emily Sundberg on Emily Oberg’s sexual wellness venture is worth reading. (I remember having lunch with Emily #2 and her mentioning it; she’s smart.) [Feed Me]
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And finally… let’s
give it up for Ralph’s herringbone tweed sport coat. (Everyone should own one.) And Anna Wintour, always.
Until tomorrow,
Lauren
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