Hi, and welcome back to Line Sheet. It was quite the week for… stores! Last night, I stopped by the Jacquemus opening on Melrose, a roomy corner space where superfans started queuing at 7 a.m. to buy a little piece of the South of France. I hear the L.A.-exclusive capsule collections—the fitness gear, vintage jewelry handpicked by Simon Porte Jacquemus, and the signature-yellow Timberlands—are nearing sell-out status. (Bags were going fast, too, with many clients buying several at once.) The party was also a hit. It felt like just about everyone who enjoys fashion
and parties and Simon was there. (Also, we love a 5 p.m. start time in L.A.… and banana ice cream.)
In the backdrop, of course, there’s still all the tariff chaos and recession fears and the luxury sad times. One could argue, however, that this is a good moment to invest. To that end, our woman on the shop floor, Sarah “ SShapiro@puck.news” Shapiro, is back with the week that was in retail, from the Dries and HommeGirls debuts in Manhattan to a maverick move from the founders of Outline, Brooklyn’s leading destination for women’s clothing. Some good news. Really!
Mentioned in this issue: Hannah Rieke, Margaret Austin, Outline, Thakoon Panichgul, HommeGirls, Isabel Wilkinson, Attersee, Maria McManus, Sherri McMullen, Dries Van Noten, Nike, Adidas, Jennifer Lawrence, and many more…
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Three Things You Should Know…
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- All day I dream about Sambas: Adidas is positioning its (pre-Liberation Day) Q1 results as a compelling turnaround tale, with revenue up 13 percent year over year to almost $7 billion. The company’s share price has now just about doubled since C.E.O. Bjørn Gulden took the reins in 2023.Clearly, the brand’s fashion-focused sneaker strategy is paying off: Footwear revenue jumped 13 percent year over year compared to 2 percent growth in apparel. Adidas’s retro “terrace” shoes—particularly Sambas and Gazelles—have transcended their athletic origins and can now be spotted on every coffee run from Brooklyn to Beverly Hills. They’ve also got low-profile silhouettes like the Tokyos (Jennifer Lawrence’s favorite), while the Taekwondo Mei Ballet manifests the “sneakerina” summer trend I’m sure you’ve heard of (perhaps when I wrote about it here).Nike remains the dominant footwear player despite recent struggles, and it isn’t especially close, as Simeon Siegel and Lauren discussed on a recent episode of Fashion People. Nike did more than $51 billion in global revenue in 2024, compared to $27 billion at Adidas. While Adidas is working hard to gain ground, they would be wise not to rely too heavily on one item. There’s also room to grow in apparel, which would benefit from its own Sambas-level trend-driving styles.
- The new pricing reality: An executive deep in pricing conversations at a heritage American lifestyle brand told me this week, very bluntly, that tariffs are causing a “bloodbath” as companies hemorrhage cash just to bring inventory off the docks. Fear is rippling through boardrooms as mall brands and mid-market retailers calculate the price increases they’ll have to absorb or pass on. Above a 10 or 15 percent threshold, they’re entering uncharted territory, and tariffs are on track to inflate costs far beyond that level. Plus, brands are still contending with inflated Covid-era prices for raw materials that never came back down. Earlier this week, I noted that all the mall brands are waiting to see how much their competitors raise prices (while trying to determine how much to increase their own), which means that retailers are being very slow to make decisions. Indeed, this extraordinary post-Liberation Day era is practically unprecedented in retail. But the wait-and-see period is coming to an end: My source predicted that many brands will finalize their new price points next week, as well as decide which orders to edit and which to cut entirely. They’ll have to get creative, too, working directly with factories to find alternative production methods or even resurfacing unsold products from previous seasons. Historically, retailers turn to price increases asa quick way to boost margins when they’re in a tight spot. Now, nailing the pricing question could be existential.
- And finally, some new stores, launches, and collabs: Developer Samantha David’s Royal Poinciana in Palm Beach has added James Perse, the California basics brand, to its roster. … New Delhi-based Kartik Kumra’s first international Kartik Research store, on Orchard Street, marks a homecoming for the designer, who hosted pop-ups in the same L.E.S. neighborhood in his student days. … Le Bon Marché added permanent spots in the shoe department for Amina Muaddi and Rothy’s. … A Saint-James pop-up launching May 15 at Printemps NYC will feature exclusive embroidered Breton striped shirts by Korean artist Mari Kim. … And the legendary Vogue writer Plum Sykes heralded the launch of Sylva, a super-edited line from equally clever Brit Tallulah Harlech.
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Photo: Alessio Bolzoni/Courtesy of New Balance x Miu Miu
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- As for collabs, Lié Studio’s exclusive capsule with Moda Operandi marks the jewelry line’s entry into the circle of indie labels selected by Lauren Santo Domingo & Co., along with Posse and By Malene Birger (which also released a Moda-exclusive collection this week), plus there’s the new Club Moda Riviera collection. … Thakoon Panichgul’s HommeGirls magazine/brand amalgam launched a Vans collab. … The latest New Balance x Miu Miu collection, fronted by Coco Gauff, has a clever deployment strategy, which is timed around the tennis star’s tournament schedule in Rome, Berlin, and Cincinnati. (And just about six months after the main line launched track jackets. This is the idea of diffusion done right.)
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A crop of contrarian retailers (Outline, HommeGirls, etcetera) are stepping back from (or doing away with) e-commerce, building their models around stuff you can touch, like physical stores and catalogs. Plus, a trunk show tour!
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The most interesting retail spaces right now are zigging when everyone else is zagging—and there’s perhaps no bigger zig than deliberately stepping back from the world of keystroke retail. By betting on offline shopping, a few boutiques are offering a fascinating glimpse at where specialty retail might be heading.
Take, for instance, Outline in Brooklyn, where founders Hannah Rieke and Margaret Austin counterintuitively decided, in 2024, to shutter their e-commerce operation entirely. In its place, they’re launching an old-school, biannual print catalog—not as a sales tool or marketing gimmick, they say, but as an extension of their physical space’s intimate feel. (You still need to call or enter the store to purchase items.) “We are excited to be asserting our belief in the retail experience,” Rieke and Austin told me. “Bringing back the feeling we grew up with, getting a catalog in the mail, circling something you love, daydreaming about it… a slower mode of shopping that is personal and comfortable.” The catalogs will ship out starting Monday and be available in-store.
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Photo: Courtesy of HommeGirls
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The same instinct informs Thakoon Panichgul’s new HommeGirls storefront in New York’s Chinatown, designed by Rafael de Cárdenas, which opened Thursday. (Loyal Fashion People listeners were already in the know, since Panichgul and Lauren discussed it last year.) The space is tiny, just 250 square feet, with an operational dry cleaning rack for merchandise display, in a nod to the neighboring galleries.
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At the numerous trunk shows I visited this week in San Francisco, I heard similar tales about how working directly with customers is driving sales in a way e-commerce sometimes just can’t. To wit, Isabel Wilkinson introduced the latest product from her brand Attersee at Emily Holt’s Hero Shop: The tassel belts are selling out quickly, and the matching sets are strong this season. (Congrats to Harwell Godfrey next door for her one-year Marin Country Mart-versary). Then, on Tuesday, I visited a private residence in San Francisco to check out the special trio of Maria McManus, Danielle Sherman’s Sherman Field 1967, and April Gargiulo’s Vintner's Daughter— all the brands had multiple associates on hand to help style, personalize, and ring up sales. Everyone was busy.
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Every detail of the Range Rover Sport has been engineered for exhilarating driving dynamics and spirited performance.
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Afterward, I walked a few blocks uphill with Noora Raj Brown, a brand consultant and Substacker, to McMullen’s Sacramento Street location (now the only location, since Oakland has closed). While many retailers scramble for the same Instagram-famous pieces from Christopher John Rogers, Diotima, Khaite, or Dries Van Noten, Sherri McMullen is doing something a bit more nuanced—even though she has all that stuff on her racks, too. Her choices bypass obvious selections for pieces that reveal a designer’s full creative range, resulting in a point of view you won’t find in algorithm-driven recommendations. I recently noticed a friend wearing very cool asymmetrical rounded shoes, and sure enough, McMullen had those very Dries Van Noten pumps in-store. (Notably, they’re not available on her e-commerce site; special items are for in-store customers only.)
What these specialized physical spaces have in common isn’t so much a nostalgia for retail or an effort to create tiny department stores, but rather an embrace of singular vision over algorithmic convenience. It’s hard to imagine a world in which digital retail ebbs, but it only works best when these sorts of in-store touchpoints exist in tandem.
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Opulence on Mercer Street
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Speaking of Dries Van Noten, the brand has landed in its newest NYC outpost on Mercer Street after what I’ve heard was a 15-year quest for the perfect Manhattan location. The space, with its theatrical dimensions—narrow, but with a soaring, 22-plus-foot ceiling—befits the brand’s character and intellectual style. Its design blends raw industrial elements with an elegant gold leaf wall, reflecting the same tension between structure and opulence that defines the Dries Van Noten collections.
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Photo: Tijs Verveken/Courtesy of Dries Van Noten
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The brand has also transitioned to new creative leadership, with Julian Klausner replacing Van Noten as the designer, and there are thoughtfully chosen art pieces in the store—from 17th century paintings to contemporary works by Belgian artist Ben Storms. Taken altogether, it feels like a gallery. Blended interiors—a store plus something else—are a big thing in retail right now. Perhaps in 2025, the most innovative strategy might not be speeding up the shopping experience through various online tools, but slowing it down in the real world.
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On Hermès’s price hikes: “Why shouldn’t Hermes pass on the cost of the 10 percent tariff they’re facing? I don’t know that they’re taking advantage versus being rational. They didn’t take advantage, as most others did, during the period of high inflation, as I learned from your excellent reporting.” —A reader
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On luxury’s customer issues: “Gen X and even Millennial women tell me the reason they buy at places like TheRealReal is because of the terrible treatment that they get in ‘real’ boutiques. Comments like, ‘It lowers my self-esteem to go in there and buy something,’ or, ‘I much prefer the aftermarket because the experience these shops put us through makes me feel awful.’ This made me realize just how bad the luxury experience has gotten, and the voice younger women (with plenty of purchasing power) have in growing the aftermarket segment.” —An exec
On the Saks sitch and beyond: “I’m amazed by how many people keep ignoring [Saks’s] huge [debt] problem, brands refusing to go on the record. When you add this to tariffs, I don’t know how many people will make it. The entire developing price point is in trouble. I looked at Revolve. Almost all products say Made in China.” —A C.E.O.
On the rise of LoveShackFancy: “You’re likely giving them too much credit to say there is a licensing strategy in place. The collabs come up from a combination of inbound offers and LSF outreach. They ask for a ‘design fee’ and percent of goods sold, as well as a heavy wholesale discount on goods bought for D.T.C. distribution.” —An exec familiar with the business
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Have a great weekend,
Lauren
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