Happy Monday, and welcome back to Line Sheet, your number-one source for niche fashion-media crumbs and sweeping corporate sagas alike.

A programming note: I land in Paris on June 22 to catch the back half of the men’s shows, and will be staying a few days extra with the hopes of seeing you. Hit reply to this email so we can make a plan. And if you haven’t yet signed up for a subscription to Puck (or if this note was forwarded to you), get on that with my special code LINESHEET.

Today, I’m excited to tell you a story that I’m pretty sure you haven’t heard before. (Unless you’re… you know who you are. Thanks for sending me on this journey.) But first…

Ball, who beat out other rumored internal candidates including Rory Satran (the paper’s leading fashion columnist) and Elisa Lipsky-Karasz (ousted editor Kristina O’Neill’s longtime deputy) was favored from the beginning. Wall Street Journal top editor Emma Tucker, who knew Ball from when they were both based in London, is eager to promote internally across the board. It not only helps with morale during layoffs (O’Neill wasn’t the only well-paid person let go in April), but it keeps costs under control. Also, Ball has moved back and forth between the U.S. and the U.K. over the course of her career, and that must certainly appeal to Tucker—Brits are passive aggressive, Americans are aggressive aggressive, and it’s a real skill to know how to navigate both sides.

In her note to staff, Tucker called Ball one of the paper’s “most ambitious and collaborative digital strategists,” indicating that her experience driving eyeballs played a role in the hire. Here’s what else I think:

• I’m sure the plan, or the hope, is for Lipsky-Karasz to stay on despite her longtime loyalty to O’Neill. (O’Neill’s creative director and longtime romantic partner, Magnus Berger, announced his exit a few weeks back.) Lipsky-Karasz knows the print product’s DNA is the conduit to the big luxury brands—and she’s a person the advertisers enjoy taking to lunch. She sits front row at fashion week—that’s not Ball’s court. If she and Ball like each other, or can at least stand each other, then they will make a good team.

• Don’t be surprised if there’s some further streamlining of the paper’s lifestyle offerings in the coming months. At the moment, there are people in different sections (Off Duty vs. Style News) doing very similar jobs, and Ball now has a year of data to show her what is working on the Styles News Desk and what is not. Even if there aren’t any eliminations, I expect some sort of reconfiguration.

• This appointment is just another indicator of how the E.I.C. role has been diminished. It used to require a big personality with a commanding vision; now it’s about data-driven collaboration. I don’t know much about where O’Neill will go next (email me!), but there just aren’t print publishing roles that feel big enough for the likes of her and peers like Edward Enninful and Laura Brown. Interestingly, it’s the upstart publications (both digital and print) where new stars are being made. Look at Gutes Guterman, the co-founder of The Drunken Canal and now Byline—I love her—or Jonah Weiner and Erin Wylie from Blackbird Spyplane. Old stars are thriving by starting something new, too. The other day, I got served up an ad on Twitter for The Telegraph, featuring a giant photo of Graydon Carter’s head and linking to an article documenting his third-act greatness at Air Mail. I didn’t click, but I’m sure a lot of people did.

Tull is now the C.E.O. of Tulco, an early-stage investment firm that’s mostly focused on A.I. Since exiting Legendary, however, he has also become a major investor in America’s newly rediscovered love affair with cowboys. Teton Ridge, his newish “Western culture” holding company (named after the Idaho ranch that he bought as part of a pricey land acquisition spree) seemingly appeared out of nowhere in 2021 to acquire the American Rodeo—“the richest single-day event in all of Western sports,” according to a press release—created a new competition, The American Performance Horseman, and partnered with Jeremy Barwick, a famous horse breeder. He’s also backing the first “team-based bull-riding league” here in the U.S.

But Tull’s ambitions for Teton Ridge are far greater than live events and a magazine. (Another investment is Cowboys & Indians.) He wants to absolutely own the Western experience, with an aim, as the marketing copy reads, to “preserve the legacy of the West while elevating its stories for a new generation of global audiences—captivating their imagination and unlocking the pioneering spirit in all of us.” He also plans to partner “with a number of the foremost brands from every corner of the western world.” And here’s where it gets interesting for us.

But the Hyer deal may just be an invest-and-learn play, the preference for many fiduciaries experimenting in a new space. According to multiple people, Tull has also expressed interest in maybe, someday, buying—or at least partnering with—the San Francisco-based Levi Strauss & Co., the most famous denim brand in the world.

A spokesperson for Tull said that there is absolutely no truth to the Levi’s acquisition rumors. But here’s why it’s not such a crazy idea: Just as Hyer is ground zero for cowboy boots, Levi’s is the first name in denim, as well as a near-unassailable brand, a rarity in fashion. It’s also a business that could be optimized in numerous value-extractive ways, as any top investor would be sure to note.

Of course, all of this is still in the realm of the hypothetical. Could Levi’s, which is publicly traded on the New York Stock Exchange, really be in play? And if a deal was put together, what sort of structure would it take? These are the barn-burning questions of our moment…

And yet, it’s still a messy, bureaucratic operation. There are so many things Levi’s has moved too slowly on, from capitalizing on its popularity in the secondhand market to abandoning the upscale consumer to focus on affordability. And maybe most importantly, its marketing often lacks the clarity of other iconic brands, like Nike and Patagonia.

In April, Levi’s warned that its profit margin would decline by nearly 60 percent in 2023, citing higher production and logistics costs and more discounting. While sales were up in the most recent quarter, the cost of goods sold (COGS) increased, too, as did the cost of debt servicing. Net income was down around 50 percent from the previous year, putting Wall Street analysts on alert. Levi’s, after all, is as vulnerable as any highly levered entity: it’s a $5.7 billion market cap company with nearly a billion dollars in debt, and not a ton of income to cover those payments.

Last year, Bergh recruited a new president (and presumed eventual successor), Michelle Gass, from Kohl’s, where she struggled to make a dent in that oddball retailer’s inevitable decline. Investors have wondered why Bergh and the Levi’s board chose Gass, who was happy to escape pressure from the activist investors who were circling Kohl’s, according to reports. Perhaps there was board pressure to find a successor after the strange exit of brand president Jennifer Sey, who made some Covid-related, anti-vax-y statements on social media that got her fired. (She walked away from a million-dollar severance package instead of signing an N.D.A., according to the Times.) Bergh has cited Gass’s ability to innovate: her biggest claim to fame was that she started accepting Amazon returns at Kohl’s, now a tactic deployed by many brands and retailers.

Okay, so maybe Levi’s isn’t invulnerable to an activist with “new ideas.” But that’s different from an acquisition or a take-private or some P.E. joint venture, all of which could be in the quantum of possibilities, even if those scenarios would likely take many years to come to fruition. After all, Levi’s may fit into Tull’s quixotic, Ralph Lauren-ish vision of the West, but buying it outright would not be easy. First off, it would cost a lot: that market cap of $5.7 billion is probably just a starting point before a legacy premium is added. (One analyst suggested that a serious bid would have to start at around $8 billion.) Tull is rich and Teton Ridge has other investors, but he’d need to raise billions in equity and debt to finance an acquisition.

Levi’s would also be a pain in the ass to fix, and Teton is currently a live events holdco., not an operating company that streamlines distressed businesses. Not only would Tull be unpacking decades upon decades and generations upon generations of corporate baggage, but there’s also a limited talent pool of people who know how to do good work at old-school brands like Levi’s. Especially in the Bay Area, where nobody seems to want to live right now. A big problem that I’ve observed covering Gap, Inc. for the past 15 years is that these companies are often made up of lifers who keep getting promoted because they are willing to stick around, not because they are particularly talented.

The current spike in interest in no small part thanks to the popularity of the Paramount Network’s Yellowstone, the most-watched scripted show on television. Red State conservatives feel that they have been largely ignored by Hollywood’s pop culture factory in recent years, and Yellowstone has done something special by reining them in while managing to appeal to a certain set of more progressive viewers, too. (Everyone loves a soap opera.)

The reality, however, is that the West recalls events in American history that are shameful to one part of the population, and nostalgic to the other. Tull, a top Democratic donor, is now willingly embedded in the center of that conflict. Tull and his team at Teton Ridge see the American West as something that appeals nationally (and globally) across ideologies, I’m told. They talk about the data they’ve gathered about interest in the concept, and how the brands in the holding company should appeal to both Red Staters and Blue Staters. One person used the word “inclusive” to describe what Tull and his investors believe is a massive money-making opportunity.

“I spend a lot of time reading different subjects, listening to podcasts and exposing myself to other ideas, like reading arguments and articles that I don’t agree with,” he once told a reporter. “Because I think that’s a skill set, rather than just saying, I’m going to tune you out. I think being able to take in other people’s points of view that you disagree with is an important thing.”

“Ok, here is the thing about all the creative director roles waiting to be filled (currently six major ones, if you preemptively count Chloé)— why is NO ONE TALKING ABOUT THE QUALIFIED FEMALE DESIGNERS?!?!?” –Laura Neilson, journalist

My feedback to Laura’s feedback: Ya. It’s terrible. And bad business.

“And this ‘creative directors (and just hire them as part of their designer team) and leave it at that’ idea… this is very much the case of the number two (Kaisa Kinnunen) at Versace... was nice to see she wasn’t scrubbed out of some of the Dua x Donatella videos…” –A luxury brand consultant

The U.K. fashion industry has been objectively hit the hardest over the past few years: the effects of the pandemic and the war in Ukraine were compounded by Brexit. There’s a shrinking talent pool, supply chain costs are mounting, and the country’s consumers have cut back on spending. A few days ago, David Pemsel, former C.E.O. of the Guardian and current chair of the British Fashion Council, a trade org, published a missive outlining in vague terms how it plans to help designers make it through this. [The British Fashion Council]

The Anna Ewers cover of the summer issue of ID magazine will make you happy. [ID]

Had an interesting talk last week with a retail real estate exec: Big picture, the suburbs are booming, torn up cities like Chicago and San Francisco are not. The Center for an Urban Future, a think tank, found that New York has lost nearly 40,000 retail jobs since February 2020. [NY Times]

Yes yes, we get it, it’s common sense for brands to sell both through direct retail and multi-brand stores. The reason this is coming up again: Nike is going back to Designer Shoe Warehouse after a two-year break. Congrats to DSW. [Modern Retail]

Beka Gvishiani finally moved to Paris! [Style Not Com]

The Supreme Court ruled in favor of Jack Daniel’s in a case regarding a chewy dog toy that looks almost exactly like a bottle of whiskey. There are implications for fashion here. [Supreme Court]

Every generation likes to say that the generation below it is too self-involved, individualistic, etc. Turns out, Gen Zers like to follow trends just as much as every other human being. [After School]

I never grow tired of retail analyst Neil Saunders’s dispatches from various desecrated Macy’s locations. [Twitter]

Victoria’s Secret announced it would start selling on Amazon. I think we’re past the days of worrying whether working with Amazon could kill a brand. Amazon is the least of Victoria’s Secrets worries. I’m more concerned with what feels like a race to the bottom for the biggest lingerie company in America. Analysts would rather see Victoria’s Secret sell less product at higher prices and generate bigger profits. Instead of “right-sizing” the business, it’s scaling for scale’s sake, which never turns out well. [BoF]

Jacob Gallagher is back with a trend story sure to piss off the Wall Street Journal’s geriatric readers: the return of the rattail! [WSJ]

A riveting account of last week’s Dover Street Market sample sale in New York: “From the sneakers that are going to be at every single trendy party for the next few years, to the random Comme piece your crush will be wearing as you look at them from across the subway platform, Comme just certified and secured their position in the next generation of fashion by simply giving us the clothes…” [Inside the URL via Rachel Tashjian’s Twitter]

Until Thursday,
Lauren