July 8, 2025

Hi, and welcome back to Line Sheet. Hope you’re surviving. Or thriving? Couture is the best. Meanwhile, in Los Angeles, I spent enough time online last night to learn the ending of The Better Sister, read an article about why “everyone” is watching Love Island U.S.A., and discover a new fashion nepo baby couple. (If her Instagram Stories are any indication, Sofia Coppola’s daughter Romy Mars is dating James Jebbia’s son…) Obviously, I had too much time.

Sarah “SShapiro@puck.news” Shapiro is playing store manager today, with an extremely fun issue breaking down exactly how the ideas from the Dior and Celine shows—from the color stories to the silhouettes—will infiltrate the mall. (One hint: If you’re not already shopping at Ralph Lauren and J.Crew, you will be soon.) Sarah also explains how brands can avoid getting screwed when TikTok moves users to a new app. For the main event, she explains in oh-so-specific terms why Aritzia has become the hottest brand on the high street these days. By the way, don’t forget to sign up for The Hidden Layer, our new, twice-weekly private email from Puck’s A.I. expert, Ian Krietzberg. His Sunday preview reminded me of what Puck journalists do best: slice through the static to deliver a clear-headed analysis of what is actually happening in the world. A.I. is changing our lives—and jobs—now, not soon, and there are endless implications for fashion and retail. I felt better after I read Ian’s note, and so will you. Mentioned in this issue: Aritzia, Jennifer Wong, boyfriend couches, Liv Perez, The Row, Celine, Yves Klein blue, Ralph Lauren, Americanized TikTok, Glossier, and many more…

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Sarah Shapiro

Two Things You Should Know…

The shape of you: After the inspiring Celine and Dior shows, I could practically hear merchants exhale: These shows have given retailers something concrete to push toward, and the taste trickles down from the runway to the mall. First, the color story from Celine—kelly green, Yves Klein blue, cherry red—will sell across price points in both men’s and women’s departments. (Merchants always wait to see what the blue of the season will be.) I expect that retailers will pick up both cornflower and Yves Klein blue, which fit seamlessly with J.Crew, Alex Mill, Gap, and especially Ralph Lauren, where Celine’s Michael Rider previously designed. Baseball hats and cashmere cables in these shades will hit floors soon. Sure, they can read a little young, but often feel right with black leather and tailored jackets. D.T.C. brands like Leset have built brand identities around the popular shade of Yves Klein blue—they call it “Leset blue”—with their poplin pants consistently selling out.Second, both collections masterfully combined feminine and masculine elements—basically, via nipped waists with plenty of layering opportunities—creating crossover potential for retailers: Women can shop in men’s departments, with masculine styling percolating through women’s wear, etcetera. (Men’s data from Pinterest already supports this trend.)
The TikTok shop: Line Sheet readers have been wondering what TikTok’s reportedly-in-development U.S. app—which is known internally as M2, and could land in app stores in early September—would mean for retailers like Glossier (which joined TikTok Shop this week), e.l.f. Cosmetics, Nike, American Eagle, etcetera. According to Partner Centric, of all the Gen Z users who have bought an item after discovering it on TikTok, nearly half of them purchased on TikTok Shop.For starters, there’s the question of whether retailers and marketers will need to rebuild their audiences from scratch. That’s among the issues being negotiated and worked out now as part of the tariff deal with China, according to Constellation Research analyst Ray Wang. More specifically, will audience data, ad targeting precision, and brand momentum migrate over, or will everyone have to begin again under a new algorithmic regime? Obviously, if the U.S.A.-safe TikTok is essentially the same, just decoupled from its current Chinese ownership structure, American users will readily move over—especially if the current app is delisted on U.S. app stores. But will users in Canada, Europe, and other Western countries follow? And would the experience across the Americanized and original app be fully interoperable? Watch this space…

And now for the main event…

Get Aritzia or Die Tryin’

How a risk-averse Canadian brand built a $6 billion business based on selling an emotional merchandising experience—and coming up with a few iconic franchises along the way.

Sarah Shapiro

On a typical Saturday at Aritzia’s SoHo flagship, you can grab an espresso at the A-OK Café, plunk your boyfriend-of-the-moment on one of the “boyfriend couches,” and shop for what the store calls “everyday luxury”—which, of course, is not really luxury. (Price points range from $20 to $450.) That formula is paying off for the Vancouver-based brand. Last year, net revenue enjoyed double-digit growth to $2.7 billion. With fewer markdowns, the right mix of merchandise, and tight inventory control, the company is trading in and around an all-time high on the Toronto Stock Exchange, with a market cap of around $6 billion. (The company will share first quarter of 2026 financials on Thursday.)

In short, Aritzia is succeeding where Gap, The Limited, and Express have sometimes fallen short. Yes, those competitors were lower-priced, but they also blew out their retail footprints, tried to appeal to virtually every demographic, and kept managing down the quality while inflation did the rest. By comparison, Aritzia waited 22 years after its founding in Vancouver to launch their first U.S. location, in 2006, and has an extremely clear point of view. The company currently has around 130 stores, split almost evenly across both sides of the border, and plans to open 8 to 10 locations in the U.S. every year through fiscal 2027, growing their total store count to around 150.

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The refined BMW 7 Series is all luxury. With the ability to define your design, the ultimate glamour is yet to be. Learn more at

BMWUSA.com.

Strategically, Aritzia tries to make emotional selling part of the in-store experience. Sales associates, known as “style advisors,” compliment your outfit when you walk in, steer you toward mirrorless dressing rooms, and then guide you to a communal area where other shoppers often become part of your decision-making process. Real-time feedback is part of the experience, and jibes with the company’s woo-woo ethos: Jennifer Wong, who took over as C.E.O. in 2022, started as a style advisor, then became a shoe manager, before rising to C.O.O. in 2006. She took over from founder Brian Hill, who led the retailer for 38 years and still serves as executive chair. Currently, 90 percent of the retail leadership team is female.

In the meantime, Aritzia’s franchise items, like its Effortless Pants, Super Puff, and Sweatfleece, have essentially become brands in their own right. During winter in New York, you can’t walk into a bar without seeing every woman wearing the same black Super Puff. Stylist Liv Perez, host of the Let’s Get Dressed podcast, has called the Effortless Pants the “Swiss Army knife” of her closet. She also told me she’s sold more of the pants via affiliate links than any other item. “They’ve really nailed the art of making everyday pieces that feel elevated, but remain incredibly approachable price-wise,” she said. “These clothes hit the perfect balance of that appetite for The Row minimalism with timeless design. There’s also a little bit of a fashionable factor to it. You’re not just getting a blazer—maybe you’re going to get a sculpted blazer.” Franchise items can become crutches for a brand, but Aritzia is still innovating by introducing fresh colors and new materials like linen, and reworking staples like the Effortless Pants into shorts. And unlike Zara or H&M, Aritzia styling is meant to have a place in your wardrobe beyond just a season or two. The brand is malleable enough to support a college student looking for pants to wear to an interview, or a woman in her 50s seeking slacks to pair with a leather blazer.

Walk through any Aritzia store, and you’ll notice their merchandising strategy transcends random product placement, and approaches something closer to lifestyle storytelling: Their 10 in-house brands, from Wilfred’s draped femininity, to Babaton’s boardroom minimalism, to TNA’s elevated athleisure, are placed alongside Salomon sneakers, Sperry boat shoes, and Levi’s denim. Perhaps that’s another thing for competitors to replicate.

What Sarah’s Reading… and Looking at…

Cake just raised $5.2 million in a seed round. [Instagram]

Timothée Chalamet took the bandana look in a new direction this season, though he’s yet to match the je ne sais quoi flair of David Zaslav. [The Cut, Variety] Gabriela Hearst is launching a line of 100 percent recycled cotton denim. [Inbox] Demna’s final Balenciaga Couture collection will be streamed on Substack. [Substack]

Until tomorrow, Lauren

P.S.: We are using affiliate links because we are a business. We may make a couple bucks off them.

Puck fashion correspondent Lauren Sherman and a rotating cast of industry insiders take you deep behind the scenes of this multitrillion-dollar biz, from creative director switcheroos to M&A drama, D.T.C. downfalls, and magazine mishaps. Fashion People is an extension of Line Sheet, Lauren’s private email for Puck, where she tracks what’s happening beyond the press releases in fashion, beauty, and media. New episodes publish every Tuesday and Friday.

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