Hi, and welcome back to Line Sheet. It was nice to see and meet so many of you last night at Puck’s Emmys-coded Stories of the Season session. Best dressed of the evening goes to (Bora Aksu–adorned) Parker Posey, whom I had the pleasure of interviewing. Congrats to Team Puck for pulling off such a feat, especially our events guru, Louise Johnson, and king of entertainment, Matt Belloni. One thing I didn’t have time to cover with Parker is her dalliance with Gucci, both on- and offscreen, which turned out to be one of the most successful brand partnerships on this season of The White Lotus. (She carried a bamboo top-handle bag in an episode, was photographed with one on the street, and also brought one to the Gucci show in Milan.) Today, these types of relationships are table stakes for celebrities, if they’re not launching brands of their own. That’s why it’s been so interesting to follow Rachel Strugatz’s coverage of Blake Lively’s other drama—the tricky launch of her haircare line, Blake Brown. Rachel has all the details on its performance, post-Baldonigate, plus an Estée Lauder scoop you won’t want to miss. You should always read Rachel to know what’s happening months before the traditional beauty press gets to it. This week’s announcement that Rhode was moving into Sephora, which Rachel reported in January, is just the latest example. In other news, Bill Cohan is back with the latest on Saks Global—it’ll never end, until it does!—and I’ve got some thoughts on what the planned $400 million pedestrianization of Fifth Avenue means for the brands doing business there. Mentioned in this issue: Blake Lively, Blake Brown, Taylor Swift, Justin Baldoni, Ryan Reynolds, Target, Estée Lauder, Lisa Sequino, Supergoop, Edgar Huber, Jane Hudis, Stéphane de La Faverie, Saks Global, and many more…

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Three Things You Should Know…

Rachel on Estée’s new makeup lead: The Estée Lauder Companies has finally appointed someone to run its all-important makeup cluster, a group that includes MAC Cosmetics, Bobbi Brown, Too Faced, Smashbox, and Glamglow. I’m told that Lisa Sequino, currently the C.E.O. of Supergoop, has been tapped for the job, and that her first day will be July 1—coinciding with the new fiscal year.Multiple sources confirmed that Sequino resigned this week as chief executive of Supergoop, a role she assumed just over a year ago, when former C.E.O. Amanda Baldwin left to try and save Olaplex. The news was shared at a company-wide meeting on Tuesday. I also hear that Edgar Huber, a former Coty executive and the current C.E.O. of Nest, a candle and fragrance brand, will step in as interim chairman, replacing founder Holly Thaggard, who exited the brand last month. Huber has sat on Supergoop’s board since 2022 and is a senior advisor at Blackstone, which acquired Supergoop in 2021. (Estée Lauder declined to comment.) Anyway, it’s a smart move for both parties. Last month, I predicted that Lauder would almost certainly hire a former executive to run the makeup cluster—ideally someone who could play nice with Jane Hudis, the beauty giant’s chief brand officer and C.E.O. Stéphane de La Faverie’s number two. Sequino was really the only contender who met all the prerequisites… the latter arguably being the most important. And it was probably a good time for Sequino to bid adieu to Supergoop, too. I’ve heard that the company discontinued a number of its products in the past year—Shimmershade, Poof powder, most of the Daily Dose franchise, etcetera—including newer items like Lipshade, which is currently being phased out. ––Rachel Strugatz
Bill on the ongoing Saks debt crisis: I recently spoke with Alison Diboll, the C.E.O. of Gabriella Rossetti, which she described to me as a “plus-size, attainable luxury brand” that she built herself “by bootstrapping every step” of the way. Until recently, Gabriella Rossetti was selling some of its clothes in Saks. After the Valentine’s Day Massacre, she reached out to Marc Metrick, the Saks Global C.E.O., because her company had not been paid for its merchandise. On April 14, Metrick called her back. “During that 57-minute call, he said—twice—‘I’m not a bad person,’” she told me. “He seemed to grasp, perhaps for the first time, that Saks had inflicted real harm on our small business. Only after I walked him through the impact of the direct and collateral damage he’s caused—including cutting our possibility of raising a seed round—did he acknowledge that Saks had caused damage. He seemed blissfully unaware of the downstream effects his team’s decisions were having on small vendors like us.”To make things right, according to Diboll, Metrick proposed a seven-figure advance purchase order for Gabriella Rossetti inventory. “For us,” she told me, “that would have changed everything. But since that night? Nothing. He went silent. Total ghosting.” She’s now trying to raise new capital from investors, knowing that she probably won’t be able to sell her clothing through Saks anymore. “It’s a real-time example of how power isolates leadership,” she said, “and how Saks can quietly gut the brands it depends on—without ever looking them in the eye.” (A source close to Saks said the company made Diboll whole on what it owed her and gave her back the returned inventory gratis. As for the advance purchase order, the source said Diboll rejected the offer because Gabriella Rossetti is a made-to-order operation.) In recent calls with staff, according to a Saks executive I spoke with, Metrick has been blaming the media for Saks’ woes, saying the company’s challenges are being used to generate subscriptions to paywalled sites—perhaps a jab at Puck and Bloomberg. In another call, Metrick apparently told the merchant group that Saks wasn’t afraid to start flexing its muscles with vendors. “In this new world order,” Metrick reportedly said to his top executives, “you’re either a hydrant or a dog, and we are the dog.” According to the executive, people on the call were “just dumbfounded” that Metrick would make such a statement, knowing it would inevitably get back to vendors, who would not be happy to be pissed on by Saks, as indeed appears to be happening in the wake of the Valentine’s Day Massacre. (The source close to Saks Global said Metrick made these comments in order to inspire the troops during a difficult time for the business.) Said the Saks executive about the situation unfolding inside the company: “I make the analogy of, Lord & Taylor is in the graveyard, Hudson’s Bay is on the coroner’s table, Saks is on the operating table, and Neiman Marcus is in the waiting room.” —Bill Cohan
Fifth Avenue mall madness: Last week, in Thursday’s Inner Circle issue covering Bernard Arnault’s strategic relationship with Donald Trump, I mentioned LVMH’s creeping takeover of Fifth Avenue, where it now occupies a significant number of important buildings. (Not Bergdorf Goodman, of course.) I also mentioned New York City Mayor Eric Adams’s promise to “beautify” the stretch. Today, the Mayor’s Office pledged to invest more than $400 million into the project, which will make the sidewalks much wider by reducing the number of traffic lanes from five to three.The goal is to make Fifth Avenue feel more like the Champs-Élysées, I guess, or Rodeo Drive, for that matter. (No, actually, let’s say London’s Bond Street. That’s classier.) I assume naysayers will argue that’ll create even more car congestion in Midtown. The bigger challenge, as one of my real estate friends said, is that “democratization of exclusivity doesn’t work.” The dynamics of the street will inevitably change, and could veer too far into Times Square territory: “Fifth Avenue retail is already operating as two extremes. It’s Harry Winston, or it’s Abercrombie,” this person continued. The move will likely further cement Madison Avenue as the place to be uptown if you want to sell expensive things, and not just a tourist attraction. (The real ones don’t shop on Bond Street during the busy seasons.) It also speaks to the suburbanization of New York City. Could a poke bowl spot and blow-out salon be next? You may laugh, but those tourists need somewhere to eat.

Now, here’s Rachel…

The Blake-Taylor Beauty Catastrophe

Blake Lively’s haircare line was leveled by Baldonigate—and now, a bizarre legal contretemps involving Taylor Swift. Blake Brown has become “a non-conversation” at Target, according to a person familiar with its plunging sales. “It went from a $100 million brand to a $15 million brand.”

Rachel Strugatz

Blake Brown, Blake Lively’s beauty brand, may have the worst timing ever. Lively’s first set of products hit Target last August, just as rumors surrounding her film It Ends With Us began fueling the tabloid drama that blossomed into Baldonigate, with Blake suing her co-star, Justin Baldoni, for creating a hostile workplace; Baldoni countersuing for $400 million; and both parties dragging each other’s reputations through the mud in colossal, career-ruining fashion—even by Hollywood standards. Then, this week, Blake Brown released its first new product since last summer, a hair and body mist, just as Lively was being accused by Baldoni’s legal team of trying to essentially blackmail Taylor Swift—perhaps the most beloved pop star of her generation—into providing Lively with public support or else “risk the release of a decade’s worth of private texts between the stars,” as my colleague Eriq Gardner explained earlier this week. (Lively’s lawyers hit back with a motion to sanction Baldoni’s team, describing the allegation as a smear tactic designed to “seed harassing media narratives.”)

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Beyond its underwhelming tagline—“Because your hair is your most memorable scent”—the announcement of Blake Brown’s new trio of $19 hair and body mists must also compete with a Daily Mail report alleging that Lively’s team made hefty payouts to former employees of her now-defunct lifestyle brand, Preserve, which shuttered in 2015 amid allegations of mistreatment, a toxic work environment, etcetera. It’s hard to imagine a brand with worse luck. It’s not just Lively’s and husband Ryan Reynolds’s reputations that have been impacted. Multiple sources have painted a pretty grim picture of the venture that was once predicted to be Target’s next $100 million beauty brand. Blake Brown had an undeniably strong launch last August, debuting at Target with sales totaling more than $5 million in its first month. Alas, business started to slow down throughout autumn, and has continued to decline amid Lively and Baldoni’s dueling lawsuits. According to Target data that I reviewed, Blake Brown did less than $6.5 million from November through the end of April. If Baldonigate hurt Lively’s haircare line, the most recent nonsense with Swift may all but end it. Over the past month, weekly sales have hovered between $350,000 and $400,000, according to YipitData. Meanwhile, I’m told the brand isn’t even ranked in the top 50 haircare brands at Target. “We’ve seen a massive slowdown [in Blake Brown],” said a person with knowledge of the business. “Haircare is a bit of a broad category. But seeing them outside of the top 50 was interesting.”

Blake by the Numbers

There’s no doubt that bad headlines are having a direct impact. Earlier this year, I heard that the line’s sales dropped to $832,000 for the first four weeks of January, immediately after Lively filed her lawsuit and just as Baldoni countersued. I’m told that a drop-off of about 30 percent is customary after a celebrity brand launch, once the product no longer has prime shelf space on endcaps. But a more than 70 percent decline from last August’s peak doesn’t bode well. Indeed, a person close to Target estimates that Blake Brown will do “less than $15 million” in total sales in 2025. Blake Brown “is a non-conversation” at Target, this person added. “It went from a $100 million brand to a $15 million brand.”

Yes, $15 million is a highly respectable number for a brand’s first year. But these are retail sales, which Target splits with Blake Brown. Additionally, I’m told the category benchmark for beauty is typically $15 per SKU per store per week, and Blake Brown averages at around $11. The person close to Target described the line as being “middle of the pack” as far as these things go––celebrity hairstylist Laura Polko’s brand, for example, pulled in $1.3 million from November through the end of April, while Kristin Ess’s, another celebrity hairstylist and influencer line, did close to $32 million in sales for the six months ending April 30. (Spokespeople for Target and Blake Brown declined to comment.) While Lively and Blake Brown C.E.O. Laura Tedesco originally positioned the brand as serious haircare delivering salon performance at a Target price point, there’s something underwhelming about introducing a fragranced body and hair mist—a cheap fragrance sub-category that’s grown increasingly popular again, thanks to Sol de Janeiro, but is a low lift for R&D. Lively literally bragged about it taking seven years to develop the first products in almost every interview last summer. This new release—which comes in Sandalwood Vanille, Wild Nectar Santal, and Bergamot Woods—seems like nothing more than a superficial add-on. Alas, the one thing that Blake Brown really needs in order to supercharge its sales—its celebrity founder leveraging her popularity to relentlessly promote the brand—is the one thing that Lively can’t give it right now. “If the celebrity is not out hawking it nonstop authentically, it’s not going to work,” said a high-level industry source. “The whole point of doing it with them is that they’re reminding people on their channels and other people’s channels that they have a product at Target. She’s not doing that.”

That’s it from Rachel and me. In Thursday’s Line Sheet, I’ll be feeding the Vanity Fair beast, sharing an update on another retailer missing vendor payments, and plenty more. Apply for Puck’s Inner Circle membership so you don’t miss it. Until tomorrow, Lauren

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.

An essential, insider-friendly Hollywood tip sheet from Matthew Belloni, who spent 14 years in the trenches at The Hollywood Reporter and five before that practicing entertainment law. What I’m Hearing also features veteran Hollywood journalist Kim Masters, as well as a special companion email from Eriq Gardner, focused on entertainment law, and weekly box office analysis from Scott Mendelson.

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