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Hi, and welcome back to Line Sheet. I took an early flight from Milan back to Paris this morning. Happy
anniversary, Dan!
Tomorrow, for your reading pleasure, I’ll have a report from Milan Design Week. Today, though, is Inner Circle Day (upgrade here for the good stuff). Malique “Malique@puck.news” Morris is back with an update on Vestiaire Collective, the
kinda chaotic resale platform that is being whipped into shape by a blue-suit ops guy, Bernard Osta, after the exit of Max Bittner.
Up top, a candy bowl from me on what industry people are talking about behind the scenes (aside from how much the T magazine party at Salone actually cost): Alessandro Michele’s trip to Los Angeles, the pain of the Devil Wears Prada 2 marketing avalanche,
and the spotty coverage of the Italian factory labor issues.
Tomorrow on Fashion People, we’ve got double the fun. To start, Dimequeen Brynn Wallner joins me from Geneva with a report on this year’s Watches and Wonders, the largest horological event of the year. Then, I catch up with Sander Lak, of Sies Marjan fame, who launched his namesake brand last year. I love them both. Listen
here and here.
Also mentioned in this issue: Valentino, Katie Goodwin, Mark Borthwick, Vanessa Friedman, the fake Runway magazine, Giorgia
Meloni, The RealReal, Vinted, Luca de Meo, Fanny Moizant, Sophie Hersan, menswear beef, Evan Kinori, Tim Cook, Jacob Elordi, and many more… |
Three Things You Should
Know…
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Alessandro takes Los Angeles: The most impressive thing about Alessandro Michele’s Valentino era may be its presence on the red carpet. Valentino doesn’t have the budget of the megabrands, but it does have V.I.P. superpublicist Katie Goodwin and Michele’s actual friendships with A-listers including Dakota Johnson and Jared Leto. It’s a magical recipe, especially when
you throw in Kirsten Dunst.
Anyway, on the back of his well-received ready-to-wear show in Rome, Michele is headed to Hollywood next week for a party at the Marciano Art Foundation on April 28 to celebrate Mark Borthwick’s book of images capturing Valentino’s most recent Couture collection. I hear the party will also feature a Kaiserpanorama installation, nodding to January’s peep-show set. It’s the first time Michele has hosted an event
in the U.S. since he landed at Valentino, and I can guarantee his devoted clients will be there alongside all those celeb friends. Send a party report, Mary Martin!
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A MESSAGE FROM OUR SPONSOR |
Agentic commerce isn’t a future concept. It’s already reshaping how people shop. Static storefronts are giving way to
guided, conversational experiences that don’t just surface products. They drive decisions and conversion in real time. Swap’s Agentic Commerce 101 breaks down what’s real and what it means for brands right now. Inside: |
• What agentic commerce is and why most AI tools don’t qualify • Why AI discovery platforms aren’t built to convert for your brand • Why owning your AI experience and your data is becoming non-negotiable |
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The Devil wears merch: I think it’s fair to say we’re all ready for the Devil Wears Prada 2 promotional tour to be over. I.P. still (mostly) rules Hollywood, and the only way to make these big projects worthwhile is to market the heck out of them. And given that there are fewer blockbuster-type films targeting women, it’s no surprise they are taking a Barbie-style approach to collaborations. The difference here is the execution.
Yes, the DWP2
promotional merch is bad. Did we really need Fisher Price Little People in the likeness of Andy Sachs and Miranda Priestly? I wonder how a brand like Dior—which, as I first reported, is part of the storyline—is feeling about the onslaught, and why the studio didn’t have Vogue or another media partner publish the fake Runway magazine they’re handing out at screenings. (I’m told it was created by an in-house studio team.) At this point, I really don’t want to see the movie, even
if Vanessa Friedman has a cameo. - The Made-in-Italy discourse: There wasn’t much fashion talk during Milan Design Week. Luxury industry insiders are, generally, pretty discouraged about the state of things, and going on tours of architecturally significant apartments is a nice distraction. But there was a lot said about the power of local, specialized production. After all, Italy is still the only place in the
West where you can get every little thing made, perfectly, on an industrial scale.
That said, I was surprised to hear that the Italian papers have mostly stayed away from covering the country’s labor issues. Giorgia Meloni, Italy’s MAGA-esque prime minister, has made it a priority to crack down on illegal practices employed by third-party suppliers of many of the luxury brands. And perhaps these media companies are steering clear in order to manage their
own relationships with advertisers and the government. Still, many of those big luxury companies are being proactive about the situation, including Kering, which is making a big made-in-Italy push.
As I’ve written before, mainstream publications often use human rights and labor issues as an opportunity to hit advertisers hard. I’m all for holding companies accountable. The problem is that the nuances are almost always lost in this particular genre of reporting. My advice for
whoever takes it on: Focus less on the brands involved, and more on the details of the situation. Putting a megabrand in a headline about labor issues will result in clicks, but nothing will ever change if the reporting isn’t there to back it up.
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And now, from the secondhand trenches… |
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Resale platform Vestiaire Collective has a reputation for chaos, but its buttoned-up new
C.E.O., Bernard Osta, has started to tame the company with a focus on operational efficiency. Does the former banker have the fashion chops to mint a viable competitor to The RealReal and Vinted? |
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Bernard Osta, Vestiaire Collective’s new C.E.O., is not your typical fashion person. A
former banker, he joined the online luxury reseller as its chief strategy officer in 2021, when the Paris-based company was valued at $1 billion. Last October, after years in which the company was getting clobbered by Brexit and The RealReal, Osta took over the top job from Max Bittner, also a former banker. He had some cleanup on his to-do list. Bittner, who personally invested in the company and oversaw an acquisition of Tradesy to expand Vestiaire’s presence in the
U.S., had pursued a misguided growth strategy focused on investing in technology over more salient opportunities. As a result, Vestiaire became a rare underperformer in an otherwise rocking global resale market. |
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A MESSAGE FROM OUR SPONSOR |
Agentic commerce isn’t a future concept. It’s already reshaping how people shop. Static storefronts are giving way to
guided, conversational experiences that don’t just surface products. They drive decisions and conversion in real time. Swap’s Agentic Commerce 101 breaks down what’s real and what it means for brands right now. Inside: |
• What agentic commerce is and why most AI tools don’t qualify • Why AI discovery platforms aren’t built to convert for your brand • Why owning your AI experience and your data is becoming non-negotiable |
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Of course, as the Luca de Meo appointment at Kering has evidenced, it’s suddenly en
vogue to tap a fashion outsider to lead a sweeping turnaround, and often with good reason. The vicissitudes of the current market require fresh eyes, which is perhaps why Osta’s ascent coincides with a broader shake-up at Vestiaire. In January, Fanny Moizant, the company’s well-liked co-founder, announced her exit on social media, saying she neither “initiated” or “expected” the decision. (The details surrounding her departure remain vague.)
Meanwhile, one of Vestiaire’s other co-founders, Sophie Hersan, remains at the company as fashion director. Osta also hired a new marketing director, and in March, promoted Thomas Hézard, a former BCG consultant, to chief product officer and Rémi Bouchez to technology chief. Osta also condensed the executive team from 11 to six or so, which an insider told me has been a welcome development.
In contrast with Bittner, insiders
have described Osta as “unflappable” and “less mercurial”—and already, he’s introduced some much-needed operational efficiency to shore up the bottom line, including raising seller fees and reducing digital ad spend. But Osta’s streamlining has yet to make up for Vestiaire’s more fundamental shortcomings. In the U.S., where I’m told its sales are down more than 20 percent this year, the company is still struggling to compete with The RealReal. And Vestiaire didn’t catch any breaks with
Trump’s tariffs, given that most of its sellers ship their goods from across the Atlantic. In Europe, where resale upstart Vinted is eating every secondhand platform’s lunch, Vestiaire’s sales are only growing in the single digits.
For what it’s worth, Osta told WWD in February that the company posted profits during the holiday season and could reach full-year profitability in 2026. I’m also told Vestiaire sent minority investors a letter last October,
around the time of Osta’s appointment, saying the company secured growth financing from BlackRock and created a new share plan for employees. Perhaps it’s wishful thinking, but insiders seem bullish on Osta and the company’s future. |
Last year, Vestiaire took a page out of The RealReal’s profitability playbook when it increased its
take rate by around 4 percent—a tactic that, when executed properly, can curb losses in the short term and attract sellers who won’t bristle at high fees because they can make a lot of money on their vintage Chanel. (The RealReal also used this method to get low-priced junk off its platform.) But it’s not a ubiquitous strategy. I’m told the company is experimenting with reducing seller fees in the U.K., which will test whether Vestiaire can maintain profit margins while boxing out sellers who
view lower fees as an invitation to hawk cheap, logo-heavy tees and other dreck.
And yet, if Osta’s new hire is any indication, the biggest strategic change will occur in marketing. I’m told the company is making a big brand push in Italy, the U.K., and Germany, which one insider said will help Vestiaire “clarify our position in the market.” Meanwhile, Osta is accelerating influencer programs in the U.S., Hong Kong, and Singapore. After all, influencers can do wonders for changing
people’s perception about a brand: Rothy’s went from the maker of ugly commuter flats to a certified Gen Z staple through smart link-ups with Emily Sundberg and Erika Veurink. |
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Will any of it be enough to convince American consumers—who have so much choice in the primary and
secondary markets—that Vestiaire is a necessary destination? To catch The RealReal, Vestiaire needs to get more buyers and sellers in the region to trust the platform—a tall order when its biggest competitor has brick-and-mortar stores that make the whole operation feel legit. But given the strength of the secondhand market, the business challenges shouldn’t be insurmountable, and perhaps Osta, a fashion outsider, is the person to make it happen. |
What We’re Reading…
and Scrolling…
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I’m living for this menswear drama as the Throwing Fits community says the quiet part out loud, and starts
poking fun at self-serious Blackbird Spyplane and Evan Kinori. (To be fair, it’s unclear if he is self-serious, or just his clothes.) Will Evan Kinori proselytizer Noah Johnson be the next target? Or is he protected by East Coast elitism? (For what it’s worth, I’m sure James and Lawrence both wear a lot of Evan Kinori sweaters tied diagonally across their chests.)
[X]
Jacob Gallagher gets into why the menswear cognoscenti is feral over the Japanese contemporaries of Evan Kinori including Auralee, A.Presse, Comoli, and Taiga Takahashi. Tokyo is, of course, the real capital of American fashion.
[N.Y. Times]
No, Tim Cook is not stylish, but it’s important to discuss ugly and boring fashion choices, too. [N.Y. Times]
Bottega boy
Jacob Elordi is now fronting Bleu de Chanel. [Instagram] |
Until tomorrow,
Lauren
P.S.: We use affiliate links because we are a business. We may make
a couple bucks off them. |
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Puck founding partner Matt Belloni takes you inside the business of Hollywood, using exclusive reporting and insight to explain the
backstories on everything from Marvel movies to the streaming wars. |
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A professional-grade rundown on the business of sports from John Ourand, the industry’s preeminent journalist, covering the leagues,
players, agencies, media deals, and the egos fueling it all. |
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