Hi, and welcome back to Line Sheet. Sarah “SShapiro@puck.news” Shapiro is in the driver’s seat today, with notes on Dick’s Sporting Goods (Allegheny County!) acquiring Foot Locker (kind of shocking, but not really), the investment thesis of one of the world’s most important mall developers, and the return of… Keds! (For me, they never left.) 🚨 Programming note: Today on Fashion People, I’m joined by the legendary James Scully, who’s best known for years spent as a casting director (from Tom Ford’s Gucci to Stella McCartney), as well as his late-stage turn as a model-rights advocate. But he also has a rich history in retail, kicking off his career on the sales floor at Charivari in the late 1980s and now at Jamestown, his fabulous shop in Hudson. We discuss it all. Listen here and here. 🛍️ For those of you with the Shoppies: Yesterday in Beverly Hills, I co-hosted a lunch with Erin Saluti, founder of Eittem, whose hand-carved handbags launched late last year. (They are made of salvaged wood and lined with gorgeous Alpine leather. These are bags for people who are unimpressed with all other bags.) Erin runs Eittem more like a fine jewelry brand, developing each style in an atelier adjacent to the company’s offices in the Starrett-Lehigh Building. Anyway, the idea for the lunch was to gather together a mix of stylists, editors, art world luminaries, retailers, and fashion insiders to introduce them to Eittem and have a nice time. Unsurprisingly, everyone looked gorgeous (I spied multiple Attersee garments), because we love any excuse to dress up in Los Angeles. I was particularly thrilled to see The Row’s Emi platform slides in real life, worn by writer and fashion person Laurel Pantin. These are a glossier version of the Steve Madden style that was so ubiquitous in the late 1990s with Delia’s catalog–obsessed teens. I never partook back then, but I have to say, the stretch-cotton version just released by Nina Christen, The Row’s former shoe designer, is a stronger contender for shoe of the summer. Mentioned in this issue: Kim Kardashian, Chelsea Hansford, Valley Fair Mall, Jean-Marie Tritant, Loewe, Celine, Cartier, Studs, Anna Harman and Lisa Bubbers, Wilson, pickleball, Rosh Mahtani, Moodytiger, Dick’s, Foot Locker, Nike, Adidas, Jane Birkin, and many, many more…

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Sarah Shapiro

Three Things You Should Know…

Sorry, you can’t buy stuff from these overseas shops: Several international retailers, including Space NK, Joseph, and Réalisation Par, have stopped shipping to American customers, at least until they get more clarity on the tariff situation. For shoppers, and for certain retailers, an easy way to buy directly online has just disappeared. Among the many headaches triggered by ping-ponging and unpredictable tariff rates is customers who are shocked to discover, after an order arrives from abroad, that they owe a huge customs bill at delivery. Indeed, online chatter suggests that more and more consumers are simply refusing packages rather than pay an unexpected tax. This has created a cascade of problems in the returns process—inventory caught in transit limbo, delayed refunds, pointless back-and-forth international shipping, and perhaps, ultimately, excess unsalable inventory. Serendipitously, Réalisation Par is opening an L.A. pop-up on May 22—too soon to have been planned in response to Trump’s Liberation Day tariffs, but it does point to one potential (not necessarily scalable) workaround: shopping locally.
All hail the Birkin sneaker: Plimsoll (a.k.a. Keds-style) sneakers are creeping back into the footwear conversation as puffed-up designs from Hoka, Salomon, and New Balance give way to the more streamlined Loewe Flow Runners, Adidas Sambas, and—as we’ve mentioned in previous Line Sheets—ballet sneakers.The plimsoll has a canvas top and injected-rubber sole, and was part of Jane Birkin’s uniform before her death in 2023; she paired them with denim, t-shirts, and (of course) her namesake Birkin basket bags. These days, you can find her favorite Bensimon sneaker in an array of colors. Sperry’s CVO is another classic, modernized in the 1980s by Japanese label Asahi. The shoes are both nostalgic and practical, not to mention accessibly priced. Units are moving, too. Nordstrom’s sneaker buy for Keds increased 131 percent year over year, according to retail data firm Edited. (Also of note, the classic from Keds has over 4,000 reviews on the Nordstrom site). A source at Sperry told me they’ve seen a jump in year-over-year sales in Q1 and a 370 percent increase in press coverage due to their recent collab with Color Plus. And finally…: A few upcoming openings of note, including two first-for-the-U.K. stores coming to London: Asket, a line of well-tailored men’s and women’s basics, is opening its first location outside of Sweden on Brewer Street this spring; and Kim Kardashian and the Gredes are opening a 12,000-foot Skims on Regent Street in 2026. Back in the states, Simon Miller, the brand led by C.E.O. and creative director Chelsea Hansford, opened their first store at Signal in the L.A. Arts District. The 1,000-foot space is filled with colorful, playful clothing, vintage fixtures, and mannequins created by abstract painter Peter Keil. The adjacent courtyard they’ve taken over for the summer season is also really nice. As for collabs, La Ligne and Rue de Verneuil got together for a small assortment of green striped sweaters and two sizes of the Rue de Verneuil totes—no new silhouettes here, just classics from each brand’s collections with a shared Pantone. Tuckernuck, the D.C.-based retailer that carries a mix of branded and private-label merchandise, launched a collab with multihyphenate Shea McGee; their collection has all the summer essentials. Rosh Mahtani’s Alighieri collabed with J.Crew on a nautically inspired line of jewelry pieces, plus an interesting twist on the classic white button-up, with Alighieri gold-plated recycled bronze for the buttons. Elsewhere, Alex Mill Jr. has perhaps the cutest chore coats and flight suits for kids. Brave Pudding launched a low-profile version of their sock boots, which are sock-shoe hybrids that might be described as “airport style.” High Sport did an exclusive pink floral print set for Moda Operandi, for matching or wearing à la carte. Nike launched at Shopbop, which added a “Sports” category to their website, to get their fitness apparel in front of women when they’re already shopping athleisure brands. D.T.C swimwear brand Andie acquired sweats-heavy R.T.W. (and also D.T.C.) brand Richer Poorer, which will help Andie compete with D.T.C. swimwear brands that have already pushed into leisure R.T.W., like Summersalt and Left on Friday. And Arq, the Millennial granny-panty brand, is relaunching with a limited, password-only release announced exclusively via email. And then there are… shoes! We know about the revival of jelly shoes; Dr. Scholl’s–inspired wooden sandals are back, too. There’s always the original, but Larroudé has launched a version (available for preorder); Simon Miller has the Cafe Tropical collection, as well as a patent version. Dr. Scholl’s itself has an embossed-leather collab with Favorite Daughter. Meanwhile, Miu Miu did it on the runway.

And now, the main event…

The Week in Shopping: Malls Are Back (Again)

News and notes on the psychology behind a successful shopping mall, a sporty new kids line from Shenzhen, and why two sports retailers are consolidating.

Sarah Shapiro

Westfield’s Valley Fair Mall, in Santa Clara, offers a fascinating case study in what it takes for a shopping mall to thrive these days. Westfield, which was absorbed into the multinational commercial real estate firm Unibail-Rodamco in 2018, has started to double down on its U.S. outposts—reversing plans for a near-total retreat from the States, and instead shedding underperforming properties while shoring up others. Valley Fair is a perfect example of their investment thesis, and boasts all the ingredients necessary for a mall renaissance: high traffic, strong leases, and many thriving stores that benefit from adjacent food and beverage tenants. Over the past four years, ever since C.E.O. Jean-Marie Tritant took the helm of Unibail-Rodamco-Westfield, the premium Westfield shopping destinations have outperformed competitors with 26 percent higher sales, largely due to higher foot traffic and retail occupancy rates, according to the company’s recent “Platform for Growth” business plan. This can be at least partly attributed to Westfield’s mastery of retail-flow psychology, wherein designers are clustered with designers (Loewe, Celine, Cartier) and electronics with electronics (Dyson across from Apple), etcetera, which creates intuitive shopping zones along natural pathways between anchor stores. There’s an art to grouping competitors whose proximity creates mini destinations and separating stores whose juxtaposition would be jarring. Curating just the right tension enhances the overall shopping ecosystem.

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Experiential retailers are also taking advantage of the space, and not just movie theaters and escape rooms. For example, Studs, the piercing studio/jewelry store founded by Anna Harman and Lisa Bubbers, typically gets over 1,000 visitors per week in each Westfield mall location, per a source, and closer to 2,000 during busier seasons.

The Sports Store Racquet

Among my more interesting channel checks at Valley Fair was the Wilson Sporting Goods store. Wilson, which reinvented itself during the pandemic and launched into premium sportswear in 2021, has 13 locations nationwide. The Santa Clara store, for its part, was easy to shop, the materials felt premium, and the styling was on point. Tennis rackets can be strung on-site. For Bay Area locals, they even have 49ers-themed pickleball rackets. Afterward, I felt tempted to sign back up for tennis lessons. While the mall has all the usual sporty stores (Lululemon, Foot Locker, Fabletics, etcetera), it also boasts one of the two U.S. locations of Moodytiger, a relatively under-the-radar sporty kids’ line from Shenzhen. Being headquartered in Shenzhen should offer Moodytiger significant advantages—closer collaboration with manufacturing, faster product iteration, and potentially higher margins, which can help fuel global expansion in the competitive athleticwear market. But the current trade environment poses meaningful risks. For a brand like Moodytiger, it might be prudent to dial back plans for rapid U.S. growth and instead focus on more measured, strategic expansion in other regions—perhaps Europe or Canada.

Dick’s Laces Up Foot Locker

Perhaps more than anything, my visit to Valley Fair illuminated how traditional retailers are adapting to the changing shopping landscape. In that light, the acquisition of Foot Locker by Dick’s Sports Goods, for $2.4 billion, represents a savvy attempt to manage competition while creating opportunities to cross-pollinate. It’s also yet another example of the inevitable consolidation of multibrand retail. Dick’s, of course, already has a famously massive store footprint—large enough to host Foot Locker shop-in-shops inside some locations. Now, with this merger, the combined entity should have even stronger negotiating power with major players like Nike and Adidas.

In some ways, this merger is also a bet on the fact that physical retail will continue to matter (and that sneaker culture isn’t going anywhere). Nike, of course, made life hard for many of these outlets, a few years back, when they tried to pivot hard to D.T.C. But now, shoe retail is becoming more experiential, specialized, and defined by highly deliberate selling strategies. The winners of this game will be the retailers who understand how to capitalize on their brand’s role in a consumer’s life. The problem, as always, will be figuring out how to get customers to show up.

The Week in Feedback…

On Donni always selling out: “My heart really sinks for Donni every time I get hit with an Instagram ad for pants that sold out last month. Happens about 10 times a day now, so I’m depressed on their behalf.” —A P.R. consultant On the prospect of Pierpaolo at Balenciaga: “I fear he is not the right match for that brand. Will he bring Yvan Mispelaere, his right hand at Valentino and essential secret weapon?” —A fashion insider On a real strategic contender: “The group the press talks little about, that is actually trading well, is Puig. They’ve also done some interesting acquisitions… But still very Spanish.” —A C.E.O.-type On the Gucci lame-duck cruise show: “The studio’s best impression of what Demna’s Gucci might look like.” “I see Alessandro here.” “Gucci was… good.” —Various parties

Have a great weekend, Lauren P.S.: We are using affiliate links because we are a business. We may make a couple bucks off them.

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