Hi, and welcome back to Line Sheet. I’ve settled into the Paris pace—fewer shows most days, more meetings—and am also at the point in the Fashion Month cycle where I would like it to be over. (It’s a roller coaster, man.) Last night, I got a little reminder of Los Angeles at the very French all-purpose store Merci in the Marais, where Dôen co-founders (and sisters) Margaret and Katherine Kleveland co-hosted a dinner celebrating their takeover of the central space. The folks at Merci—a great place to buy dusty-colored linens—created a mini Rose Bowl-style flea market populated with vintage home goods and the brand’s prettiest-in-class dresses. This is how the French envision California.

I’ll be back Thursday with news from the shows and plenty of other goodies, but until then, please enjoy my partner Rachel Strugatz’s respite from the European malaise—including fresh intel on the Bella Hadid-Charlotte Tilbury breakup and Hailey Bieber’s beauty ascent—plus a couple of tidbits from me. It never ends, so make sure to subscribe to Puck immédiatement.

Mentioned in this issue: Hailey Bieber, Rhode, Margaret and Katherine Kleveland, Dôen, Nick Vlahos, Jenna Lyons, Rag & Bone, Charlotte Tilbury, Bella Hadid, Refinery29, Michael and Lauren Ratner, Scooter Braun, David Byrne, Rihanna, Selena Gomez, Vice, Bruce Dixon, Ôrəbella, Robin Burns-McNeill, Kendall Jenner, and many, many more.

• Who wants to pay $30 million for Refinery29?: Late last week, Vice Media C.E.O. Bruce Dixon said that the company’s still-newish owner, Fortress Investment Group, was looking to sell off Refinery29, which it bought in 2019 at a $400 million valuation, and that there were some interested potential acquirers. While we’ve all heard by now that the Vice website is shutting down, Refinery29 will continue operating, although there were layoffs there this week, too.

  So who will buy it? While co-founders Philippe von Borries and Justin Stefano were interested in taking it back at some point, it sounds like they are not in the running this time. Vice apparently did receive a $30 million offer from one entity or another. Who’s the taker? You tell me. (I reached out to Vice but didn’t hear back.) —Lauren Sherman

• Sorry, this other crazy rumor does not appear to be true, buds: Somehow, I am back on the Jenna Lyons beat. Heard yesterday that she was going to Rag & Bone to run women’s on top of her Coveteur gig and several other side hustles. Remember, Rag & Bone was recently acquired by Guess Inc. and just hired Robert Geller to do men’s. Jenna at Rag is an interesting prospect, but not the right fit, I’m told by a person close to the brand. Look, you never know what the future holds, stranger things have happened, insert your favorite idiom here. But I think everyone just wants Jenna to design clothes again. —Lauren Sherman
• Why Bella Hadid was dropped by Charlotte Tilbury: Entertainment Tonight (still exists!) reported Tuesday that Bella Hadid was dropped from her contract with Charlotte Tilbury, which the model began endorsing last March. The post cited a source who claimed that Hadid’s pro-Palestinian viewpoints posed an issue, but I heard that Hadid was simply creating her own beauty brand, Ôrəbella, and never disclosed it.

  We don’t know much about the line—yet. Per Hadid’s Instagram, Ôrəbella launches May 2; its tagline is “Reveal your alchemy,” whatever that means, and it may or may not be sold at Ulta Beauty, which I deduced from a photo Hadid posted from the Ulta Beauty H.Q. in Chicago last week. I did hear that Hadid is working with Robin Burns-McNeill, the industry veteran behind two of the most iconic fragrances of all time, Calvin Klein’s Obsession and Eternity. Burns-McNeill is the co-founder of Batallure Beauty, the firm behind Christian Louboutin Beauté; Mary-Kate and Ashley Olsen’s Elizabeth and James’ fragrances (R.I.P.), and, more recently, scents for LoveShackFancy and Kendra Scott. Charlotte Tilbury and Burns-McNeill didn’t respond for comment. —Rachel Strugatz

My friends and professional contacts weren’t the only ones taken by this prurient little innovation. The broader online public, too, was enamored with this seemingly basic silicone techcessory, which was perfectly sized to fit Rhode lip gloss (hence the “unique” shape). The Rhodussy, as the internet coined it (I suggest you read the comments), had a waitlist of more than 150,000 people before it even went on sale, I was told. The $35 case, designed in the beauty brand’s signature light gray, was produced by branding agency twelveNYC, and was sold out within minutes.

Admittedly, it’s the Bieber-manufactured beauty trends that get the most traction. Her ability to cross-promote, marry, and extend the life cycle of the trends she creates ­is uncanny: “strawberry girl makeup” was used in the lead up to the launch of “Strawberry Glaze” lip gloss, a collaboration with Krispy Kreme, which led to a strawberry glaze soft serve at Erewhon last month, a follow-up to her Strawberry Glaze Skin Smoothie. In January, Rhode came out with its first cleanser, Pineapple Refresh, a lathery formula made with pineapple enzymes. I’ve never seen so much press around the launch of a literal face wash.

Rhode, of course, began as something of a joke. It launched naturally from Bieber’s OBB Media-produced YouTube series Who’s in My Bathroom, a pandemic era project in which she invited fellow celebrities like Kendall Jenner to do things like cook mac & cheese… in her bathroom. As for the heavy emphasis on food, Bieber has talked about initially wanting to be a cooking influencer, which explains why GoPuff sponsored the first two seasons. But Bieber quickly had the epiphany that viewers weren’t so interested in seeing beautiful thin women cook in the bathroom, and instead coveted their beauty advice. An idea germinated.

Michael Ratner says this success relies on a simple formula: OBB asks questions of its audience and has Bieber engage directly. This sounds rather simplistic, but making a content production arm the backbone of a beauty business is truly innovative, and the team executes pretty flawlessly. As for the phone case, Bieber’s most interacted-with Instagram posts are mirror selfies, and a product mandate coalesced around creating something people could put into their own selfies. “It’s less ‘What’s the greatest skincare product we can do next?’ versus, ‘This is what hits with the people who buy her stuff,’” a person with knowledge of the business said. “She’s very preternaturally tied to what the teenyboppers want—and what they want from her specifically.”

In any case, timing is everything. As another plugged-in marketer observed, Bieber has the right aesthetic, and she was able to launch her brand as she was becoming an It girl. Whenever Sofia Richie or Alix Earle’s beauty brands come out, will it be too late to capture the incredible momentum each has had in terms of their “influence.”

Bieber’s also married to Justin, although plenty of people have famous partners and none of them are Hailey Biebering (except Kim and Kanye, when they were a couple). If Lauren Sanchez decided to start a beauty line—which I’m sure is imminent—it won’t have the same, if any, appeal. All the algorithms, data, and Amazon-ification in the world couldn’t get me to buy whatever she may be selling.

Lauren