A MESSAGE FROM OUR SPONSOR

Lyst is re-imagining the multi-brand fashion store online, partnering with the world's best brands to help you reach the customers who matter.

With the stakes higher than ever this holiday season, Lyst insights reveal new search trends and behavioural data from fashion’s most strategic shoppers, and how your brand can cut through the noise online.

Download the Lyst Peak Season Playbook now.

And now, the main event…

Over the past week in Los Angeles, across all the lunches and dinners and cocktail parties that I attended (plus the ones I didn’t), one question bubbled up over and over above all else: Has fashion become over-reliant on celebrity? Some people believe we have reached peak saturation, with the effectiveness of partnerships waning as B- and C-listers increasingly front campaigns. Are these $15 million deals really worth it anymore? Meanwhile, others argued that fashion and Hollywood are only just starting to understand each other—that this bubble was nowhere near popping.

Was this conclusion optimistic, delusional, or somewhere in between? Vogue World, the traveling pop-up magazine that staged its latest iteration at the Paramount lot on Sunday night, actually may have gestured at something of an answer. The organizers—Anna Wintour and her former deputy (and current Vanity Fair content head) Mark Guiducci—chose to center the performance around costumes from Hollywood history, and the work of great costume designers like Arianne Phillips and Colleen Atwood, the latter of whom, in her black Chanel suit, absolutely destroyed any other person’s chances of earning the title of the evening’s best dressed. (Ayo Edebiri in Chanel wasn’t bad, either.)

A MESSAGE FROM OUR SPONSOR

Lyst is re-imagining the multi-brand fashion store online, partnering with the world's best brands to help you reach the customers who matter.

With the stakes higher than ever this holiday season, Lyst insights reveal new search trends and behavioural data from fashion’s most strategic shoppers, and how your brand can cut through the noise online.

Download the Lyst Peak Season Playbook now.

Vogue World, which had previously been staged in New York, London, and Paris, is the type of event that could, in theory, make the Vogue brand feel relevant to a generation of consumers who simply don’t see a reason to care. On Saturday, a college friend who works as a computer engineer, of all fields, texted me that he noticed V, the K-pop singer and BTS star, was flying in for it. (What is Vogue World, he texted…) Wintour and her team also make a point to showcase the uniqueness of their host city. Hollywood types were almost surely charmed by the overture of setting this year’s event on the historic lot.

The 30-minute performance opened with Baz Luhrmann meta-directing Nicole Kidman; featured around 150 models and several big stars, like Greta Lee in Dior; and ended with a swell of models walking out to “Good Vibrations.” On-the-ground reports suggested it was a little hokey, but also a romp. “It was kinda great,” one curmudgeonly viewer said. “Lots of energy. Really fun. Crowd was into it.” Another noted that people were dancing in their seats, and that Gwyneth Paltrow looked perfect.

As always, Lisa Love, the former West Coast editor of Vogue, who still does stuff like this for Condé Nast—and whose great talent is putting on a fabulous show—ensured that attendees, especially the paying ones, had a good time. (You can always tell when Love is involved with the staging of an event; they’re lighter, more fun.) A lot of credit also goes to the entertainment department for getting all those celebrities to show up.

Some observers, however, were less kind. “It looks silly and dated and like a waste of money,” one executive said. “And all the favors they must have had to call in? Aren’t designers tired of being asked to make things for free for their dumb projects?”

Even after four iterations of Vogue World, many remain unclear about its purpose. And on some level, they have a point: Events like this can cost eight figures to produce, are rarely profitable in early years, and often serve as a distraction from the core business. Vogue World exists, in part, to generate top-line revenue, which was close to $30 million this year, according to Condé’s self-administered leak in the Journal. It’s also to show advertisers and marketers that Vogue still matters in the fragmented media environment. This season’s sponsors included Starbucks, eBay, and Eli Lilly, the manufacturer of Mounjaro, the preferred skinny fuel for this crowd. There was a Quince scarf on every seat. (Vogue also donates part of the ticket proceeds to a local charity in each city.)

But part of the lingering confusion regarding this traveling carnival ties back to the fact that Vogue—as well as parentco Condé Nast—is still very much in cost-cutting mode. I’ve been told that Chloe Malle, American Vogue’s new head of editorial content, has been asked to shave $1 million off her annual budget for 2026. (A rep for Condé Nast did not respond to a request for comment.) Other people I talked to said that number isn’t exactly right, but whatever it is, it’s likely easier than it sounds to achieve; there are plenty of legacy policies (and probably people) that can be managed out. The company is always reviewing how to best allocate resources, as a person with access to the budgets told me—which, in this case, means spending less money on traditional content and more on Vogue World.

Indeed, Vogue World’s actual purpose is to pronounce the brand’s enduring position in the industry while the core business continues to erode. Absent innovations to its model or product, Vogue may never escape a state of managed decline in a market where its main way of making money is by serving advertisers that increasingly hope to dictate the contents of the magazine.

Vogue should be so much bigger than that, and perhaps one day it will be. But the challenge comes down to the question about the interplay between fashion and Hollywood. One of the great promises of the Condé Nast titles, at least back in their heyday, was that they effectively managed the tollbooth between entertainment and luxury fashion. Brands were willing to pay tens of millions in advertising to see big stars in their credits in the glossy pages of Vogue, Vanity Fair, GQ, Glamour, etcetera. Yes, the celebrity endorsement spigot existed, but it was in its comparative infancy. Now, as everyone knows, that micro-industry has shifted into overdrive. After all, fashion brands pay Hollywood millions and millions more each year to market their goods. If anything, the codependency between the industries is growing.

And among the various economic challenges facing magazine brands—new platforms, behavioral changes, the challenging economics of print—the most underappreciated, perhaps, is the manner in which they lost their role as gatekeepers. The truth is that Hollywood and fashion need each other too much these days to bother with a middleman.

Wintour, of course, is the exception to this rule. She is the last of her kind—a true power convener who can make a K-pop star board a plane from Korea and have a normie engineer take notice. But can Vogue World grow faster than Vogue declines? In this final stage of her career, can Wintour find a way to make a real business out of that power and influence? The lingering question in the industry has always been whether Vogue can exist without her, but perhaps the better riddle is whether Vogue World can, too.

Bernard Arnault holding a Labubu—doesn’t get better or more real! I’ve never touched a Labubu. [Instagram]

Speaking of, Arnault and his family have bought a bunch of LVMH stock over the past few months, gaining even more control over the business. [Bloomberg]

I told you last week that this was going to happen, but just an additional F.Y.I.: Parade announced over the weekend that it is shuttering. Its last day of operations will be October 28. [Instagram]

When famous people die, the social media response usually rings super false and weird to me, and I disengage. The death of the stylist Melanie Ward, however, affected me. I didn’t know her at all, but her work was just so influential and special-seeming. Katie Grand’s tribute to her helps to explain why she was so important to so many people. You should read it. [BoF]

It feels like listicles are really staging a comeback. (Why? Well, they are fun and numbing.) I happen to think this list of the 50 most stylish people alive is pretty great. [GQ]

And finally…

The influencer Neelam Ahooja, best known for her love of The Row, wrote an open letter to the brand airing some grievances—namely, that the brand tried to “control” her work and image while she wore their product to drive sales via her poses. The gripe, real or imagined, is fascinating to contemplate as the label begins to seriously engage in advertising, influencer partnerships, and red carpet appearances. (Just a week ago, Kendall Jenner wore a custom dress by The Row to the Academy Museum Gala.)

As someone who loves The Row as a consumer, and who has covered the brand critically as a reporter, I don’t think they owe Ahooja anything, and have no obligation to give her special access or discounts. That said, I don’t doubt Ahooja has driven millions of dollars’ worth of sales over the past couple of years, and that’s valuable. The lesson here is that once you put something out into the world, it’s no longer yours. The Row should just invite this lady to their show, or offer her early access to the sample sale, which feels more appropriate in this case.

If I were Ahooja, I’m not sure I would have bothered writing an open letter. And yes, it’s just clothes; who cares? But maybe it’s time, as one of my group chats suggested, for obsessives like Ahooja to realize that there is a world beyond The Row. (Phoebe Philo, of course, but also Versace, Celine, Loewe, Chanel, etcetera, etcetera.) [Substack]

Until tomorrow,
Lauren

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

Need help? Review our FAQ page or contact us for assistance. For brand partnerships, email ads@puck.news.

You received this email because you signed up to receive emails from Puck, or as part of your Puck account associated with {{customer.email}}. To stop receiving this newsletter and/or manage all your email preferences, click here.

Puck is published by Heat Media LLC. 107 Greenwich St, New York, NY 10006