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Hi, and welcome back to Line Sheet. I’ve returned to Paris after a wonderful 24 hours in London: lunch at
Café Cecilia, a whiz around Photo London (if you go, don’t miss Misan Harriman and Jane Evelyn Atwood), a chat with Plum Sykes and Bella Freud about
Steven Meisel (don’t miss that show, either), a very nice dinner with Plum’s gang, and then back on the Eurostar, Bendicks peppermint patty in hand. I will return soon and hope to see you. Thanks to Plum for being even better in real life than she is on the page.
As fun as it is not to be in America right now, I cannot deny that I felt a pang of envy as the reviews of Jonathan Anderson’s Dior Cruise show in Los Angeles started pouring in.
You can read the verdict in this very special issue, available to Inner Circle members only (trade up here), as well as my take on Rent the Runway C.E.O. Jenn Hyman stepping down. For the main event, I’m laying the groundwork for more regular reporting on Authentic Brands Group, which has become a dumping ground for iconic but underperforming fashion brands—and a power
center in its own right. Today, Marc Jacobs, which ABG passed on just months ago, was sold to one of its competitors—I’ve got more details on that below.
Tomorrow on Fashion People, you can hear my conversation with Plum and Bella, both of whom had so much to say about the 1990s in London, Meisel the enigma, Alexander McQueen and Isabella Blow, the future of the fashion industry, photography, design, taste, and
humanity. I hope you enjoy it. Listen here and here.
Also, there is an in-real-life Line Sheet event coming for everyone who lives in New York City. On the evening of May 19, our very own Malique Morris will be
hosting a live panel discussion on the intersection of A.I. and commerce in a way that I promise will actually inspire you. Space, of course, is limited, but we are prioritizing Inner Circle members. If you want to attend, please email MPhillips@puck.news. And enjoy!
Also mentioned in this issue: Jamie Salter, Larry Gagosian, Ramdane
Touhami, Emily Bode, Al Pacino, Wes Anderson, Rent the Runway, Bret Easton Ellis, LACMA, Marjorie Harvey, Jen Rubio, Peter Zumthor, Teyana Taylor, Jane Pratt’s memoir, David Lynch, Ralph Lauren, John Waters, David Beckham, Luca Solca, and many more…
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Four Things You Should Know…
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- Did
Bernard Arnault get his $1 billion valuation for Marc Jacobs?: Tonight, licensing firm WHP Global entered a “definitive agreement” to buy Marc Jacobs from LVMH, with the intellectual property of the brand jointly owned by G-III, the Seventh Avenue manufacturer that also owns Donna Karan International, another former LVMH house. Marc Jacobs will stay on as creative director for now. When ABG’s earlier deal to buy the brand fell through, I predicted some of this, including
the G-III partnership. G-III needs more brands now that it lost Calvin Klein, and licensing firms like WHP need skilled operating partners. G-III has also attempted to move its goods further upmarket, linking up with Saks Global (pre-bankruptcy).
After the ABG walkaway, LVMH insisted it was fully committed. It was obvious though, if the right buyer came along, they would still
move forward with a sale. (Condolences to another licensing firm, Bluestar Alliance, which I know wanted it.) However, I also know that LVMH boss Bernard Arnault was set on achieving a certain valuation, despite the fact that properties like these are undeniably depreciating. Specifically, he wanted at least $1 billion. Did Arnault get his wish? My educated guess is no, but more soon on this.
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A MESSAGE FROM OUR SPONSOR |
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- The
Dior score: Jonathan Anderson never did a Cruise show at Loewe, and not because it was a smaller LVMH brand. It was practically his company, after all, and he grew the business so massively that I’m sure the powers that be would have indulged him. Instead, it was mostly because Cruise shows are client shows, designed for the Jen Rubios and Marjorie Harveys of the world. Cruise, in other words, is about stuff, and
Anderson’s shows never have been.
At Dior, though, things are different: He’s learning to use both his brain and his cold, cold heart. Just kidding… but there is something dark about Anderson’s genius, which is why Los Angeles is a perfect backdrop for his Dior. It’s a sinister place underneath an airbrushed facade, and he captured that duality with this collection of floret-studded dresses and tossed-on bar jackets in rich colors and materials.
As he’s settled into the job, his
vision for women’s has crystallized, while, to be honest, men’s has become blurrier. And yet, one attendee called the whole effort a commercial breakthrough. “The tension between David Lynch, Peter Zumthor’s LACMA, the John Waters camp cars, and the clothes was good,” he told me. Meanwhile, the crowd—from Larry Gagosian to Al Pacino to
Teyana Taylor—added a moody, filmic lens to what could otherwise have been a Beverly Hills cheesefest. “It was not exclusive… but in a good way,” another person said. This is the magic of LVMH at its best: Inclusive products still feel a little snooty.
Anyway, the consensus was that the clothes were chic, which is what they need to be given how people are shopping now. People just want pretty things. (See: Chanel, which will be
contrasted, inevitably, with this collection, especially given that Anderson showed dropped waists, which Matthieu Blazy has been pushing for a few seasons.) Now, Anderson’s job is to not lose himself—to remain the person who stuffs a Scotty Bowers book inside a four-figure tote depicting the cover of American Psycho, but with levity. He’s gotta keep the Bret Easton Ellis inside him
alive. - The Buly guy and the art of phony authenticity: Earlier this week, I stopped by Papier Royal, the new Palais Royale stationery shop by Ramdane Touhami, the mastermind behind the revival of beauty firm Officine Universelle Buly 1803, which he sold to LVMH in 2021. (Before that, he remade Cire Trudon.)
Touhami, as many
of you know, is a relatively controversial figure in France—accusations of “psychological harassment” against him have been covered at length in the French press, and he’s been pretty open to feedback about
his behavior. More recently, he was the subject of a fascinating 24-minute video documenting his fraught attempt at opening a hotel in the Swiss Alpine village of Mürren.
But he also has incredible taste,
and a drive to create new things. Since cashing out, he’s not only started working on the hotel, but also opened a gorpcore-concentrate shop in the Marais (Words, Sounds, Colors, and Shapes), consulted for Jens Grede on Elder Statesman retail, and then there’s this paper shop, which hard launched (quite aptly) in the Financial Times’s Millennial
lifestyle-porn magazine, How to Spend It.
Flawlessly executed, Papier Royal reinforced my impression that Touhami is a man who knows how to make beautiful things accessible to a relatively broad audience. He’s sort of the Claude version of Wes Anderson or Emily Bode—creators so exacting that their worlds can feel alienating. Touhami’s approach, meanwhile, is more generic, and his prices are within reach for the
middle class. In that way, he is closer to Ralph Lauren. As with Buly, at Papier Royal you can get something easily customized on-site and spend less than €100.
In many ways, Touhami is the pioneer in a movement among young, aesthetic-obsessed entrepreneurs attempting to re-create an old-world, analog shopping experience in the age of instant gratification. With Buly, he revived a centuries-old house that now competes with the likes of Santa Maria Novella and
Aesop. More recently, over on the Left Bank, Lauren Rubinski opened Rubirosa’s, the colorful apparel and shoe shop that takes a little from Charvet, a little from Schostal, a little from Belgian Shoes. Drake’s has a bit of this, too: traditional tailoring and service mixed with easier-to-understand colors and pricing.
Still, I left Papier Royal empty-handed. Not because it’s not lovely—it is—but I already have nice stationery from Terrapin. And, if I were going to buy some
in Paris, I’d probably just go to Benneton Graveur (or Pineider in Italy). Anyway, it’s good that things like Papier Royal exist.
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A MESSAGE FROM OUR SPONSOR |
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- The
end of Jenn’s Runway: Yesterday, Rent the Runway co-founder and C.E.O. Jennifer Hyman announced she was leaving her post after 17 years—and stepping away from the board of directors, too. In some ways, it’s no surprise: The company was recapitalized around a year ago and is now majority-owned by private equity, although it still limps along on the Nasdaq.
If Line Sheet had launched pre-pandemic, Hyman would have been a major character. Before Covid,
the rental market was proliferating—despite the logistical costs endemic to the category—and I was convinced that Hyman had finally cracked the code by offering a subscription service. I assumed that, eventually, Rent the Runway would be bought by one of the newer secondhand retailers to capture different parts of the customer journey.
Alas, my original hunch about rental services was true: It’s a viable business, especially for eveningwear, but it has a ceiling. The company
raised far too much money, far too early, like many 2010s startups. But I never lost faith in Hyman, one of the most determined people I’ve ever met. She’s the only reason Rent the Runway still exists, and that apparel rental is a legitimate model in the U.S. I can’t wait to see what insane proposition she comes up with next, and watch everyone eventually get on board.
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And now, a look at the industry’s ABG dilemma… |
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Despite the industry’s love-hate relationship with licensing firm ABG, Jamie Salter’s
company is an essential lifeline for certain middling, too-big-to-fail brands. But at what cost? |
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One of the lessons of A.P.C., which has been
struggling to regain its cool after being acquired by private equity, is that there just aren’t that many viable growth paths for these sorts of faded legacy brands—too big to fail, but not enticing enough for the likes of LVMH, Kering, Tapestry, or PVH. That dilemma is what has given power to licensing firms, which snap up legit fashion brands for a song and turn them
into zombie-like vehicles for value extraction. Indeed, you could live your whole life without realizing that Off-White is generating something like $700 million a year in retail revenue—or that it even still exists—mostly at random malls in faraway places like Thailand or the Saskatchewan Costco.
No brand-management firm is more pervasive, controversial, and perhaps
ultimately necessary than Authentic Brands Group, which is currently valued at $25 billion. Annually, the company generates some $38 billion in gross bookings and earns $2 billion in royalties, with an astounding 75 percent EBITDA margin on said royalties. |
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The truth is that ABG wields a lot of power in fashion, which has made founder Jamie
Salter both an industry villain and savior. Do you yearn for Barneys New York? Salter & Co. have been keeping it warm via some (truly absurd) I.P. plays. Do you still wear Reeboks? Thank Salter; it would be dead otherwise. The industry’s love-hate dynamic was on full display when ABG
came close to acquiring Marc Jacobs out of its semi-sleepwalk over the winter, only to balk at the cost of keeping Jacobs happy (i.e., staging a runway show). Then there was the this-close Missoni deal, which didn’t materialize for various reasons probably less related to ABG than to the Italian zigzag purveyor’s
current ownership structure.
Just today, Marc Jacobs was sold to ABG’s biggest competitor, WHP Global, indicating that, in the end, the brand was going to end up at
a licensing firm no matter what. To be sure, ABG, WHP Global, and its smaller, less-capitalized counterparts—Bluestar Alliance, Marquee Brands, etcetera—have become lifelines for brands of a certain size and cachet. “The industry needs ABG to work,” one luxury executive told me. “The department store system is dead. Online multibrand is dead. Direct-to-consumer is dead. ABG needs to act as a clearing house.”
But if the channels where middling brands once thrived are failing, how can ABG
prop them up? Someone recently used David Beckham’s brand as an example. Beckham, presumably, doesn’t care if his name appears in random places all over the world, on random items, as long as it’s kept relatively pure in markets like the U.S. and Europe. However, maintaining a brand’s position in core markets requires real investments in marketing, along with quality operating partners—which is where ABG’s long-term viability comes into question. The firm, which will need to
yield some sort of liquidity for its investors at some point—like General Atlantic, which put in an additional $500 million in 2023—“needs to strike a balance between investing long-term and yielding enough cash short-term to make the math math,” one industry insider said.
The company has big ambitions to buy still-relevant brands, like Marc Jacobs or Missoni, even if there’s a skepticism among fashion industry insiders that they are willing to subsequently make the requisite
investment. To combat that, ABG has increased its marketing spend by 50 percent in the past year, pouring about $1 billion annually into the channel. Of course, operating partners still complain about them all the time. For now, though, they have no other choice but to engage. What else is there? |
Jane Pratt’s memoir, It Happened to Me, is coming out in the fall of 2027 and will
be published by Random House. I can’t wait, I am forever Jane’s No. 1 fan. [Instagram]
A dispatch from Joan Burstein’s funeral (she was the co-founder of Browns in London): “Can a funeral be great? This one was. It was packed out. Standing room only. Lots of fashion people there, not just the great and the good, but people from wayyyy back when who had been helped
by Mrs. B along the way. The focus was completely on family. Caroline and Simon, her grandchildren, and great grandchildren all spoke. Incredibly moving and personal.” [Inbox]
Cate Blanchett, Andrew Upton, and Coco Francini have signed on to produce a film based on Dana Thomas’s Fashionopolis: The Price of Fast Fashion and the Future of Clothes.
It’ll be directed by Reiner Holzemer, whose previous subjects include Martin Margiela and Dries Van Noten. Congrats to Dana! [Inbox]
Burberry’s same-store sales grew in its most recent fiscal quarter, and it was more profitable than analysts had expected. This is a good thing. Luca Solca rated the stock “outperform.”
[Fashion Network] |
Until tomorrow,
Lauren
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