July 1, 2025

Hi, and welcome back to Line Sheet, and welcome to Q3. Do I need to watch Drive to Survive?

With I.P.O. season upon us, I’ve been thinking about which retailers could convince the market that they are worth it. As one banker said to me recently, it’s really only Skims and Vuori. In today’s issue, Sarah “SShapiro@puck.news” Shapiro examines the latter’s exit scenarios. Up top, I’ve got intel on what’s about to go down at Marni, where designer Francesco Risso exited a few weeks back, and a new exhibition that unites two of your favorite designers. Plus, Sarah shares some stats on Flip-Flop Summer.

For those of you with the Shoppies: As with sneakers, I don’t wear designer sunglasses. Instead, I wear brands that are eyewear-first, mostly Persol and Moscot. For the first time in a long time, however, I took a chance on a newish label, Thistles, and I have to tell you, these glasses are so good. They are designed by the stylist and photographer Thistle Brown, who’s in the Maryam Nassirzadeh circle and launched the brand two years ago. Every pair is handmade in China and Japan, and they look very current without being trendy. They’re high-quality, super sturdy, no smudging on the lens, and not crazy expensive. I chose his Wayfarer riff, The Thistle, in black on black, which is sold out, but you can still cop the tortoiseshell.

Mentioned in this issue: Vuori, Joe Kudla, Skims, Livvy Dunne, Prada, Gucci, Simeon Siegel, Meryll Rogge, Marni, Vivienne Westwood, Rei Kawakubo, The Row, Gab Waller, Chanel, Lauren Sánchez, Toteme, and many more…

A MESSAGE FROM OUR SPONSOR

26 tabs open, 12 carts going and no idea where you saw that cute jacket…

This was us. Maybe it’s you too?

Online shopping can be messy. Notes app chaos. Screenshots in your camera roll. Carts you forgot existed. You need a smarter way to organize and track your must-have pieces.

You need one place to keep everything you’re eyeing, across any store.

Beautifully curated. Effortlessly organized. Smart and always on.

You’re going to love Carted.

More than just a (very) cute wishlist. Carted is your personal shopping assistant, working overtime to send you price drop notifications and back in stock alerts on the pieces you actually care about.

Game on, shopping.

We live for shopping wins. And we all deserve more of those. To celebrate the Carted x Line Sheet week, download Carted for free and you’ll go in the draw to win a $500 voucher to shop your wishlist.

Three Things You Should Know…

Meryll’s Marni: Word from the ANDAM Fashion Awards is that Grand Prize winner Meryll Rogge is the next Marni designer, and that her appointment could be announced as early as this week. (A rep for OTB, the owner of Marni, declined to comment. A rep for Rogge did not respond to a request for comment.)

Just a couple of weeks ago, WWD floated the idea that Marni was in talks with Ellen Hodakova Larsson, who won the LVMH Prize in 2024. (Alas, it appears that another David Siwicki client was tapped.) The Belgium-born Rogge, who worked for Dries Van Noten and Marc Jacobs, has received steady praise, but a pick like this from OTB indicates to me that they were looking for a relative unknown with real-world commercial experience. (I’m sure whatever project they made her do was very good, too.) However, I know that some people within the ANDAM jury were surprised that she won the big award—which includes a mentorship with one of our kings, LVMH’s Sidney Toledano—given that she is about to get another sort of boost. Anyway, best of luck to everyone involved.
Westwood x Kawakubo: I don’t write much about fashion exhibitions, and I’m not trying to emulate Goings On About Town, but it’s important to let you know about this show at the National Gallery of Victoria in Melbourne. (I’m proud to say we do have readers in Australia.) The NGV is staging an exhibition of 140 works by Vivienne Westwood, who died in 2022, and Rei Kawakubo that imagines a dialogue between their designs. The pieces were pulled from collections around the world, including the Met, London’s Victoria & Albert Museum (known for its fashion collection), and Westwood’s own archives. There were also 40 items gifted by Comme des Garçons.

These two women share a history. They collaborated on a collection in 2002, long before that was a generic marketing tactic. Today, both are experiencing a lot of commercial success. The proliferation of Dover Street Markets in particular has made Kawakubo’s work far more accessible to the fashion enthusiast, and I’ve heard anecdotally that Westwood is trending, especially in London, where secondhand and full-price shoppers are making a beeline to the bustiers. This doesn’t open until December 7, so you have time to book your trip.

Sarah Shapiro

Look what The Row made you do: No matter how you feel about wearing flip-flops on the street, they are the shoe of the summer, with Google trends data suggesting that searches for the style are higher this year than in the three previous seasons. Searches for flip-flops have increased by triple digits from last year, according to Lyst. I blame The Row’s $690 Dune flip-flop, which inspired this $50 Amazon knock-off version. Meanwhile, master sourcers Gab Waller, Kelly Levian, and Jennifer Nisan recently told me that they’ve been hunting down the Chanel flip-flop. Also, Havaianas, which never really went away, has a faux-fur collab with Dolce & Gabbana. Perhaps Lauren Sánchez is wearing them on her honeymoon. Proceed at your own risk.

Elsewhere, Toteme’s croco-embossed version has become a giant business for the brand, and Miu Miu has a hit with their paracord version (Flòwze has a budget version.) Other notable brands are Emme Parsons, Ancient Greek Sandals’ jelly version, and A. Emery’s Kinto sandal.

And now for the main event…

Is Vuori Too Big to Fail?

Nearly a year after the company’s significant $825 million capital raise, the post-parody athleisure brand seems primed for a liquidity event, whether an I.P.O. or a sale to a strategic.

Sarah Shapiro

One could argue that Vuori is a brand custom-built for the current era—ersatz and increasingly athleisure fare that befits our hybrid, work-from-home, comfort-over-style world. The company’s growing ubiquity has been manifested in all sorts of ways, from dominating the sidelines of youth sporting events in wealthy-ish suburbs to its endorsement deals with gymnast/influencer Livvy Dunne, nepo QB Arch Manning, and the Gerber-Crawfords. And in November, General Atlantic and Stripes led an $825 million investment that pegged Vuori’s valuation at $5.5 billion. (The company has raised more than $1.25 billion to date.)

A MESSAGE FROM OUR SPONSOR

26 tabs open, 12 carts going and no idea where you saw that cute jacket…

This was us. Maybe it’s you too?

Online shopping can be messy. Notes app chaos. Screenshots in your camera roll. Carts you forgot existed. You need a smarter way to organize and track your must-have pieces.

You need one place to keep everything you’re eyeing, across any store.

Beautifully curated. Effortlessly organized. Smart and always on.

You’re going to love Carted.

Game on, shopping.

Indeed, Vuori, which was founded in 2015, has evolved into a very mature business. Their core customer skews older and suburban—adults can wear Vuori without looking like they’re copying their teenage kids. And despite the impression that many consumers have, the company doesn’t really traffic in pandemic sweats for Zoom meetings. Vuori’s Villa Collection includes textured tank tops, tube tops (yes, tube tops), and pleated pants with belt loops. The men’s Meta Collection competes with Lululemon’s ABC pants. The company is on track to hit 100 stores by 2026.

At the time, the capital raise had all the appearances of a last-in, first-out jetpack of working capital that would set the business up for a lucrative exit. But Vuori may have grown so large that its options are slightly more limited than meets the eye. In 2021, Levi’s acquired Beyond Yoga, which was earning around $100 million in net retail sales, for $400 million. Meanwhile, analysts estimate that Vuori already earns about $1 billion in annual revenue. Unless Nike or VF Corporation, which owns brands such as Vans and The North Face, were to make an offer, it’s probably too big to buy. “Brands like Skims and Vuori have likely outscaled the strategic acquirer market,” Brandon Yoshimura, a director of consumer retail at Solomon Partners, told me.

And yet, Vuori seems well-suited to the public markets—perhaps more so that any modern retailer this side of Skims. In 2021, C.E.O. and founder Joe Kudla told Retail Dive that the brand has been profitable since 2017. In other words, Vuori doesn’t need public market capital to survive, and the company can be choosy about timing. But recent I.P.O.s like Birkenstock (up 35 percent since its 2023 offering) and Amer Sports (up over 150 percent since early 2024) suggest the public markets are starting to reward consumer brands again, especially those focused on profitability. (A spokesperson for Vuori told me there is “nothing to share at this time regarding an I.P.O.”)

Meanwhile, Vuori appears to be embarking on its own athleisure manifest destiny. Last month, the company opened their largest store in Asia, and their third in Shanghai, sitting next to Prada, Gucci, and Miu Miu in the city's IAPM mall. When I asked BMO retail analyst Simeon Siegel about category expansion risks, he said consumers are “giving the brand permission to stretch,” as long as they expand the addressable market without alienating core customers.

At this point, it feels like just a matter of time before Vuori launches denim—every mall brand is currently chasing super-soft travel denim (see Gap, Madewell, and, of course, Rag & Bone’s Miramar.) The infrastructure and brand permission exists, the company has proven eager to innovate around fabric technology, and the market opportunity is obvious. Whether they go public in 2025, or wait another year, Vuori has already achieved the enviable distinction of building a business that isn’t desperate to go public.

What Sarah’s Reading… and Looking At… and Listening To

Marc Jacobs showed his latest collection in New York on Monday night. He debuted a new handbag style (the Cristina), and convincingly argued for puffed sleeves. [Vogue Runway]

Broadway producer and real estate heir Jordan Roth is mounting a “narrative fashion performance” at the Louvre on July 10, coinciding with the museum’s first-ever couture exhibit. Remember, you read about it in Line Sheet first! [NYT]

It’s the 30th anniversary of Clueless, and Faran Krentcil breaks down the looks—and dispels some myths—that turned the movie into a fashion time capsule of 1995. The RealReal’s edit with the movie’s costume designer, Mona May, was also well done. [W]

Hillary Kerr interviewed Donni founder Alyssa Wasko Stein on her excellent podcast about starting over. (Read the Line Sheet profile here as a companion piece.) [Second Life]

The first delivery of Phoebe Philo’s third collection dropped. We’re curious to see what happens as Philo broadens offline distribution. (Online, you can still only get it through her.) We wish the brand had sold the little letter pins they showed with one collection—an easy margin driver that would have been a collectible. [Phoebe Philo]

The Bezos-Sánchez wedding garnered 60 percent more social media buzz for fashion brands than all of last season’s New York Fashion Week, according to tracking firm Launchmetrics. [Inbox]

Condé Nast threw up a post on LinkedIn suggesting that anyone interested in the U.S. Vogue head-of-content gig should send their résumé to condenast@spencerstuart.com. The comments are incredibly lame. [Really]

Until tomorrow,
Lauren

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

Puck fashion correspondent Lauren Sherman and a rotating cast of industry insiders take you deep behind the scenes of this multitrillion-dollar biz, from creative director switcheroos to M&A drama, D.T.C. downfalls, and magazine mishaps. Fashion People is an extension of Line Sheet, Lauren’s private email for Puck, where she tracks what’s happening beyond the press releases in fashion, beauty, and media. New episodes publish every Tuesday and Friday.

Puck’s daily art market email, anchored by industry expert Marion Maneker, offers unparalleled access to the mega-auctions and galleries, elite buyers and sellers, and the power players who run this opaque world. Wall Power also features Julie Brener Davich, a veteran of Christie’s and Sotheby’s, who provides unique insights into how the business really works.

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

SEE THE ARCHIVES