Hi, and welcome back to Line Sheet. Sarah “SShapiro@puck.news” Shapiro is your guide today, with details on the long-anticipated arrival of tenniswear label Spence, crucial info about the tween brand Edikted (that’s not a typo), and Meghan Markle’s ShopMy account. For the main event, Sarah is traveling (in her mind) to Freeport, Maine, to get weird with L.L.Bean. In this era of boat tote-as-“It” bag and duck boot-as-fashion statement, the family-owned maker of shearling-lined moccasins and socially acceptable kids’ backpacks (well, at least at Montessori) should be on top of the world. Instead, Sarah found that even with all the right ingredients, companies can get in their own way. Tonight, I’m heading over to the Chateau Marmont to celebrate former Paper magazine editor Kim Hastreiter’s book, Stuff: A New York Life of Cultural Chaos, at a party hosted by Karla Welch, Paige Powell, and Christina Topsoe. (I was lucky enough to catch the last day of her adjacent show, My Amazing Friends, at Jeffrey Deitch’s gallery on Grand Street earlier this year.) Kim, I hear, will be out and about in Los Angeles this week—as will Deitch, who is slated to sit down with Puck’s very own art market guru, Marion Maneker, and Sea View Gallery’s Sara Hantman, on Saturday, March 30, at 3 p.m., to discuss collecting art and design at the Pacific Design Center. The talk is part of Design.Space LA. The whole point of Design.Space (which I’m sure I’ll discuss with proprietor Jesse Lee when we record an episode of Fashion People at 1 p.m. on Saturday) is to get people to look at and buy design objects. Pieces up for grabs include a Noguchi lamp, Pierre Jeanneret’s “Easy” armchair, Charlotte Perriand’s “Cafeteria” table, and an array of works (I like the “Love” light and the little bowl thingies) by Gaetano Pesce, whose collaboration with Matthieu Blazy and Bottega Veneta is one of the most successful artist-designer mind melds in recent history. Programming note: Today on Fashion People, journalist Max Berlinger (of Vuori and skinny sneaker fame) joined me to discuss the Printemps opening party, our favorite places to shop in New York, Jack and Lazaro joining Loewe, why Marc Jacobs would be great at Balenciaga, Nike’s big Internationalist opportunity, and plenty more. Listen here and here. Mentioned in this issue: L.L.Bean, Stephen Smith, Shawn Gorman, Leon Leonwood Bean, REI, Patagonia, Edikted, the Duchess of Montecito, Spence, ShopMy, Amanda and Lori Greeley, Dedy Shwartzberg, Zvika Alon, and many more…

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Sarah Shapiro

Three Things You Should Know…

An influencer in the royal family: Meghan Markle, the Duchess of Montecito, has picked a side in the ShopMy vs. LTK battle, having casually dropped a link to a ShopMy page on her Instagram Stories Monday evening. The URL simply uses “ms,” subtly reaffirming her Sussex identity, while the page offers a high-low “duchess of the people” mix: neutral favorites from semi-affordable French handbag line Polène, sandals from Kering-owned Saint Laurent, cashmere from Loro Piana, J.Crew classics, and California label Heidi Merrick. I spoke to a rep from one brand who said they get Daily Candy levels of viral sales when Markle wears one of their items.Markle also linked to a handbag from Cesta Collective—a brand that she recently invested in after being spotted out with Clare Waight Keller, who designed her wedding dress. (She also linked C.W.K.’s Uniqlo trench.) Every time someone clicks on the item and converts to purchase, of course, she will also make a commission, usually around 8-15 percent. The move signals Markle’s calculated return into influencer territory. Before royal life intervened, her lifestyle blog, The Tig, covered fashion, food, travel, and beauty. Now she’s methodically reclaiming her space in the founder sphere with her insufferable Netflix show, With Love, Meghan; her podcast; and her Flamingo Estate knock-off brand, As Ever, which sells jams and other sundries.In her renewed influencerdom, Markle is repackaging royal celebrity into aspirational founder status, blending aristocratic cachet with California entrepreneurship. In other words, attempting the ultimate rebrand from exiled royal to girlboss. After all, she has to pay for her own security now.
Advantage, niche players: Today’s latest new brand launch, Spence, is just one of several specialized brands capitalizing on the resurgence of tennis. (Racquet founder Caitlin Thompson extemporizes on the trend during a recent episode of my partner Dylan Byers’s excellent podcast, The Grill Room.) You might remember a Spence preview during the Spring/Summer 2025 NYFW. The products are now ready for serving and rallies. Spence has solid industry experience and street cred: Founder Amanda Greeley is the creative director at Serena & Lily (her mother, Lori Greeley, is C.E.O.) and previously worked with Cuup, a D.T.C. attempt at disrupting Victoria’s Secret. Spence also hired Outdoor Voices’ founding design director, a big reason that brand became anything.While established players like Nike, On, and Adidas compete across multiple areas, today’s tennis enthusiasts increasingly gravitate toward community-focused specialists that speak directly to their passion. Just as Recess Pickleball and Malbon Golf have cultivated devoted followings in their respective sports, there’s an opportunity here to satisfy the needs of a starved customer segment. I am also excited to see Asics x A.P.C. launching a collab on April 5 that connects performance with thoughtful design. Finally, tennis players have more options.
Addicted to Edikted: Edikted (and I wish that was misspelled) has emerged as the newest go-to destination for tweens and teens, partly filling the void left by Forever 21, which has endured a second bankruptcy and is in the process of closing 350 stores. Edikted now has four California locations, as well as one in Soho and another at the Mall of America. Its founders, Dedy Shwartzberg and Zvika Alon, previously founded another teen shopping sensation, Adika, which became a publicly traded brand in 2018 on the Tel Aviv Stock Exchange.Edikted’s stores are TikTok moments waiting to happen, with bright pink neon lights and “preppy” backdrops that transform shopping into content creation. The newest location, in San Diego’s Fashion Valley mall, has an energetic retail floor, with young shoppers filming videos amid racks of bow-detailed tops, barely-there tank tops, and a prominent festival theme (Coachella starts April 11). The business model is adapted to youth spending habits, with trend-chasing merchandise at sharp price points. One tween shopper recently told me that she loved the omnipresent sales. (Her mother, who was paying, sighed…) Edikted understands its customers aren’t investing in quality, but in momentary relevance and the social haul moment.

And now for the main event…

The Boat & Tote Blues

At first glance, L.L.Bean should be thriving—its boat and tote and field jackets connect with yet another generation of stylish, prep-adjacent shoppers. But revenue is flat, more layoffs are coming, and the company is no longer the trusted outfitter of yore. Can the iconic Maine retailer navigate these trouble waters?

Sarah Shapiro

L.L.Bean, the outdoorsy Maine retailer and mainstay of American prep, has everything a shopper could want: iconic, trend-proof products; legendary customer service; a flagship store that doubles as a New England tourist mecca; and the enduring admiration of fashion cool kids of every generation. Yet the family-owned company, founded 113 years ago by Leon Leonwood Bean—yes, that’s where the name comes from—is struggling to maintain retail momentum. And despite two rounds of layoffs last year, L.L.Bean’s financial position is still less sturdy than its original barn jackets or famous duck boots. Net revenue was flat year over year in 2024, at $1.7 billion. That’s probably less than L.L.Bean was generating, on an inflation-adjusted basis, 25 years ago, when the company hit $1 billion. (In its year-end results, released last week, the company pointed to “inflationary headwinds and a decrease in spending in the outdoor sector” as major challenges.) I’m also told that the 50-75 layoffs L.L.Bean announced in December involved more than just buyouts. According to a source, they reflected broad cost-cutting measures after a disappointing winter.

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Alongside the layoffs, L.L.Bean recently announced a new return-to-office policy. In January, reorganization goals were unveiled, with departures planned from March through May that will cut positions across multiple functions. Sources confirmed that the board approved even more cost-cutting measures at its meeting last week. (A representative for the company denied any pending layoffs, and attributed other recent departures to “retirements and voluntary exits.”) Executive chairman Shawn Gorman and C.E.O. Stephen Smith are hoping that a multiyear, $50 million renovation of the company’s flagship Freeport store can help turn things around. (Incredibly, the store remains the second-most visited tourist site in Maine.) To revive customer enthusiasm, they’re bringing back the indoor fishpond and overhauling the aquarium, among other immersive flourishes, and upgrading the outdoor spaces throughout the campus. Will this translate to revenue? Maybe in Maine. But L.L.Bean now has a fleet of 60 U.S. stores, as well as 22 in Japan and 13 in Canada. While e-commerce comprises the majority of the company’s revenue, in-store is down 8 percent year over year. Obviously, a more expansive overhaul is needed—for the stores as well as the merchandise.

Heritage and Its Discontents

The irony is that L.L.Bean’s iconic heritage products are thriving. The boat and tote, reimagined in 1965 to its current form, is their number one driver of new customer acquisition. (Grace Wiener’s @ironicboatandtote account certainly helped drive a resurgence in popularity.) Their field coat just celebrated its 100th anniversary and saw huge, near-400 percent year-over-year growth in sales this past fall in tandem with the resurgence in field coats generally. L.L.Bean’s social buzz, measured by Launchmetrics, suggests that both fashion audiences and traditionalists are talking about the brand. Its Old New England vibe has also managed to stay surprisingly on-trend—garnering positive fashion coverage for their Japanese streetwear archive pieces, while courting a younger audience with collaborations like the belted boat and tote from Tibi and the duck boot from Free People. But the bright spots haven’t translated into substantial financial gains. They bring to mind an equation we see too often with heritage brands: If overall sales have remained flat while heritage items flourish, then other categories must be in a freefall. Without connecting their heritage to something new, L.L.Bean risks becoming just a nostalgic footnote. The company also lags behind industry leaders in customer enthusiasm. This may have something to do with its unilateral abandonment, in 2018, of an iconic customer-retention strategy of guaranteeing items and replacing worn-out parts—my father once had the soles on his 35-year-old boots replaced, no questions asked. (You can still get a one-year guarantee on items bought after 2018, but it’s not the same.)

In any case, according to net promoter scores, which measure how likely customers are to recommend a retailer, outdoor enthusiasts are now significantly more likely to recommend Patagonia or REI to friends around the campfire. Most concerningly, L.L.Bean’s revenue growth over the past 25 years trails both the e-commerce and outdoor recreation equipment trend. Specialty retailers like Lululemon and REI experienced an uptick that Bean didn’t—a stark indication of a brand steadily losing market share. A visit to any one of their massive retail stores—like the 15,000-square-foot store in Richmond, Virginia, that I recently stopped in—reveals a wide assortment of products across dozens of categories that seem increasingly disconnected from what actually excites consumers about the brand. Their sprawling retail strategy also places stores in locations where their core customer may not even be shopping for outdoor gear. A smaller footprint, or even shop-in-shops with the Japanese streetwear collab and archive items, would be better situated in suburban malls. L.L.Bean is at a critical juncture in its history. While its legacy products continue to resonate, the brand’s challenge isn’t so much product innovation as stagnant marketing that struggles to connect with today’s diverse outdoor consumers and digital audiences. The path forward isn’t about reinventing the duck boot, but rather about meeting customers where they are, both physically and culturally, with clearer messaging about the continuing relevance of their products. By refocusing their marketing strategy and retail footprint around authentic strengths, L.L.Bean might just be able to weather this storm.

What We’re Reading…

Rachel Tashjian claims that the agenda for both her Washington Post fashion coverage and her personal newsletter, Opulent Tips, is to help readers shop better. Eliza Brooke dug deep into the Tashjian universe for this comprehensive look at her path to the Post. [Ssense] Barbour continues their collabs—last month, it was a Noah repeat; prior to that, there was the English feminine pairing with designer Erdem. Now they’re moving into business with Crocs. Curious if any jibbitz will be involved. [Instagram] Liana Satenstein discovered that Melania Trump’s wedding dress, designed by John Galliano for Dior, is currently for sale on eBay. The seller purchased it via a friend-of-a-friend from the first lady for $70,000 to wear to her own wedding and made a few slight alterations. In semi-related matrimonial oligarchy news, Dylan Byers shared that invites for Lauren Sánchez and Jeff Bezos’s pending nuptials have been mailed. Perhaps Sánchez is still looking for a dress? [Neverworns]

Until tomorrow, 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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