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This was the most Vanhee has ever inserted herself into the broader fashion conversation, which you don’t really have to do at Hermès. There was more non-leather texture—velvet dresses, embroidery, peplums, shimmer (!), lots of seaming. A welcome change, and honestly, a bit bizarre in a totally alluring way. She mixed the opulence of the 1980s with a girlishness that somehow didn’t deter from her typically assertive stance. I’m not a model person, but she and Julia Lange cast all my faves: Karen Elson (wearing a true red dress fit for a Homecoming dance), as well as Rebecca Leigh Longendyke, Guinevere Van Seenus, and a bare-faced Karolin Wolter.

Welcome to ReSee, our new weekly column where we take a second look at what actually mattered in fashion. The grandeur of the just-wrapped global tour of Cruise shows, and their consumer-focused nature, got me thinking about how fashion functions in an increasingly fragmented attention economy. Yes, the industry is both overexposed and no longer steering culture. But many of the events of this past week offered lessons for how designers and brands can still win—or lose!—the media game.

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To wit: Victoria’s Secret reported a gangbusters first quarter on Tuesday, sending the stock up as much as 50 percent, thanks in part to an executive team that is rediscovering how to be relevant. C.E.O. Hillary Super and creative chief Adam Selman know how to serve two audiences at once: middle-aged Millennials looking for precise bra fits and attention-deficit teens seeking whimsy without being predictable. Meanwhile, Pink’s upcoming collaborations—a Legally Blonde prequel tie-in with Reese Witherspoon’s Hello Sunshine and a swimwear collection with Cheetos—demonstrate that Super and Selman actually understand their customer.

Then there’s Lululemon, which reported a 4 percent decline in first-quarter U.S. sales. No great mystery there: Recent product launches, including an underwhelming yoga collection that landed with a thud, have highlighted the company’s ongoing struggle to identify today’s Lululemon customer. It’s no longer the metropolitan woman who spends her weekends in Pilates studios blasting Beyoncé and Taylor Swift; she wears Set Active. And it’s not the tech bro looking for stretchy work pants, who now shops at Vuori. Lululemon knows it has a problem. The company plans to increase its marketing budget 15 percent this year. But without defining its buyer, the brand won’t be able to put that money to good use.

Alas, it appears that media coverage of Lululemon’s various corporate crises is hurting consumer sentiment, too. On its earnings call yesterday, interim co-C.E.O. Meghan Frank acknowledged that Lululemon’s long-running proxy war with estranged founder Chip Wilson—the sort of story that rarely breaks out beyond the business press—has affected sales. “We experienced spikes of negative commentary in the media and on social channels with regard to our brand, which had an impact on traffic and overall top-line performance,” she said. Recruiting incoming C.E.O. Heidi O’Neill, a 27-year Nike veteran with a mixed track record in product development, has also raised eyebrows.

Lululemon’s inability to convincingly command its customers' attention is partly what led to losing the proxy battle last week. Wilson promised to back off his caterwauling—at least publicly—in return for two seats on the board for his hand-chosen candidates. He’s also getting access to O’Neill, giving him every opportunity to buzz in her ear behind closed doors.

Meanwhile, Victoria’s Secret seems likely to win its proxy war with Brett Blundy, the Australian billionaire who owns a 13 percent stake and wants longtime board chair Donna James gone. After all, it’s hard to sway board members that major changes are needed when teens are staking out Pink stores at 1 a.m.—and when your valuation has doubled in the past year.

A few weeks ago, Marc Jacobs was front of mind when LVMH announced the sale of his namesake label to licensing firm WHP Global. It was a watershed moment for fashion observers of a certain vintage. This week, Charli XCX—uncontested holder of the championship belt in attention getting during the brat summer of 2024—debuted the album art for her proper follow-up, Music, Fashion, Film. Shot by Aidan Zamiri, the cover is a group portrait of god-tier figures from each medium: John Cale, Martin Scorsese, and Jacobs. Maybe Jacobs, one of fashion’s true kings of spectacle, will kick off this next phase of his career with some Charli merch.

As we saw with the social media backlash after Everlane sold to Shein, consumers get especially prickly when they feel a brand is playing against type. That’s what happened this week when it emerged that Patagonia, the outdoor brand known for its climate activism, had sued drag performer and climate activist Pattie Gonia in a trademark dispute, seeking to prevent her from selling merch with her name on it. Gonia, who’s been performing under the moniker for eight years, broadcast her side of the story on Instagram last week, and Patagonia followed suit on Monday. Is anyone actually confusing the company’s $200 lightweight jackets for Pattie Gonia’s screen-printed tees?

It’s all completely silly, of course, even as the dustup highlights the precarious power of brands—and why media sentiment is priceless. For what it’s worth, both parties are getting dragged online.