Jun 1, 2026

Hi, and welcome to Line Sheet. I’m back in Los Angeles to see the Hermès and Zegna shows, and take a spin in my Volvo. I hope to run into you—if not over the next few days, then when I return later in the summer.

Today, we’re all over the figurative map: I’ve got the latest on a shake-up at Old Navy, Rachel Strugatz reveals how a jettisoned Puig-Kering strategic deal could have transformed the beauty and fashion industries, and I’m also sharing some behind-the-scenes intel on Dua Lipa and Callum Turner’s wedding looks. For the main event, I’m initiating coverage on the business of being Pharrell, who is now three-plus years into his tenure leading menswear at Louis Vuitton, with a bit of a scoop on some interesting investments he’s made.

Tomorrow on Fashion People, my guest is the one-and-only Becky Malinsky. We’re covering the rise of Quince, skirt suits, why everybody loves copying us (just kidding, we rise above), and more. Listen here and here.

Also mentioned in this issue: Zac Posen, Penni Thow, Lewis Hamilton, Karlie Kloss, Pietro Beccari, Gap Studio, Will Welch, Derek Yarbrough, small civil ceremonies, Grace Wales Bonner, Damien Bertrand, Nadège Vanhee, Pont Neuf, Alex Kamnitsis, Marc Puig, Michael Francis, Richard Dickson, Bianca Jagger, and more.

Three Things You Should Know…

Is Zac Posen old news at Old Navy?: Old Navy, Gap Inc.’s largest brand, is not faring as well as the group’s namesake in the current market. On last week’s earnings call, group C.E.O. Richard Dickson fully owned the sluggish sales… and sorta deflected the blame on the team. “It’s not a consumer issue,” he said. “We’re winning with all income cohorts across low, middle, and high. When you have the right product at the right price-value equation, customers are there, and our seasonal categories just got off to a weaker start.”

In order to fix things, Dickson just hired Michael Francis, an ex-Target exec, as Old Navy’s chief customer officer—meaning that Derek Yarbrough, the interim C.M.O., now reports to him. Zac Posen, the chief creative officer, still reports to Old Navy C.E.O. Haio Barbeito and Dickson himself. Confusing! The speculation is that Yarbrough and Posen haven’t always seen eye to eye on the creative, and going forward, Posen (who serves as a consultant to Dickson across the group) will now have less to do with the advertising and marketing campaigns. (A source close to the company said that he will remain “highly involved,” although that’s up for interpretation.) For what it’s worth, Posen’s V.P. of creative, Alex Kamnitsis—who technically reported to Yarbrough—is leaving.

Does this mean Posen will focus his efforts on Gap Studio? (He also remains creative director of Gap Inc.) Besides the successful dress capsule he didn’t take credit for publicly, my understanding is that Posen’s remit at Old Navy was limited to image, from the campaigns down to the visual merchandising. The design was left to the design team. A rep for the company declined to comment.

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What you don’t already know about the Dua Lipa–Callum Turner City Hall wedding outfits: Sometimes, I’m downright shocked that people still choose to have big weddings, but then I remember that I’m old and venturing into a stage of life where my friends are getting remarried. And yet, tiny, City Hall–style weddings are certainly in fashion—and so are wedding suits for women. Dua Lipa, who married Callum Turner at a civil ceremony in London over the weekend, was undoubtedly inspired by Bianca Jagger, with her wide-brimmed hat and curvy set. I thought it was telling, though, that she chose to wear Schiaparelli instead of Dior or Chanel, where she is a campaign star.

There may be an explanation for this. Lipa—yes, that’s actually her surname—has been wearing Daniel Roseberry’s designs for years, skirt suits are trending, and this is simply the case of someone wanting to wear something they’d be absolutely comfortable in on their wedding day. (The Stephen Jones hat was the most British choice.) It’s a big win for Schiaparelli, which currently has that big show at the V&A. Kudos, also, to Ferragamo, which dressed Turner. (Lipa is close with newly appointed chief brand officer Yigit Turhan, so it wasn’t just luck on that front.) But still, these are two of the most famous people on the planet, and the fact their wardrobe choices were so personal makes me think they have a fighting chance at making it all the way.

Rachel Strugatz

What a Puig-Kering deal could have looked like: At Puig’s annual meeting last week, Marc Puig, the Spanish conglomerate’s executive chairman, confirmed what beauty insiders have known for months: Before nearly merging with The Estée Lauder Companies, he was in talks with Kering to take over the licenses for its beauty lines, including Balenciaga, Bottega Veneta, and probably Gucci once its current license with Coty expired in 2028. Of course, this never came to fruition.

Instead, L’Oréal swooped in and consummated one of the most significant beauty transactions in recent history. The company paid almost $5 billion for Kering’s House of Creed and the 50-year beauty licenses for those very brands. “Puig was long on the deal, and they lost Kering because L’Oréal over-bet, as they always do,” a high-level source told me back in March.

Kering’s beauty portfolio could have been a great fit for Puig. Despite moving away from the licensing business, it’s still very strong in designer fragrance and could have really leveraged Balenciaga and Bottega. It would have been even better if Creed were part of the deal, although it’s unclear whether that would have happened since Kering owns the brand outright.

And now, some Pharrell news…

Kiss & Pharrell

The restless creative director is everywhere: opening hotels, shilling champagne, even investing in Quince—exactly the sort of dynamism that made LVMH want to work with him. But where does Louis Vuitton fit into his grand plan?

Lauren Sherman

It feels like a week doesn’t pass without Pharrell Williams announcing a brand partnership of some kind. On Monday morning, for instance, the pop culture centrist launched a limited-edition Moët & Chandon bottle riffing on the popular French demi-cocktail La Piscine—or wine on ice—with a campaign shot in Saint-Tropez, where he opened a restaurant a couple of years ago. Sure, he’s the artistic director for Louis Vuitton menswear, but he’s collaborated with other LVMH houses for years, and the WWD article promoting the launch made it clear that the “Moët & Chandon Ice Impérial” has nothing to do with the world’s most famous monogram.

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Indeed, Louis Vuitton hired Williams three years ago for his dynamism; as one of the last vestiges of monoculture, he has the latitude to pursue diverse projects with both credibility and authority. He and his team work from the Louis Vuitton offices in Paris on Pont Neuf, developing every bit of his business, from a skincare line to a new hotel project in the city. But he’s global, too, with projects in Japan and Los Angeles—and, more recently, San Francisco. He’s an investor in everything from Quince to Nami Nori, the handroll chain.

The Quince investment, which was never announced because his stake is relatively small, became such a thing that rumors recently swirled that he was going to be named artistic director of the online discounter—farfetched speculation, in the end. He may feel obliged to answer calls from the Quince people every once in a while, but Williams is a creative director for the biggest luxury brand in the world: Designing the market’s largest luxury disruptor wouldn’t pass the smell test. Though I can see a universe where Williams appears in advertising for Quince or something of that sort. He clearly thrives on ubiquity.

Anyway, the Quince chatter underscored that while his Louis Vuitton obligation is time-consuming, it’s actually just one sliver of his expansive, and expanding, universe. Along with the hotel project and various real estate consulting gigs, he also has Humanrace, the nothingburger skincare line that is being reorganized after C.E.O. Andrea Grilli’s exit late last year, and plenty of other projects we don’t even know (or think) about. And yes, he’s still making music. Jeez, he produced the whole Clipse album from Paris last year.

…And the Holding Co.

To run his expanding operations, Williams has begun building out a holding company, the name of which still has not been shared publicly. (Have they decided?) He enlisted Penni Thow, once the manager of everyone from Lewis Hamilton to Karlie Kloss, as the top exec. Like many manager types, I’m told Thow’s greatest asset to Williams is her availability; she always shows up when he needs her in a business where unrivaled loyalty is a K.P.I. Williams also famously recruited Will Welch, the former editor of GQ, who joined his team in March and is supporting the principal strategically while the pieces come together. The new outfit is modeled, at least in part, after a structure deployed by many top designers, who employ key members of their team through an outside entity. But Pharrell is different—and the Louis Vuitton offices are ground zero for it all.

Perhaps that won’t always be the case. Williams’s tenure at Vuitton has been reasonably well received, and LVMH is nothing if not dogged about making businesses work with its top stars. But industry insiders started poking holes in the logic behind the appointment pretty early on. In the beginning, the idea that a pop culture icon would lead a pop culture pillar made sense. But the reality of Louis Vuitton is that its name is bigger than any one person, and what is perhaps needed going forward is interesting design that creates desire among a very particular group of people who will tip off the broader audience—see, e.g., what Vuitton had with Virgil Abloh, or what Hermès has with Nadège Vanhee on the women’s side, and hopes to have with Grace Wales Bonner (who was once rumored to be in the running for the LV menswear gig) on the men’s side.

Of course, Matthieu Blazy and Chanel are what brands like Louis Vuitton are comparing themselves against. For Vuitton, though, it’s all about accessories; consumers loving the apparel (as they did during Abloh’s tenure) is a bonus. In the early days of Williams’s appointment, he nailed the product: The first bags, rendered in green, yellow, red, and blue, and employing the signature monogram and Damier, popped in just the right way. Since then, his spectacle-first collections, frankly, aren’t often part of the conversation among fashion enthusiasts. It’s not that they are actively bad, but they’re just not memorable. I’m told that’s not lost on Williams’s team or LVMH, and they are all working toward a solution.

None of that is to say that Williams is on his way out. There are so many moving parts at Louis Vuitton, where C.E.O. Pietro Beccari is pulling double duty while also running the fashion group, and his deputy Damien Bertrand is preparing to assume the leading role. Ultimately, Williams doesn’t need Louis Vuitton as a platform; how much does Louis Vuitton need him? In the end, there’s almost no one big enough to fulfill the promise of the role he resides in, which is partly why he has the job. Right now it’s mostly retail theater that’s working (the ship in Shanghai is a hit!), but it’s not going to be easy to find the next designer—or designers. I assume everyone knows that, and Williams might be strategic enough to make it work for everyone.

What We’re Reading…

Zara just revealed collaborations with Marisa Berenson and Caramel, the kidswear brand. Is Zara the most interesting apparel company on the planet? Forget about Quince, they are the ones who are really disrupting luxury! [Elle Decor and Fashion Network]

The cover of Charli XCX’s new album features John Cale, Marc Jacobs, and Martin Scorsese. I’m currently on an airplane and am very emotional. [The Fader]

Love to see a Darrell Hartman byline! [Interview]

The Cutting Room Floor has entered a multiyear deal with Patreon. [Fast Company]

Matt Schneier really dragged Marcel, and yet it made me want to go even more! [New York]

Patagonia says it will drop its lawsuit against drag performer Pattie Gonia if she agrees to withdraw her trademark application and stop selling merch under the moniker—an essential income source for drag performers. [Instagram]

This breakdown of various wedding budgets featured on Vogue.com is fascinating. [Vogue Weddings]

And finally… The weekend’s real Fashion Person wedding was between Alastair and Carin, who was wearing Marc Jacobs. Congrats to the (truly) happy couple!

Until tomorrow,
Lauren

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