Dec 2, 2025

Hi, and welcome back to Line Sheet. By the time you read this, Matthieu Blazy will have shown his first Chanel Métiers d’Arts collection. Everyone is excited. (Guests at the first show were asked not to post images to social media until the second show, which will take place tonight around 7 p.m. in New York.) You’ll find my dispatch in tomorrow’s issue.

Today, Sarah “SShapiro@puck.news” Shapiro is here with a tale of an American mall that’s incredibly important to Chanel, and all of luxury, really: Orange County’s South Coast Plaza. Sarah explains why it’s so darn productive, and what the owners, the private Segerstrom family, have done right compared to their competitors. Up top, more LVMH news, a quick analysis of the Prada-Versace consummation, and two fun bits out of San Francisco. Sarah offers some real talk on the so-called Gapaissance, and whether the latest lawsuit against Quince will herald its downfall or simply underscore its omnipotence.

Mentioned in this issue: Jessica McCormack, Chanel, Hermès, Cartier, Skims, the Segerstrom family, Pietro Beccari, Sidney Toledano, LVMH, Damien Bertrand, Louis Vuitton, Prada, Versace, Andrea Guerra, Gap, Richard Dickson, Quince, Williams-Sonoma, and many more…

Four Things You Should Know…

Pietro in place: Hours after I published my report about the speculation around Pietro Beccari’s next move within LVMH, it was announced that the Louis Vuitton C.E.O. would take on an additional role running the Fashion Group, which includes Givenchy, Celine, Fendi, and Loewe. Sidney Toledano is finally retiring, years after it was expected.

I doubt this arrangement will last very long. Damien Bertrand, Louis Vuitton’s deputy C.E.O., was name-checked in the Beccari release, saying he’d be taking on additional responsibilities and named to the executive committee. At Loro Piana, Bertrand reported directly to Bernard Arnault, and he is viewed as one of a handful of next-generation executives within the organization who will play a major role in the future. I suspect he’ll assume the top job within a year.

Meanwhile, executives inside the company are relieved that there is some resolution. Even if Louis Vuitton is a beast, people generally like working for Beccari: He’s an effective leader. But the dual appointment diminishes the importance of the role, at least publicly. How can you run a business that generates more than $20 billion in annual sales and develop a diverse portfolio of the company’s other major, if far smaller brands? Loewe C.E.O. Pascale Lepoivre and Celine C.E.O. Séverine Merle don’t need hand-holding, and yet neither was promoted to run the group.

Toledano’s temporary reign, for what it’s worth, also caused a number of defections and wasn’t great for morale. The most recent announcement that Loewe C.M.O. Charlie Smith exited the group to join consumer electronics startup Nothing has definitely bummed people out. (That said, it seemed that Smith wanted to leave fashion no matter what: He was set to join a rival brand earlier this year and backed out of it.)

Anyway, more change is likely in store. As for Beccari, I was still receiving notes this morning that he has his sights on a permanent return to Italy within the next couple of years. Although another person suggested that this relocation could simply be about taxes, which just went up again in France. More soon…

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The Prada-Versace afterglow, or aftermath?: As I previewed last week, the Prada Group has finally completed its acquisition of Versace. In a note to staff, the company focused on creating opportunities for “sustainable” growth, which you could decode as: We want to do this carefully, and not screw it up.

So how, pray tell, will group C.E.O. Andrea Guerra integrate Versace into the larger entity sustainably? Given the protracted close, Guerra has had plenty of time to evaluate the business, including one selling season with new designer Dario Vitale. Along with managing out the typical redundancies and synergies, there will also undoubtedly be changes to the supply chain and retail strategy, etcetera. (How many Versace stores will close to make room for more Miu Mius?) On the design side, those decisions have almost certainly been rendered, but it may take a year to shake out. I will keep you updated.

Sarah Shapiro

A gap in the Gapaissance?: Richard Dickson has been talking up Gap’s comeback story, but not so fast: The Gap brand’s comp sales are up 7 percent year over year for Q3, but Hollister’s jumped 15 percent during the same period. Meanwhile, Aritzia soared 34 percent in the window and Urban Outfitters was up 33 percent. Gap is good, but it’s not quite crushing it.

Looking at Black Friday in-store data, Gap’s foot traffic rose 12.5 percent year over year, according to Placer.ai, swamping Lululemon’s 1.5 percent gain. Bringing shoppers into the store still matters, but it will be interesting to see whether the foot traffic actually converts to sales in Q4.
Fashion’s court jester: Is there a brand that can sue Quince (a.k.a. Last Brand Inc.) for its brazen dupe business model and win? Several brands have tried. In October, for instance, Quince fended off Deckers after a judge ruled that Ugg’s Classic Ultra Mini and Tasman boots were too generic for Quince’s dupes to qualify as trade infringement. Now Williams-Sonoma wants a turn at the plate, on behalf of its Pottery Barn subsidiary, claiming false advertising.

Williams-Sonoma has argued that Quince is running promotions for its rugs, which it advertises as “like Pottery Barn rugs, but half the price.” And yet, according to Williams-Sonoma, Pottery Barn has never sold rugs resembling the ones that Quince is selling. (Williams-Sonoma declined to comment, and Quince replied, in part, “We respectfully disagree with Williams-Sonoma’s lawsuit.”) I asked Puck legal correspondent Eriq Gardner whether Williams-Sonoma’s argument might stand up better than a traditional copyright claim. Eriq was doubtful, noting that false advertising claims are hard to win, partly because brands have significant First Amendment protection when comparing quality with established brands. But Eriq pointed out that Williams-Sonoma had hired Orrick, the brawny legal firm that often represents Big Tech—so this one won’t go quietly. Indeed, many brands will be watching to see how this plays out for Quince.

Now, the main event…

Republicans Buy Sneakers (& Fine Jewelry) Too

Amid roiling uncertainty in retail, SoCal’s South Coast Plaza has maintained a surprisingly resilient relevance with retailers and shoppers. It generates about $2.6 billion a year, too.

Sarah Shapiro

How did London’s most ascendant jeweler end up in an Orange County mall? Rather than following up her American debut on Madison Avenue this past May with a location in Los Angeles or Dallas, Jessica McCormack chose the O.C.—specifically, South Coast Plaza mall, 38 miles south of L.A., and seemingly a world away from her plush New York and London boutiques. LVMH, Chanel, Hermès, and Cartier are all here, too, along with mall regulars Nordstrom, Saks, Macy’s, Bloomingdale’s, an Apple Store, Abercrombie & Fitch, etcetera. New tenants this year include the only West Coast location of Manolo Blahnik, plus Khaite, Skims, Bottega Veneta, Moncler, and Zara Man’s lone U.S. outpost. And Tiffany’s is adding a Blue Box Café—its first outside the New York flagship, Harrods in London, Hong Kong, and Tokyo.

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South Coast Plaza generates $2.58 billion annually, according to a source familiar with its finances, which is more than most retail chains. And I’m told that shops at the mall routinely exceed $100 million in annual revenue. (A spokesperson declined to comment.) Its success starts, as it often does, with ownership: The Segerstrom family has held South Coast Plaza since it opened in 1967. During that time, they’ve built the surrounding area into a cultural destination, helping to fund the Segerstrom Center for the Arts, Noguchi Garden, and UC Irvine Langson Orange County Museum of Art.

Then there’s location and population density: South Coast Plaza draws shoppers from both L.A. and San Diego, 90 miles to the south. And you can’t beat a mall for convenience. Parking once and hitting South Coast Plaza’s jewelry-court wing—Chanel, Cartier, Van Cleef & Arpels, Hermès—is a more appealing proposition than driving between Beverly Hills boutiques or roaming the Westfield Century City mall.

It’s worth noting how South Coast Plaza has succeeded where Bal Harbour Shops—once Miami’s luxury shopping destination—has lately struggled. The Whitman family opened the shops in prosperous Bal Harbour in the 1960s, secured Neiman Marcus’s first store outside of Texas as an anchor tenant, and, by the early 2010s, had developed it into one of the world’s most productive shopping centers. But over the past five years or so, Bal Harbour Shops has seen some tenants flee six miles down the road to the Design District for a mix of retail and galleries, or to Aventura Mall—voted the best mall in the U.S. in a recent USA Today poll—which includes Bulgari, Burberry, Louis Vuitton, Hermès, an Eataly, and so on. The culprit is partly geographic bad luck: There are several luxury nodes within 10 miles of Bal Harbour Shops. In contrast, South Coast Plaza is a retail desert 40 miles in any direction, giving the Segerstroms a monopoly on luxury between Los Angeles and San Diego.

From their single location, the Segerstroms have been able to play a long game, offering high-end brands personalized attention the way mega-scale competitors like Westfield and Simon simply can’t. South Coast Plaza has a 20-person in-house marketing team that operates much like a luxury brand agency, offering campaign support to new retailers at no cost. They’ll help create media strategies, maintain visibility on social platforms (including Chinese sites) to generate tourist foot traffic, and pair new stores with local nonprofits.

This model upends the traditional mall economics of lining up a couple anchoring department stores, using their names to secure financing, and then extracting rent from the smaller tenants lining up to cluster around them. While Nordstrom and Saks occupy prime corners at South Coast Plaza, they’re not the gravitational force; instead, South Coast Plaza’s remarkable per-store revenue numbers, combined with a scarcity of available spaces, draw high-end brands that normally wait years debating whether to open a new location. When a Skims or Khaite opens, the value proposition for a shopper makes the trip worth it, with the convenience of having a Saks or Nordstrom on site, just in case.

What We’re Reading… and Looking At…

Lately, I’ve been thinking an inordinate amount about the fact that it feels like T magazine editor Hanya Yanagihara really just does whatever the eff she wants, including devoting a whole issue of what is ostensibly a fashion magazine to Gen X being the greatest generation, hiring prolific X-er Amanda Fortini to write the accompanying piece, and depicting many of the players mentioned as Simpsons characters on an elaborate cover. Honestly, I’m not convinced there’s a there, there, but I am convinced it’s way more interesting than New York’s forced Culturati concept. (I hope they regret that name as much as I regret it for them.) [T mag]

Natalie Massenet was smart to reposition the British Fashion Awards as a global event, back when she was chairperson of the British Fashion Council. (She changed the name to simply The Fashion Awards and started staging it at Royal Albert Hall.) You’ve certainly already read about the winners some place or another, so I’ll give you some commentary instead. I thought it was telling that Anna Wintour was asked to present Delphine Arnault’s award, and that Jonathan Anderson is becoming the Modern Family of these events—he is going to win forever. (Also: Loved extra-light-wash jeans with a velvet tux jacket. Really repping his vision for Dior.)

Also also notable that Grace Wales Bonner was once again recognized as she makes the move to Hermès. I wonder if a way to liven these things up might be to nominate specific collections and play them up rather than designers. And I enjoyed Brunello Cucinelli’s turnout with Sharon Stone in tow. I don’t know, but we need a revolution! [The Fashion Awards]

Former Bergdorf Goodman executive Yumi Shin, whose new role at Nordstrom was announced internally this week, is being sued by Saks Global. [Glitz]

Best dressed at the Gotham Awards: Jennifer Lawrence (who has a new stylist, Ryan Hastings) in Dior; Teyana Taylor in Chanel (amazing, I am obsessed); Rihanna in Balenciaga and A$AP Rocky in Chanel (I love them); Kristen Stewart in Chanel (finally, she looks good); Elle Fanning in Ralph Lauren; Riley Keough in Chanel; Chase Infiniti in Louis Vuitton; Eva Victor in Loewe. Excited for more custom stuff to come as we get into awards season. [Vogue]

Top “trending” products on Black Friday, according to Shopify, included an Alo pullover, Merit’s Flush Balm, Ilia Beauty’s Super Serum Skin Tint, Brooklinen’s Plush Robe, and the Béis Weekender. [LinkedIn]

And finally… It’s important to note that Angelo Moratti, the new Armani board member who owns a thoroughly modern investment firm, used to be married to Roberta Armani, the late designer’s niece, who is also on the board. (They were married for 10 years, from 1997 to 2007.) Keep it in the family, I guess?

Until tomorrow,
Lauren

P.S.: We use 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.

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