Hi, and welcome back to Line Sheet. It’s panettone season. Send me your reviews of the European fashion houses’ favorite holiday gift and I will potentially publish a ranking next week. (That said, we all know the best gift is Dries Van Noten’s giant Belgian chocolate bar.)

In today’s issue, you’ll find Sarah “SShapiro@puck.news” Shapiro’s assessment of Nike C.E.O. Elliott Hill’s first 12 months in the job. (Can you believe it’s been a year?) Up top, we’ve got an incremental Saks Global update and a note on Hermès’s resale value in 2025. Plus, some thoughts on the mainstream comeback of the double-breasted suit.

Mentioned in this issue: Elliott Hill, Nike, Hoka, Simeon Siegel, John Donahoe, Venkatesh Alagirisamy, Caitlin Clark, Tyler, the Creator, NikeSkims, Saks Global, Marc Metrick, Mark Guiducci, Vanity Fair, Anthony Vaccarello, Saint Laurent, Hermès, and many more…

Three Things You Should Know…

We’re taking this day by day: Yesterday, Saks Global C.E.O. Marc Metrick canceled his in-person breakfast with the corporate team in Dallas. Some blamed the weather back in New York, others entertained more sinister thoughts regarding the big brands holding back on shipments, and that interest bill that’s due at the end of the month. I asked a rep for Saks Global why Metrick wasn’t able to make the meeting, but did not receive a response.
The return of the double-breasted suit (for normies): I will let someone else analyze Mark Guiducci’s recap of Vanity Fair’s big day at the White House—Dylan Byers, maybe? But I did want to note that the magazine’s global head of editorial content (the title! still funny) recounted Marco Rubio’s commentary about his double-breasted, peak lapel suit in his editor’s letter. I love that Mark wears this type of suit, it feels very Patrick Bateman. (American Psycho, if nothing else, is a book about fashion.) But I also think it’s worth noting that double-breasted suits are back for normal guys, too.

This is a classic case of a trickle-down effect you don’t see much of in these continuous-feedback-loop times: Anthony Vaccarello showed them on a Saint Laurent men’s runway a few years ago, and now they’re infiltrating standard-issue collections. Sure, some men may never get the courage to attempt the double-breasted look, and many shouldn’t, but it’s definitely going to once again become normal. You can even buy a double-breasted version of J.Crew’s Ludlow—the suit every middle-aged man in America owns.

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Sarah Shapiro

Hermès resale isn’t horsing around: Interest in used Hermès handbags is skyrocketing, according to Rebag’s Comprehensive Luxury Appraisal Index for Resale (CLAIR) report. Bernstein calculated that the average Hermès bag now sells for around 38 percent more secondhand than it does at the company’s boutiques. And according to the CLAIR report, as Hermès raised average retail prices on its Birkin handbag by 43 percent over the past decade, the bag’s resale value increased by 92 percent. Other highlights include the Kelly Mini, whose resale value jumped to 282 percent of the purchase price, and the Birkin Sellier, which resells for almost twice its retail price.

Of course, the Birkin, Kelly, Pochette, Danse, and Constance bags are difficult to purchase directly from Hermès, which creates an optimal environment for resellers. This scarcity also reinforces the investment value of these items in the first place. (As our partner Bill Cohan likes to say, this is not investment advice.)

Now, the main event…

Hill Street Blues

A year and change into his second act at Nike, C.E.O. Elliott Hill is trying to maintain the $100 billion sportswear company’s market dominance in the face of some failed stunts, a mid Kardashian collab, and smaller, more agile, high-performance competitors. But Nike is still Nike.

Sarah Shapiro

Much like Disney’s Bob Iger, Nike C.E.O. Elliott Hill inherited a lot of baggage when he boomeranged back into the executive suite last fall. During Hill’s original three-decade stint at the company, which culminated in his tenure as president of the consumer and marketplace business, he enjoyed a cascading series of otherworldly successes in Beaverton—the rise and continued rise of the Jordan brand, the devouring of the running and performance market, a creep into golf, an enviable apparel business, and the sort of cultural ubiquity previously enjoyed by the Holy Roman Empire, Jesus Christ, Apple, and maybe a few other entities. Those were the good times.

Upon his Igerian, almost Michael-Corleone-in-Godfather-Part-III-style return to the company, Hill had his hands full. Nike had lost its hegemony in performance, where Hoka now enjoys $1 billion in sales. And the company suffered from previous C.E.O. John Donahoe’s strategy to limit wholesale distribution and focus on O&O platforms rather than traditional retail partners, among other things. The stock price is down more than 60 percent in the past four years, and around 17 percent since his arrival. A much ballyhooed partnership with Skims—even if most of the ballyhooing was on the Skims side—hasn’t created marketplace excitement. And the vibes within Nike’s famously love-’em-up culture haven’t been great, either. In a recent in-house interview for the company website, Hill assessed the company as operating at a “6 out of 10.”

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Hill’s mandate has been clear: Fix the product innovation pipeline, clean up the opening-price-point inventory, improve employee morale, and rebuild relationships with specialty sellers as Nike revamps its wholesale operations. Hill has been reorganizing the C-suite to better align with that focus, jettisoning the chief commercial officer and chief technology officer roles, and moving Venkatesh Alagirisamy, who had previously been chief supply chain officer, to C.O.O.

On Thursday, as Nike announces its latest earnings, Hill will be questioned about his ongoing turnaround plan. The company will highlight wins, and there are plenty of them—returning to wholesale partnerships, marketing alignment, and leadership transformation. For what it’s worth, I’ve noticed large displays of Nike in my channel checks. There’s been talk of the Cortez as the next big retro lifestyle sneaker, and there is already a ton of excitement about the new Zoom Vomero. As Guggenheim managing director Simeon Siegel told me recently, Nike needs to “make products that people want, focus on storytelling for marketing, and get it into shoppers’ hands.” Easy, right? (A rep for Nike did not respond to a request for comment on this story.)

Faith Issues

Obviously, Nike’s dominance in this space is singular—as Siegel told me, the company is still winning even when it’s losing. It’s still the world’s preeminent sportswear brand, with a $100 billion market cap, despite the strategic challenges and the growth of a new generation of competing brands in China. But unlike shoes, which take at least two years from conception to production, marketing can be overhauled in a matter of months. And yet some recent storytelling there has fallen flat. To wit: the company’s campaign around Faith Kipyegon’s attempt to break the four-minute mile exemplified what a former Nike exec explained to me as its “rinse and repeat” approach to marketing of late—recycling what worked before, albeit in a very new social age. It’s a narrow example, admittedly, but a telling one.

Nike’s women’s problem extends beyond the shoes. Earlier this year, the company launched Nike After Dark, a nighttime running series marketed as a way for female runners to feel safe—but men were allowed to participate, stepping on the message and generating bad press. And performance merchants I’ve spoken to say NikeSkims is perceived as a “body-obsessed” business opportunity rather than a genuine innovation for female athletes.

Nicole Graham, a former Nike V.P. in direct brand marketing, returned to the company last year as chief marketing officer after leaving in 2021 to start her own agency. Graham worked with Wieden+Kennedy to juice the “Just Do It” campaign for a new generation, narrated by Tyler, the Creator and featuring a mix of athletes like Tara Davis-Woodhall and Hunter Woodhall. Hill has been focused on the networking, putting on a charm offensive with star athletes, league commissioners, and retail C.E.O.s.

There is some good news on the horizon, though. Nike scooped up basketball phenom Caitlin Clark in an eight-year, $28 million deal when her N.I.L. deal at the University of Iowa expired and she was going pro. This year, despite an injury, the Nike Kobe Protro 5 and 6 in her colorways immediately sold out and are going for around $400 resale. Caitlin’s own branded shoe, most likely bearing her interlocking Cs logo that Nike debuted in August, is expected next year.

What We’re Reading… and Looking At…

Steven Smith, the designer behind several hit Yeezy sneakers, has been working at Crocs for a year. Do we want a Crocs sneaker? [N.Y. Times]

YSE Beauty, Molly Sims’ skincare brand, just closed a $15 million Series A, led by Silas Capital. The cash will be used to fuel expansion in Sephora, international growth into Canada, and a TikTok Shop. [WWD]

I love a well-done fashion catalog/catalogue. [Financial Times]

Mickey Rapkin interviewed Jens Grede and asked him whether he thinks Nike will buy Skims. [Forbes]

Another great gift guide: Pretty scissors really do the job, according to Becky Malinsky, and I agree. [5 Things You Should Buy]

Kering sold a majority stake in one of its New York properties—715-717 Fifth Avenue—to frequent partner Ardian, raising $690 million in cash along the way. [Reuters]

Kaitlin Phillips has done some of her best work with this guide to sourcing slips inspired by Saint Laurent’s Resort 2026 collection. [Gift Guide]

The Stella Blackmon–directed Jacquemus commercial is cute. [Instagram]

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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