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Hi, and welcome back to Line Sheet. This very special issue, available to Inner Circle members only (trade up
here, friends), is filled with cute scoops and serious analysis. Up top, the latest on the Ssense sitch, The Row’s next New York City spot, and a check in on Sarah Ball’s WSJ. For the main event, a look at Skims’ prospects as they rev up for the launch of the Nike collaboration later this month—and what the lengthy delay of this project suggests about Nike,
too.
I’m trying to pace myself as New York Fashion Week finally gets going. Tonight, though, I will potentially be drinking an espresso martini at our private dinner with Starbucks. (When in Rome? Or in this case, Chateau Royale in the West Village.) Excited to see many Inner Circle members this evening—including some Dr. Levine clients,
perhaps—and maybe even catalyze a few deals.
Programming note: Tomorrow on Fashion People, my guest is Libby Wadle, C.E.O. of the J.Crew Group. We recorded the episode from the brand’s takeover of the Germania Bank Building, on Bowery, which people can visit today and tomorrow. (“A magazine come to life,” is how Libby described the space, designed in collaboration with Something Special Studios.) We discuss Libby’s path from shopgirl to C.E.O. of the
group that owns J.Crew and Madewell, her method for working with creative people, the challenges of running a retail business in 2025, and why she thinks the culture is breeding so many cable-knit sweaters on the runway. Listen here and here.
Mentioned
in this issue: Kim Kardashian, Nike, Skims, Michael Jordan, Yeezy, Natalie Massenet, Erik Torstensson, Imaginary Ventures, The Row, Sarah Ball, Willow Lindley, Matteo Mobilio, Ssense, and many, many more… |
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Three Things You
Should Know…
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The Ssense waiting game: There’s been tremendous speculation about what will happen with Ssense, which filed for the equivalent of bankruptcy protection last week in Canada amid financial challenges connected to tariffs and the slowdown in luxury spending. In short, Ssense’s creditors filed a request to place the Montreal-based Gen Z whisperer under the Companies’ Creditors Arrangement Act (CCAA), which would result in a sale of the business. Ssense hit back, filing its own request, and
was granted a “stay of proceedings” a few days ago—meaning that it has a short amount of time to figure out how to restructure without selling or liquidating.
Right now, there’s hope that Ssense will come to an agreement with their creditors, receive a new cash injection, and essentially start over with brands. (The company hired Greenhill to manage the restructuring.) For now, it’s thought that the board and leadership will remain the same, although that could change. But the way that
the company does business in the U.S. will change, particularly given the removal of the $800 de minimis exemption, which has everyone in a tizzy. (Even Susan Orlean is writing about it.) Almost 60 percent of the company’s business is conducted in the U.S.
Of course, this is all
speculation until the filing is approved by the courts, which could be as early as tomorrow. Now, we wait. - Downtown girls: I’ve lamented for a while that The Row had yet to open a store in downtown Manhattan. As much as I understand that uptown is the new downtown, I still spend most of my time in the city south of Houston Street, and it would be nice to have an outpost of The Row to pop into. The challenge is that the founders are incredibly
particular about retail real estate—they don’t just care about foot traffic and square-footage R.O.I.; they’re after architecturally significant buildings, too.
Finally, it looks like my wish is coming true. According to multiple people familiar with the matter, the company will take over the Issey Miyake space at 119 Hudson Street early next year. We’ll see whether The Row’s team preserves the space’s Frank Gehry–designed interiors, including its signature titanium
ceiling. But the landmark building, an old warehouse built for a textile factory at the end of the 19th century, certainly fits many of their criteria. Reps for both companies did not comment. - WSJ’s fall fashion makeover: Yesterday morning at the Whitby Hotel, Dow Jones global chief revenue officer Josh Stinchcomb moderated a panel featuring his head of luxury lifestyle advertising Tracey Baldwin, Wall Street
Journal editor-in-chief Emma Tucker, and WSJ. magazine top editor Sarah Ball to essentially walk advertisers through the fall fashion issue. They also invited selected members of the media, including yours truly, although the conversation was off the record. It was a savvy move; T magazine isn’t thinking this way. Tucker clearly made a point of being there to reinforce her confidence in Ball—and, of course, own her original decision to
appoint her in the first place.
The panel also effectively commemorated the first issue conceived by Ball’s new team after a significant number of masthead changes earlier this year, including the recruitment of Willow Lindley from Vogue as style director and Matteo Mobilio from Highsnobiety as head of creative, plus the promotion of Katie Field to design director. Along with the exit of multiple senior staffers, a lot of
longstanding freelance contracts have ended, and I know there’s been some growing pains given such drastic changes. But whatever you thought of Ball’s Sydney Sweeney cover, there’s no denying that she was the right star at the right time, and that Mobilio is a unique talent. More TK, as they say?
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It would take years of psychoanalysis to determine why Natalie Massenet took the lawsuit
route in her breakup with business and life partner Erik Torstensson. In the meantime, everyone is paying attention to their other baby: Skims… |
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Everyone is sitting on their hands waiting for The New York Times to publish a feature on
Net-a-Porter founder Natalie Massenet’s suit against Erik Torstensson. Both parties are “praying it’s old news,” according to one person in the loop with them. (Neither responded to my request for comment.) Of course, it’s not old news to the majority of Times readers, and whenever the story arrives—I was told today or tomorrow, but who knows given the way things work over there—it’s bound to keep people talking about this scandalette
for at least the rest of New York Fashion Week. Many are hoping the Times piece will help to explain why Massenet took the lawsuit route in the first place—even if getting to the bottom of that, really, could require months of reporting and years of psychoanalysis. |
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Meanwhile, much of the speculation in the fashion investment community has coalesced around the
business impact of the Massenet–Torstensson uncoupling. Massenet appears to have zero interest in stepping away from Imaginary Ventures, the venture capital boutique she co-founded with Nick Brown in 2018. Her personal life has nothing to do with the business, and I’ve been told the firm’s investment partners could give a hoot. (Also, limited partners never care when male investors endure splashy divorces.) But perhaps that could change if the saga evolves. Rather than
settling, which I’m told Torstensson doesn’t want to do, he may file a motion to dismiss that will allow him to tell his side.
But the more consequential impact concerns what this all means for Skims. Both Torstensson and Massenet were part of the first $25 million funding round—him through a personal investment, her via Imaginary. If the Kim Kardashian–co-founded company exits at its current $4 billion valuation or more, Imaginary stands to make a significant return for
its limited partners. Massenet and Brown will benefit too, of course, but not as handsomely as Torstensson. As I’ve reported previously, Torstensson’s stake in Skims is perhaps not as large as the suit suggested—$300 million or more—but certainly transformational.
Skims’ ability to I.P.O., or to find a strategic buyer, at a valuation that sufficiently rewards its investors may hinge, at least in part, on the success of the Skims–Nike partnership, which is finally set to launch
later this month. While there is an argument that Kardashian’s involvement will facilitate a warm public-market entry no matter, the company will also need to show a path forward that includes opening many, many more stores; an international growth plan; and proof of success with this Nike partnership.
Despite Skims delaying its I.P.O. plans, there is hope that the company will be able to exit at as much as $5 billion or $6 billion. When I first broke the news about
NikeSkims, I articulated the optionality of the deal: If all went swimmingly, Skims could become a Jordanesque recurring revenue machine that would seduce Nike into eventually acquiring the company. This wasn’t telepathy: The whole arrangement had an obvious try-before-you-buy configuration. That could still happen, I suppose, but there have been undeniable delays in simply getting
the project off the ground, which was originally slated for early spring. It’s now fall. |
People familiar with the process say that the Nike–Skims timeline has simply been extended by
production delays—that’s it, really—and that there is zero reason for this information to be public. After all, when the deal was announced, Nike was in the early days of a C.E.O. transition and massive reorganization that is ongoing. (Hence the layoffs just a couple of weeks ago.) Plus, there is so much going on with the tariffs. Skims, for its part, is still a young company unaccustomed to collaborating on product development at this level. When it comes to shoes, for instance, I’m
told that Skims brought in several ex-Yeezy people to consult. But there are limitations to what Nike can create, especially in a fairly short turnaround time. My sense is that the Skims team has given the Nike team more feedback than most partners. They are exacting and, I am told, they mostly got their way. |
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While I know there are people at Nike who don’t love this deal, viewing it as a distraction, others feel this
is just a matter of employees expressing frustration. (People don’t like change, and at the very senior level, there is an incredible desire for this to work and be awesome on both sides.) On some level, it’s not all that dissimilar to what happened with Michael Jordan, in 1984, when Nike somewhat desperately bet on an untested rookie to break into the new basketball sneaker market that Converse all but owned. Of course, that was a very different Nike and a very
different time, and an almost certainly too-good-to-be-true outcome: The company generated $100 million in its first year, blowing past its goal of $3 million, eventually making Jordan a billionaire and transforming its business. I’m not sure if NikeSkims is as big of a swing, but it can still make a lot of people a lot of money. |
What I’m Reading…
and Listening to…
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You must hear this Calvin Klein podcast with Nicole Phelps if only to hear
him discuss Ralph Lauren’s personal style versus his own. (They knew each other when they were kids, too. Calvin was “dressing like James Dean”; Ralph, on the other hand, “dressed funny.”) Have Ralph on next! [The Run-Through]
The GQ cover is so discomfiting, I love it. Ambition is good, people!
[GQ]
Greta Lee’s Dior contract has been announced. [WWD] |
Until tomorrow,
Lauren
P.S.: We use affiliate links because we are a business. We may make
a couple bucks off them. |
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