Hi, and welcome back to Line Sheet. It’s another busy week in Los Angeles, with lots of lunches and dinners on the back of last Sunday’s Governors Awards… all seemingly taking place at the Chateau Marmont. Temperley London, Tag Heuer, ShopMy, Jonathan Simkhai… and I’m sure I’m missing three or four others. I’m lying low for the most part, but I will attempt to hit up the new Yohji Yamamoto installation at Just One Eye and the Nike x Sacai launch downtown later this afternoon before drinks and dinner with fashion industry friends in West Hollywood. (Everyone lives in L.A. now, if you didn’t know.)

Today we’re tracking both the familiar and the different. Puck legal correspondent Eriq Gardner makes a special Line Sheet cameo to share the tale of a TikTok influencer battle. Plus, I check in on Hearst Tower (layoff season is here) and offer my thoughts on the Marc Jacobs-edited issue of Vogue after reading it from front to back and also studying a few issues from 1999 and 2000 to see how things have changed (for the better and worse). Finally, I’m checking in on our friends at Kering to see what this C.E.O. switcheroo suggests about the state of that group… and what’s next.

🚨🚨 Programming notes: Tomorrow on Fashion People, I’m joined by TikTok’s favorite stylist, Allison Bornstein, to discuss her business, her book (Wear It Well), and the art of getting dressed. She’s great. Listen here and here. I’m also on The Powers That Be tomorrow with Peter Hamby talking about Vanity Fair’s Hollywood issue and Condé Nast’s China problem, the LVMH pseudo-succession wars, and our mutual love of Josh O’Connor. Listen here and here.

🎥🎥 Plus: My Stories of the Season conversation with costume designers Virginie Montel (Emilia Pérez), Janty Yates (Gladiator II), Colleen Atwood (Beetlejuice Beetlejuice), and Jonathan Anderson (Challengers and Queer) is live and ready for you to watch and read. Massive thanks to Polestar for sponsoring the evening’s festivities, yes, but also for chauffeuring me around for almost 12 hours. I felt like a magazine editor in the ’90s!

🛍️ 🐰And one more thing: If you, too, are wondering about the provenance of the fabulous half-zip that Jonathan wore onstage at Stories of the Season, it’s from Loewe’s truly clever collection with the artists Suna Fujita, which I’m declaring the ultimate holiday gift guide bait. I would like to direct you to the beaded-leather Flamenco, the bunny beanie, and the checked jumper, but don’t forget to stuff your stockings with the ornament.

Mentioned in this issue: Sabato De Sarno, Kering, Alessandro Michele, Jonathan Anderson, Gucci, Kate Spade, TikTokers fighting over ruched minis and white cowboy boots, Maria Grazia Chiuri, Saint Laurent, Anthony Vaccarello, François-Henri Pinault, Stefano Cantino, Chanel, Matthieu Blazy, and much more…

• Can an aesthetic be copyrighted?: You may want to check out this court decision out of Austin last week. The case was brought by TikToker Sydney Nicole Gifford, who claims that rival Alyssa Sheil cloned her brand identity, not just by mirroring her fashion sense with eerily similar outfits, but also by curating near-identical Amazon product lists. [Lauren note: I’d never heard of these two and their penchant for white cowboy boots, but Gifford is popular enough to have warranted a baby announcement in People.]

• Typically, influencers are in the business of influencing, but here, Gifford contends that Sheil crossed the line into infringement. Now, to the shock of intellectual property lawyers, a magistrate judge has agreed that Gifford’s case should move forward. Predictably, I.P. lawyers are buzzing about this first-of-its-kind ruling. While the legal battle is far from over, the case edges us closer to a world where imitating someone else’s style might be illegal. —Eriq Gardner

• It wasn’t an easy year for Hearst, either: Unlike Condé Nast, which sheds employees on a fairly regular basis to help hit revenue goals, Hearst’s magazine publishing arm is already run so conservatively that layoffs are typically a very last resort. I don’t remember the last time I wrote about a round over there. Maybe two summers ago? (Yes, July 2023.) Anyway, this morning, everyone was informed that a company-wide restructuring is underway, with both editorial and commercial teams affected. No word yet on how many layoffs there will be in total, or how long they’ll take to carry out, but this is definitely bigger than the 2023 round, and probably one of the bigger rounds in recent Hearst history. It will include, I’m told, consolidation in editorial operations roles, like managing editors and copy editors.

  The macro challenges are real: Luxury advertisers have pared back their budgets even further this year, digital media subscriptions are stagnating (especially at legacy publishers like Hearst, where they’re not breaking news and they’re not allowed to show any personality), and the costs of doing business are rising. Hearst already instituted some layoffs this summer, including “dozens” of people from the streaming service Very Local. The cuts are difficult, a sign of the times, and not great for morale. In a Zoom on Thursday afternoon, Hearst Magazines president Debi Chirichella told staffers that the name of the game was focus: What the company is focusing on is working, and they just need to hone further. Want me to go further on this? You gotta reply to this email or call me. +1 646-241-3902.

• Two Vogues, 25 years apart: I was excited to get my hands on the December 2024 issue of Vogue, edited by Marc Jacobs. I buy print magazines all the time, but I only subscribe to a handful (New York, The New Yorker, Garden & Gun, and a few indie fashion titles). Serendipitously, the Marc issue showed up outside my sliding doors just days before my husband hauled a pile of old American Vogues home from his mother’s house in Chicago. (When my husband and I started dating, he told me he knew nothing about fashion. A few months later, I met my future mother-in-law, a collector of 1980s Sonia Rykiel. Her magazine archive is, um, extensive. You can’t escape your fate.)

  I was able to juxtapose two issues, published almost exactly 25 years apart (November 1999 and December 2024). Trudging through November 1999 was a fun reminder of an era when a monthly magazine could still feel newsy. Vogue never did those calendar pages—which always felt instantly outdated, anyway—but I enjoyed (current W magazine executive editor) Armand Limnander’s 1999 dispatch on resort shoes and bags, edited by Michelle Kessler. The society pages were a physical version of Instagram Stories, featuring party shots of Mandy Moore wearing Daryl K and Phoebe Philo in Chloé and a fake tan.

  Those old issues were about fashion, not luxury. Back then, most people, even the wealthy, did not buy designer handbags or clothing, a reality reflected in the magazine’s advertising and content. Yes, there were Tiffany, Louis Vuitton, and Coach ads, but also cheesy classifieds and creative for Winston cigarettes and Jockey bras. This complexion would change in the coming years after Tom Florio took over as publisher from Richard “Mad Dog” Beckman and LVMH and Kering began rapidly consolidating and concentrating their media-buying power.

  In the December 2024 issue, aside from a stray page featuring a jumble of as-seen-on-TV-type products—including a “top device for thinning hair” and a canned Cosmopolitan infused with hemp-derived THC—the only advertisements left are luxury or fragrance. (Dooney & Bourke and Olay were the only mass-market sponsors I counted.) Obviously, Google and Meta offer more efficient and targeted marketing for C.P.G. brands—or any business trying to reach a consumer audience, honestly.

  So yes, today’s magazine is diminished in all the expected ways: fewer pages (186 in ’25 versus a 544-page doorstop in ’99), fewer editors (although Hamish Bowles and Tonne Goodman appear on both mastheads under Anna Wintour), and far fewer advertisements. But all that turmoil and downsizing has forced the remaining ideas people at Vogue to think real hard about how to make it a pleasure to read.

  The best part of this Marc Jacobs-edited issue isn’t the unforgettable Steven Meisel shot of Kaia Gerber, or the designer’s delicious “market” pages (featuring a purple Birkin, Prada pajamas, pink Charvet slippers, Russ & Daughters caviar, and the most gorgeous Ariel Dearie spray of flowers). It isn’t the Alastair McKimm-styled, Inez & Vinoodh-shot image of dancer Dakota Moore-Lizotte wearing that pink Alaïa spiral of fluff in front of the Guggenheim. Or the oral history of celebrities going to the Met Gala on Marc’s arm. No, the best part was how in-the-moment it felt.

  I had already read Edith Zimmerman’s essay about replacing alcohol with running, but it was a delight to see her weird little illustrations in print. I was chuffed that the awesome William Eggleston exhibit at David Zwirner in Los Angeles, which I had taken my son to just a few days before, was mentioned. And I can’t get enough of the artist Anna Weyant, who was not only profiled in the issue but also painted Gerber for a second cover. Oh, then there’s the chilling Gregory Crewdson photograph of Jacobs and his husband at their Frank Lloyd Wright home outside the city.

  Marc’s Vogue was exactly what it needed to be, and I hope it inspires more novel thinking at these established titles. Unlike my mother-in-law, I don’t really collect magazines. But I’ll be saving this one.

While Chen and his colleagues anticipated that Gucci has to endure a little more pain before things turn around—they need to close more stores, among other things—they were encouraged by all the new products coming out, including three new handbag styles this past fall. The analysts emphasized the need for innovation across all price points—like every luxury brand, Gucci has gotten far more expensive in recent years—and compelling fashion shows that push people to go to the stores.

I think Chen is directionally correct about Gucci. And yet, so many questions remain: Why is only 40 percent of the product in stores right now from the current Sabato De Sarno era? (The rest is carryover—both perennial and old styles, the latter of which will eventually be phased out.) Also, why have there been so few store overhauls since De Sarno started in March 2023? Yes, it also took time to get Alessandro Michele’s product in stores when he first became creative director, but not this long. And while store redesigns are pricey capital expenditures, the messaging is strange: De Sarno’s work is being merchandised in spaces created for the style of his predecessor. It’s even more confusing now that Michele’s first collection for Valentino is available to purchase.

Of course, all these concerns and curiosities contribute to the broader plume of uncertainty surrounding Sabato—a cynical observer might wonder if Gucci’s reluctance to renovate stores is really the first step toward admitting that the current strategy isn’t working, and that they should pause investment until the new-ish management team has more time to collect data and deliberate. After all, if Gucci is truly set on De Sarno, why aren’t they showing it? Early on, there were definitely some supply chain issues, but the lack of product in stores now feels like a lack of confidence in the wares—and the designer, himself. You’ll find none of this in Chen’s note, but Gucci is trying to pull off a difficult gambit in a dishy industry where perception and reality often, but don’t always, overlap.

Indeed, while it’s likely that other people have been interviewed for the job during De Sarno’s tenure—the names brought up time and again include Jonathan Anderson, Maria Grazia Chiuri, and, more recently, Saint Laurent’s Anthony Vaccarello—no change has materialized. Instead, it appears that Kering chairman and C.E.O. François-Henri Pinault and his deputy, Francesca Bellettini, have decided to focus on getting the executive ranks in order. Bellettini moved one of her longtime deputies, Cedric Charbit, into her old job running Saint Laurent, and gave Gianfranco Gianangeli—Saint Laurent’s chief commercial officer—Charbit’s old Balenciaga C.E.O. gig.

Now, there are no vacancies. And while everyone didn’t end up where they thought they would (Gucci C.E.O. Stefano Cantino was originally rumored to be heading to Saint Laurent or into a group-level role, and Charbit to Gucci), Kering is more stable now—which is especially important as it navigates the market upheaval. I’m convinced that the company is determined to give De Sarno the three years that he deserves to try to make it work, despite the tremendous further investment it will require. There is definitely traction at Gucci in the U.S., though. Every week, I hear another anecdote about someone making a big purchase, or placing a custom order. Sabato has real fans now.

All of these possibilities highlight one key differentiator for Kering. Last week, while talking to an LVMH person, I made a comment about the company’s Fashion Group, which served as something of a talent acquisition-and-retention tool in an earlier iteration. I said I wished someone who was fun could run it, and nurture a new generation of Phoebes and Jonathans. The person said, quite seriously and matter-of-factly, “But we’re not fun.”

And it’s true. Yes, LVMH will still go to great lengths to keep talent within their walls, and there are people there who want to continue to lead with the idea that creativity fuels commerce. But the reality is that LVMH is bigger than that now. Kering, on the other hand, can still lead with creativity. It has also become more corporate over the years, sure, but its size, and the way it’s run by Pinault—the son of the founder, not the founder himself—means that there is still room to have a little fun.

As an executive reminded me earlier this month, everything is cyclical. Things weren’t looking so great for luxury in 2012, 2013, and even into 2014. Then Hedi, Demna, Alessandro, and Virgil all happened in the mid-2010s, followed up by Jonathan and Anthony. This exec predicted that ’26, ’27, and ’28 would be banner years for luxury once again. And, once again, Kering is poised to make good on it.

How is technology changing the fashion industry? Is A.I. going to replace you? This report is a useful snapshot of what’s actually happening and where we all fit into the equation. [MMGNET]

Christopher Kane’s collaboration with Self Portrait is great; he’s an incredible designer with original ideas. We need him! [WWD]

Mickey Drexler went on Jimmy Fallon to talk jammies! [YouTube]

The banana sold for $6.2 million at Sotheby’s! [New York Times]

Taylor Swift wore the LV watch again, this time to Chez Margaux (!!!) wearing a look fit for Cher Horowitz, including Gucci platform loafers. [Yahoo!]

As Kate Young mentioned on a recent Fashion People podcast, The Row has really upped its red carpet game, as exhibited here by Saoirse Ronan. [Elle]

People are listening to this Bella Freud podcast. Start with the Zadie Smith episode. [Fashion Neurosis]

New Guards Group filed for the equivalent to Chapter 11 in Italy. [WWD]

Until Monday,
Lauren