One of the lessons of A.P.C., which has been struggling to regain its cool after being acquired by private equity, is that there just aren’t that many viable growth paths for these sorts of faded legacy brands—too big to fail, but not enticing enough for the likes of LVMH, Kering, Tapestry, or PVH. That dilemma is what has given power to licensing firms, which snap up legit fashion brands for a song and turn them into zombie-like vehicles for value extraction. Indeed, you could live your whole life without realizing that Off-White is generating something like $700 million a year in retail revenue—or that it even still exists—mostly at random malls in faraway places like Thailand or the Saskatchewan Costco.