July 11, 2025

Hi, and welcome back to Line Sheet. Someday we’ll have a slow week, but it wasn’t this one. Sarah Shapiro is here to bring us back down to Earth with a report on the summer’s bestselling swimsuits and how D.T.C. killed the late spring shopping season.

Up top, I am going to give you the real story on all those incredibly silly rumors about Jeff Bezos buying Vogue, or Condé Nast, or whatever. It’s definitely not true, but I can share what is happening. I’ve also got my much-anticipated review of the outfits at the annual Allen & Co. conference in Sun Valley, with an assist from Puck’s man on the ground, Dylan Byers. Wall Power’s Julie Brener Davich is also popping in for a postmortem on that Hermès Birkin prototype auction, and Rachel Strugatz explains why Ulta buying Space NK matters. Finally, we’re tying up some loose ends from this chaotic week.

Mentioned in this issue: Blake Lively, Left on Friday, Pucci, Missoni, Charlotte Le Bon, Versace, Jacquemus, Alexa Chung, Ulta, Sephora, the Newhouse family, Jeff Bezos, Barry Diller, Ivanka Trump, and many, many more…

A MESSAGE FROM OUR SPONSOR

The refined BMW 7 Series is all luxury. With the ability to define your design, the ultimate glamour is yet to be. Learn more at

BMWUSA.com.

Five Things You Should Know…

Rachel Strugatz

Ulta buying Space NK: If someone told me a decade ago that Ulta would become a global player in the beauty space, I wouldn’t have believed them. But now Ulta, which operates twice as many stores in the U.S. as Sephora, has added the U.K. to their roster after acquiring high-end beauty retailer Space NK for an undisclosed amount from Manzanita Capital (which has majority stakes in Diptyque, D.S. & Durga, etcetera). Space NK never reached its potential stateside—it closed its U.S. stores in 2020—but people really like this retailer, which feels more elevated than Sephora. And Space NK’s 80 stores in the U.K. are thriving, despite an overall coolness toward multibrand retail.

As for the U.S. beauty market, I keep hearing of the need for a higher-end, specialty multibrand retailer at scale—one that can be a real player in niche and luxury fragrance. Space NK fits the bill. Neither Cos Bar nor Bluemercury ever became a formidable opponent for Sephora, which still excels at selling $100 perfume. I haven’t heard yet whether Ulta plans to relaunch Space NK in the U.S., but they have the retail expertise, and the real estate, to give it a second go.

Julie Brener Davich

The Birkin that broke the bank: In case you’ve been on a silent retreat in some remote ashram, yesterday Sotheby’s Paris auctioned the original Birkin prototype, which once belonged to Jane Birkin, for €8.6 million ($10.1 million) with fees. It took 10 minutes of bidding, with nine different potential buyers vying for it. As Lauren reported, that included Away co-founder Jen Rubio, and despite some chatter that Lauren Sánchez-Bezos was among those preparing to bid, a source close to Sánchez-Bezos asserted that she did not participate in the auction. (Our Lauren was told Rubio intended to donate the bag to the Met’s Costume Institute.)

In the end, the winning buyer was Valuence, the Japanese online luxury resale conglomerate that generated ¥81.4 billion in sales (about $550 million) last year. The company, while largely unknown to consumers outside of Asia, has been credited with helping to drive the lucrative and mature secondary market for luxury in Japan. According to the company’s announcement, the bag will not be resold; instead, it seems likely to be used for marketing purposes. They’re planning a press unveiling when the bag arrives in Japan, and will release an exhibition schedule in due course. Is a $10 million bag going to significantly impact the fortunes of the challenged luxury resale market? It’s unclear, but I can already envision the lines of people hoping to take selfies with the Birkin in front of a Valuence logo.

The intensity of demand for the bag was evident by the pitched tenor of the auction: Three bidders were still in at €4.8 million, and the final two jumped increments to get from €5 million to €6 million in an attempt to shake off their rival. Even 1stDibs chief commercial officer Matthew Rubinger, who helped forge the auction handbag category at Heritage Auctions in Dallas and later at Christie’s in Hong Kong, was shocked at the price—he told me he never imagined it would go past €3 million.

Rubinger predicts that the headline-grabbing event will drive collecting for Hermès in general, and Birkins in particular. “It’s a major milestone in the market,” he said. “This gives legitimacy to handbags as a serious collecting category.” In other words, rarity, provenance, and historical importance will become more important factors in the market, and the sale will also change the conversation around insuring, caring for, and bequeathing handbags. “Everyone will point to this moment as when the shift happened,” he added.

A MESSAGE FROM OUR SPONSOR

The refined BMW 7 Series is all luxury. With the ability to define your design, the ultimate glamour is yet to be. Learn more at

BMWUSA.com.

The fully dumb Bezos/Condé Nast speculation: I cannot believe how far these “Jeff is buying Vogue for Lauren Sánchez” rumors have spread, and if you read my piece yesterday on the Anna Wintour succession saga (for Inner Circle subscribers only! Upgrade here), you’ll know that I’ve tried not to fan the flames. But enough of you messaged me over the past two days that I feel compelled to set the record straight. Look, I know from talking to people familiar with the decision-makers in this situation that the billionaire Newhouse family has no plans to sell Condé Nast to Jeff Bezos, or Amazon, or any entity of the sort. (A source close to Bezos also told me it was “total fiction.”) Bezos already has another money-losing publishing company to deal with anyway.

Unlike many people who are convinced that the Newhouses will keep Condé forever, I’m hardly a Never Sell-er: My feeling is that, once patriarch Donald passes away, they may reconsider their position. (Alas, I assume they would have a hard time parting with The New Yorker…) What is happening right now, though, is a custom affiliate-marketing deal with Amazon, brokered by Condé Nast C.E.O. Roger Lynch. This deal is hardly groundbreaking, and literally everyone in the marketing space is aware of it, but Lynch, I’m told, is notably enthusiastic. For what it’s worth, I also asked Condé Nast for an on-the-record comment about this Amazon nonsense. No dice.
Sun Valley fit check: What billionaires, media mavens, and billionaire media mavens wear to the annual Allen & Co. conference in Sun Valley always says a lot about modern luxury: When Puck media correspondent Dylan Byers reports back to me that he’s seeing “Khaite, Toteme, and Hermès bags” on the walk up to the lodge, you know that business is good for those brands. To be honest, though, this year’s Getty Images promenade has left me a little wanting (and I’ve heard as much from others). There are few full-length shots, and not enough WAGs. Stacey Bendet Eisner’s looks haven’t been crazy enough. As usual, Diane von Furstenberg and Barry Diller look fab and really happy about their place in life.

There was lots of interesting eyewear, from Ivanka Trump’s Velvet Canyon cat-ish style, to Sam Altman’s wrap-around Vuarnets, to Ferrari chairman John Elkann’s Phoebe Philo-esque style, reminiscent of the glasses you wear after your pupils have been dilated. Otherwise, I noted Thrive Capital’s Joshua Kushner wore the same (or similar) sweater as he did last year (a nice flex). Jen and Paul Sciarra, chairman of Joby Aviation, are new entrants in our competition: They share a relaxed, but informed, style. The enigmatic Vivi Nevo looked great, as always, in a too-tight black t-shirt. Spanx founder Sara Blakely is trying to look like Ali Larter in Landman but failing. Developer Rob Speyer remains chic. I’m intrigued by the military jacket worn by Spotify founder Daniel Ek’s wife, Sofia Levander. Anne Wojcicki is my fitness queen. GLP-1, in microdoses, remains the most favored accessory. Dylan will join me and guest Becky Malinsky on Tuesday’s episode of Fashion People for a postmortem. Send your favorite looks my way!
Things we need to follow up on, or didn’t have time to address this week: I forgot to mention that Amélie Tremblay, the model who is in those random, caption-free photos on Sydney Sweeney’s Instagram, is actually the wife of Coatue general partner Ben Schwerin, who is said to be backing Sweeney’s new lingerie venture. … If you want to know why Moët Hennessy boss Jean-Marc Lacave got fired last year, the Financial Times posits it was because of accusations of sexual harassment (he did not respond to the FT’s requests for comment). … There was a cruel Michael Kors diss on this week’s episode of And Just Like That…. (As Sarah Shapiro relayed, “Guest star Jenifer Lewis repeatedly mentions her Michael Kors handbags and waits for a compliment from Nicole Ari Parker only to be met with… silence.”) It was another example of the off-color, unnecessarily mean humor that has plagued the Sex and the City reboot. We love Michael!

And now, let’s go shopping…

I Know What You Wore Last Summer

The season’s inevitable, soul-crushing encounter with the swimsuit rack has been buffered by a timely surge in D.T.C. offerings—perhaps the consequence of a secular change in how shoppers gear up for the hot months…

Sarah Shapiro

It was only about a decade ago that everyone scrambled to buy swimwear right after Memorial Day. According to Lyst, June 8 was the biggest day of the year to score a bikini in 2014; back then, the swimwear racks were picked over by July, with barely any sizes left. But last year, the peak didn’t come until June 24, and the lag was even greater this year, landing on the week of June 30. It’s starting to feel as though the whole summer shopping season has been delayed.

Take the D.T.C. brand Left on Friday, an eight-figure swimwear and athleisure business founded by two ex-Lululemon executives. They do over $1 million a week in swimwear during peak season, with June and July as the trophy months, and they’re not alone: D.T.C. brands have thrown traditional retail calendars out the window. Online shopping means you can find your size in July just as easily as in May, and obviously, trying on swimwear in the privacy of your own bedroom beats the fitting rooms every time. Plus, D.T.C. brands can focus on their global business—after all, it’s always swim season somewhere.

Indeed, three of the top four retailers in the category are online-first, according to data from Joor, the largest online platform for managing wholesale orders—with Mytheresa, Shopbop, and Revolve/FWRD dominating the swim space. Joor’s figures also indicate that the category overall is expanding—it’s up 14 percent for the first half of the year, mainly driven by price, as units are up 4 percent and prices are up 15 percent. This has implications for brick-and-mortar stores, too: As with other basic categories like hosiery, they’re walking customers out the door if they don’t have what their shoppers need, when they need it. In this case, that means the proper push-up underwire bikini before the official start of Resort/Cruise season.

High Tides, Low Necklines

Those bikinis are having a moment, according to Lyst, particularly glam Italian brands like Pucci (it’s “Pucci girl summer,” after all), Missoni, and Versace. One-pieces, like Mytheresa’s Eres Aquarelle and Hunza G’s stretchy square necks, are also showing up on the paddleboard circuit. But the No. 1 swimsuit on ShopMy since April is Stylest’s Dreamsculpt swimwear, which is also shapewear. Next on the leaderboard is Left on Friday’s Retreat Suit and Sunday Suit, followed by their separates: the Sunday Top, Hi Tide Bottom, and Sandy Top. Number seven is a square-neck one-piece from influencer Daryl-Ann Denner’s Nuuds brand, and rounding out the top 10 is a style from Walmart’s Time and Tru line—an eyelet one-piece with a wired v-neck.

Meanwhile, Blake Lively was seen a while back in the mom-friendly Follow Suit Flora one-piece—the one with big flower-petal side cut-outs—which is doing nicely on ShopMy, along with the Tuckernuck x Studio McGee collab, one of the few prints to make it onto the top 10 list. If you think that men apart from Walton Goggins look good in Speedo-style banana hammocks, you might check out Burberry’s swim briefs.

Speaking of Goggins and White Lotus, it seems we still haven’t shaken off the psychic permafrost of Mike White’s Lorazepam-strewn beach resorts, with sales of coverups—I’m thinking of Charlotte Le Bon’s pink custom Jacquemus moment, and Leslie Bibb’s mismatched bikini with the vintage sheer top—up 44 percent over last year, according to Joor. Alexa Chung took things up a notch this week when she wore High Sport floral pants with a bikini top and cardigan.

Have a great weekend,
Lauren

P.S.: We are using affiliate links because we are a business. We may make a couple bucks off them.

Need help? Review our FAQ page or contact us for assistance. For brand partnerships, email ads@puck.news.

You received this email because you signed up to receive emails from Puck, or as part of your Puck account associated with {{customer.email}}. To stop receiving this newsletter and/or manage all your email preferences, click here.

Puck is published by Heat Media LLC. 107 Greenwich St, New York, NY 10006

SEE THE ARCHIVES