Hello, and welcome back to Line Sheet. It’s blowout season.
We’ve got a great issue today, brimming
with fun scoops and intel accessible to Inner Circle members only. (Upgrade here for eternal salvation.) To start, Malique “Malique@puck.news” Morris is here with a can’t-find-it-anywhere-else update on Ssense’s go-forward plan. Plus, I’ve secured a never-before-published list of
the Big Tech firms that bought up tables at the Met Gala this year, and news of a notable exit at Lemaire. For the main event, I check in on the progress at Armani, which is in a bit of limbo as the company waits to see who actually wants to buy that 15 percent position.
Tomorrow on Fashion People, my guest is peptide king Phillip Picardi, late of Teen Vogue, Them, and Weight Watchers, and currently editor-in-chief of the PG-13 rendition of
Playboy, which he just relaunched this week. It looks and reads great. We had a lively conversation about the sex recession, the porn obsession, how to make a magazine feel internet-y in a good way, hip lingerie brands (Cou Cou Intimates is it), the magic of Katie Grand, the genius of Marie Suter, licensed product, and yes, the Anna Wintour–Meryl Streep cover of Vogue.
Also mentioned in this issue: Eva Chen, Remo Ruffini, Silvana Armani, Leo
Dell’Orco, “Made in Italy,” Tom Holland, Petra Collins, Christophe Lemaire, Marco Bizzarri, Canadian bankruptcy, Matthieu Blazy, Nick Wooster, Hedi Slimane, tariffs, Federico Marchetti, Christopher Nolan, Sarah-Linh Tran, Leo Rongone, Laetitia Mergui, Roberta Armani,
the price of a Met Gala table, Rami Atallah, Angelo Moratti, Tom Ford, Jorden Bickham, and more… |
Three Things You
Should Know…
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- The
Tech Gala: Every year, I talk to fashion C.E.O.s, designers, and P.R.s who complain about the price of tables at the Met Gala ($350,000 or more these days), why it’s almost tacky to ask for that much money, how the whole thing is decidedly unchic, etcetera, etcetera. Also, there are too few non-famous guests. Indeed, all the house-rich, cash-poor socialites whose husbands left for reasons obvious to everyone but themselves abandoned the Gala years ago.
Oh well. This is where you can
tell Dame Anna Wintour is an American citizen: She understands that it doesn’t matter; the money is the most important thing. The headlines, at the end, are going to focus on what the most famous celebrities wore and how much cash she raised for the Metropolitan Museum of Art’s Costume Institute. This isn’t about taste, guys.
But the people who are chasing taste—the tech bros in Silicon Valley,
according to Kyle Chayka—don’t get that, or don’t care, and they have more money than God. This year, table buyers include Meta/Instagram—where Wintour acolyte Eva Chen still reigns—as well as Snapchat and Amazon. Affiliate marketing platform ShopMy, which raised $70 million at a $1.5 billion valuation last
year, also has a table. So does OpenAI, the economy’s most profligate spender. If it sounds like there aren’t many tables open after that, you would be right. (Saint Laurent is the big fashion brand partner this year, although I’m sure a few other majors will be represented.) It’ll be interesting to see who these tech companies bring along, since Wintour & Co. famously bristle at inviting too many creator types.
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A MESSAGE FROM OUR SPONSOR |
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- Another
day, another indie C.E.O. exit: There are so many open C.E.O. jobs at independent brands these days. And now, according to multiple sources familiar with the matter, Laetitia Mergui, who’s been C.E.O. of Lemaire since October 2022, is leaving (or has already left) the company. No word on whether the Paris-based brand, designed by Christophe Lemaire and Sarah-Linh Tran, has found a replacement. I reached out to both Mergui and a rep for
Lemaire; they did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
Mergui led Lemaire during a crucial moment for the business, especially in terms of expansion in Asia. Her expertise was selling accessories in the market—by 2024, the company was generating €100 million a year in sales, with flagships in Paris, Seoul, and Tokyo. There are so few well-priced ready-to-wear brands that also sell accessories these days, and I’ve always thought Lemaire was an interesting acquisition target.
Whether Lemaire feels similarly is another question: Let’s see who they choose to succeed her.
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| Malique Morris
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- Ssense 2.0: On Wednesday,
two months after C.E.O. Rami Atallah and his brothers finalized a $57 million deal with First Avenue Advisory Inc. to take back Ssense, the Montreal purveyor of meme-worthy fashunz held an internal all-hands meeting to unveil a full turnaround plan. During the meeting, Atallah presented a directionally sound Ssense 2.0 strategy centered on “regaining U.S. revenue share” in 2027. The plan includes ramping up investment in brand development—remember, Ssense backed cultish indie
labels like Still Kelly, Lu’u Dan, and I’m Sorry by Petra Collins—and opening a U.S. distribution center. (The company currently operates only one, in Montreal.) The moves are necessary, if a bit late. When Atallah told staffers that Ssense was filing for bankruptcy, he blamed Trump’s punitive tariffs on Canada, a fate it could have avoided had it opened a U.S. warehouse years ago. Anyway, I’m told that some Ssense employees walked out of the meeting with mixed emotions, in part
because the company hinted at using A.I. in its operations, a development some staffers took to mean forthcoming job cuts. In a statement, the company said its “always been a global technology platform” and that it remains “focused on supporting creativity, driving cultural relevance, and building long-term value for our community, including our teams.”
I’m told executives didn’t provide any revenue or profit numbers during the all-hands. But Consumer Edge says that Ssense’s U.S. sales
were down more than 60 percent year over year in the first quarter of the calendar year. We’ll see how it all plays out. Ssense has yet to emerge from CCAA—the Canadian legal process that allows insolvent companies to restructure.
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With the deadline for a minority investor to claim a 15 percent stake in Armani not as far
away as it sounds, the company’s still-new board is inching toward change, with prospective new buyers—and designers—in the conversation. But there’s still a question of who will be the change-maker. |
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Since Giorgio Armani’s death last September, speculation around the fate of his namesake
company—which he privately owned and controlled for a half-century—has understandably run rampant. After all, Armani’s will seemed like it was conceived by the Succession writers room. Recall that Armani, who died childless at 91, insisted that 15 percent of the business be sold next year, followed by an additional 30 to 55 percent within the subsequent three to five years, thereby setting up a two-step acquisition process—one that, Armani instructed, would demonstrate a preference for
LVMH, or current partners EssilorLuxottica and L’Oréal, or some nebulous company of “equal standing.” Who qualifies as “equal” is subject to the whims of Pantaleo “Leo” Dell’Orco, Armani’s longtime partner and chairman of the foundation.
This all raised a series of cascading questions: Who will buy the stake that’s up for grabs until early 2027? Who will be appointed creative director? How will the enigmatic board make these decisions? There was plenty of
speculation before Armani passed—never forget all the commotion about Hedi Slimane’s apartment in Milan—but things really got serious once it was established that someone outside Armani’s family could own a majority stake in the business before the end of the decade. |
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A MESSAGE FROM OUR SPONSOR |
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In the grand scheme of things, it always felt like L’Oréal or EssilorLuxottica were more likely than LVMH,
which currently has no financial interest in Armani and has fared better with acquisitions that fill a specific gap in its expansive portfolio, such as Rimowa, Loro Piana, and Tiffany. But even for L’Oréal or Luxottica—or a firm of equal standing—it’s not a simple decision. Armani is not a very profitable business, and fashion is an increasingly unstable industry. While the brand is relatively unspoiled, it’s also staid. There’s been an organic uptick in interest in vintage Armani, and
ready-to-wear sales have increased in recent years in important markets in the U.S., but it hasn’t been a go-to brand for decades. Why shop Armani when there’s The Row or Loro Piana—or Akris or Tom Ford?
But still, there must be someone who believes in the power of fashion, “Made in Italy,” and navy enough to consider forking over a few billion for the privilege of restructuring, and reviving, Armani. At the brand’s first posthumous women’s ready-to-wear runway show, the crowd went wild
over some styling tweaks and better casting. Perhaps it was a sign of the promise that a modernized Armani could have. |
Working all of this out will fall upon the board, which includes Dell’Orco and niece
Silvana Armani, but also Italian entrepreneur Angelo Moratti (ex-husband of another niece, Roberta, so he understands the dynamics), as well as Yoox founder (and top-notch self-promoter) Federico Marchetti. But perhaps the most crucial director is Marco Bizzarri, the former C.E.O. of Gucci, who has the most operational expertise. Bizzarri, more than any of his peers, should understand that the key to a
successful auction—and one that, abiding by the last wishes of the paterfamilias, does not seem like an auction at all—is the immediate implementation of small changes now, without entirely dismantling things. Part of this choreography, of course, is intended to get the family comfortable with the larger-scale changes to come.
There’s been a lot of chatter in recent weeks about the time Moncler C.E.O. Remo Ruffini has been spending with people at Armani, and the
board, too. A rep for Ruffini said the company doesn’t comment on rumors, but there is a lot to think about here. Presumably, Ruffini is serving as an unofficial advisor (or at the least, a friend). He is a leader in the Italian business community, inarguably the country’s most successful fashion entrepreneur of the past 20 years, and has an interest in Armani as a contributor to the Italian economy and fashion system. If it succeeds, it makes things better for everyone.
The Armani
business model is the antithesis of what Ruffini has built at Moncler—it’s mostly licensing, and mostly fashion and beauty, rather than the post-fashion fashion represented by Moncler, which he bought in the early 2000s, and Stone Island, the once-chavvy jacket label for footballers that he bought more recently and that is absolutely proliferating with the global oligarchy and beyond. He is allergic to licensing, I’m told. And yet, the exec, who recently hired Leo
Rongone to manage the group, is one of the few visionaries working today who could theoretically create a slender conglomerate to compete in the ecosystem dominated by Kering and LVMH (which, don’t forget, has a stake in Moncler). |
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Perhaps Armani doesn’t become part of the Moncler Group, but something new. Who knows what Kering or
Richemont will look like in five years? It’s certainly a more out-there idea than a managed sale to current partners Luxottica or L’Oréal, but it’s also one that could transform the fashion industry.
Once the buyer is decided, the final piece of this will be establishing a new creative direction. If all the stakeholders have the guts to do something big, I imagine that all the names being batted around will be meaningless by then. Remember, Matthieu Blazy’s name didn’t
come up in the Chanel conversation until long after they’d chosen him. So, for now, we wait. |
What We’re Reading…
and Watching… and Listening To…
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Stylist Jorden Bickham’s admirable sensibility (funny, dry, uncompromising) shows up in her
work, as well as in this interview with former colleague Liana Satenstein about her clothes and her personal style. Also: Liana should do one of these closet videos with Patrick Radden Keefe, because why not?
[Neverworns]
Nick Wooster is the greatest; ask him about his longevity doctor, his peptide routine, his attitude toward plastic surgery, and you will get the best
answers in the world! [Throwing Fits]
Our queen Marisa Meltzer went to Sephoracon and lived to tell the tale! [Vanity Fair]
Every single A-list actor ever is in Christopher Nolan’s version of The Odyssey, which hits theaters
this summer—including Tom Holland, who is now a Vuori rep. Interesting choice on Vuori’s part. I’m not mad about it. [LinkedIn]
Selfridges is betting big on the 0.001 percent with the launch of 40
Duke, a private members club–style shopping service, complete with a restaurant and fancy dressing rooms occupying 25,000 square feet in the retailer’s Oxford Street flagship, all designed in partnership with Nice Projects and The Future Perfect. They also have a terrace for throwing parties, which is unheard of in London, where the weather was really nice this week and everyone was going berserk. [T magazine] |
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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