Hi, and welcome back to Line Sheet. Tonight, I’m at Mr. Chow in Beverly Hills for a Thom Browne dinner, co-hosted by Saks. Will you be there? I doubt it. Let me know if you want to grab a drink beforehand, though.

Today, I assess what’s good and bad about the Olympics happening in Paris—I know, I know, you are getting out of there long before the Opening Ceremony. I also took a minute to reflect on Law Roach’s life post-retirement. Plus, I share an April Fools’ tease that I wish were true.

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Mentioned in this issue: Law Roach, Zendaya, the Starks, LVMH, Mary Katrantzou, Marco Bizzarri, the Paris Olympics, Les Wexner, Antoine Arnault, Jacquemus, Kirsten Dunst, Ozempic (always), Julia Fox, and many more.

• Hey Les Wexner, did you see what Leon Black did?: The former Apollo C.E.O. talked to my Puck Partner Bill Cohan about his association with Jeffrey Epstein. “Everybody looks at it through the lens of, This is Public Enemy Number One for being a pedophile,” Black said in a conversation relayed in Bill’s private email, Dry Powder. “He was smart. And I thought he performed services for a bunch of [his associates], yes. And he was a bit offbeat and counterculture and eccentric, yes.” Former L Brands C.E.O. Les Wexner, whom I spent the last four years researching as part of my book on Victoria’s Secret, is far more closely associated with Epstein than Black. (He was, after all, the convicted sex offender’s primary source of income.) Knowing as much as I do about Wexner, who grew wearier of the press as the years went by, there’s no way he’s doing a sit-down with anyone to talk about how clueless he was when it came to Epstein’s behavior. But hey, if you are interested Les, I’m available!
• The heartbreaking falsity of the Chrome Hearts-LVMH April Fools’ joke: On Monday, my blue texts were bubbling over: Chrome Hearts was being acquired by LVMH, they said. How could that be? The Starks, the family behind the Los Angeles-based jewelry-turned-lifestyle company, have little reason to sell. The business, which makes everything from goth silver jewelry piled on by the likes of Karl Lagerfeld and Cher to emblem sweatshirts collected by everyone from Jay-Z to Kendall Jenner—plus novelties including a silver toilet plunger—is profitable and generates hundreds of millions of dollars a year in sales (although they’ve never said exactly how much). Also, they own a bunch of prime retail real estate (read this 2021 Wall Street Journal report for more info). Plus, they have a succession plan in place.

  From the LVMH side, it made a little more sense. While the group is still, let’s say, absorbing Tiffany—which it agreed to acquire for $15.8 billion in October 2020—Chrome Hearts, valued at $1.5 billion in 2020, according to WWD, would not cost them that much money. And the brand did sell a 10 percent stake in 2019, so while that doesn’t indicate the need to make a swift exit, it also doesn’t rule out an exit altogether. Chrome Hearts is sort of an ideal smallish acquisition for LVMH. It’s vertically integrated, at least in part, and a good amount of product is made right here in the U.S. Also, the Starks understand their customer better than anyone. Like Rimowa or Loro Piana, other fairly recent LVMH acquisitions, it’s a family business with engrained expertise, but this time firmly rooted in American culture. If LVMH wants to understand America better, which it does, Chrome Hearts might offer more insights than Tiffany. One industry insider said that, besides Ralph Lauren, there is no better American fashion brand.

  By the end of the day, I was told, by multiple people, that this was completely untrue: an April Fools’ joke that somehow spread across the industry. JHC. Why do you have to do this to me, people? Especially when, if you really think about it, this is a brilliant idea.

• Law Roach check-in: I was reminded this week that not only has it been a year since I started at Puck, but a year since I wrote about Law Roach’s so-called retirement from styling. There was one friend in particular who disagreed with my take that Roach was going to have a hard time making money off of himself instead of his work for others. Roach, coincidentally, has been in the news once again this week as Zendaya ramps up her promotional tour for Challengers, the much-hyped (in my head, at least) Luca Guadagnino tennis film that is finally being released April 26 after a strike-related delay. There’s been fairly little drama during this stretch, except for March 10 after the Oscars when Law tweeted, “It’s not even fun anymore.”

  Who knows what that meant. Zendaya sure looks like she’s having fun in custom Loewe, Lacoste, and Vivienne Westwood. The actress signed a campaign deal with Louis Vuitton about a year ago, but it appears that the contract—which very well might have only been for a year—does not require her to wear Louis Vuitton exclusively. For the Oscars, she chose Giorgio Armani. But back to Roach: Other than Zendaya and a one-off return to styling Celine Dion (for the Grammys), the “former” stylist has been quiet this year.

  Why? Industry insiders chalked it up to two things. One is that Roach is not a typical stylist in that he is baked into Zendaya’s contracts. If she gets, say, $10 million for an advertising campaign, he might make $1 million. So even if he’s not working that much, he’s getting paid well only working for her. He’s also got the E! reality-competition series #OMGFashion, co-hosted with Julia Fox and debuting in May. The verdict: So-called retirement sounds pretty good when you’re still profiting.

• Marquee designers get second billing: I was surprised this week when Bulgari announced that designer Mary Katrantzou, who came up in the London fashion scene in the early 2010s, had been named the creative director of the jeweler’s handbags and accessories division. This is a new position and Katrantzou, who now splits her time between London and Greece, is something of a name. But the reality is that similarly well-known designers hold these sorts of secondary positions across the industry, from Peter Copping at Balenciaga couture to Tim Hamilton at Nike. Is there value in attaching a name to a label when it’s not the big gig? I’m actually not sure, but it’s a nice money job for the talent.

And yet, Paris is a company town, and fashion will be at the center of these Games, which makes it a fine moment to present the culture of the industry to onlookers who feign disinterest. Of course, only one company stands to truly benefit from that opportunity at scale, and that’s LVMH, currently the largest company in Europe by market capitalization. (It remains neck and neck with Novo Nordisk, the maker of Ozempic.) Last summer, the group announced their deal as the lead sponsor of the Games, valued at $160 million by The Wall Street Journal. The amount of money LVMH will invest in marketing, advertising, and promotion around the two-week-long event will be far greater, of course, adding hundreds of millions of dollars to the actual spend. In some departments, marketers were required to devote a third of their annual budget to efforts around the Olympics, and not just at a group level—individual brands have been asked to chip in tens of millions here and there. The catch is that their budgets were not, in most cases, increased overall.

LVMH executives recognize the tremendous opportunity to increase awareness among the 15 million people expected to visit Paris for the Games—not to mention the many millions who watch from home. (In 2022, 2 billion viewers tuned into the Beijing Winter Olympics.) The group has control over virtually all advertising space in the city that is not contracted out long term by rivals like Kering. They own the French television advertising rights, and the Korean television advertising rights. If LVMH wants to be as ubiquitous as P&G, this will do it. That’s good enough reason for Bernard Arnault and his son Antoine, who brokered the deal with the government, to pitch in so much money.

When the government proposes something, LVMH is inclined to say yes. And vice versa: Vogue World doesn’t happen on the Place Vendôme without LVMH. It’s important to remember that, reflecting the bureaucratic French tendencies, LVMH and the government are enmeshed; one cannot function without the other. LVMH makes the country a lot of money, and in turn, the country allows it to make a lot of money. The American economy is filled with so-called national treasures—homegrown, mega-blue-chip multinationals ranging from Coca-Cola to Google, Apple, Amazon, Microsoft, etcetera. By contrast, four of France’s five largest firms by market cap are fashion or beauty companies, and LVMH is, by far, the biggest: Its $450 billion-ish market cap is almost $200 billion larger than Hermès or L’Oreal. It is the French economy.

There’s also the issue of commerce itself. It won’t be easy to go shopping in Paris during those weeks, and some brands are concerned that road blockages will prevent product from even being delivered to stores.

However, those who work outside the LVMH stable are more pessimistic. Actually, defeated might be the best word to describe their attitude. Brands that would typically devote a good amount of their marketing budget to the Games have been restricted, at least on the ground, and on French television. Those that sponsor athletes or a team—Ralph Lauren, Hermès, Nike—have the best chance of being visible to those who watch the events where their athletes are competing (or at least the Opening Ceremony). Nike must also contend with archrival Adidas, another top sponsor of the Games, but at least it dresses so many athletes that it will maintain a consistent presence. There will, of course, be attempts to cut through. The next iteration of the Jacquemus-Nike collaboration, for instance, is set to land in June, according to internet reports, serving as a sort of hype machine for the Games.

Most brands, however, bowed out after the LVMH sponsorship news was announced almost a year ago. What’s the point of trying to compete against LVMH when they’re playing in a different league? Really, the whole situation is nothing more than a microcosm of the state of the industry. There’s LVMH, and then there’s Fashion. The two are no longer one and the same.

Former Gucci C.E.O. and Line Sheet person of interest Marco Bizzarri is back. He recently invested in the Italian label Elisabetta Franchi, which, coincidentally, was recently worn by Zendaya on her Challengers tour. [WWD]

Is Chanel’s classic flap bag too expensive? A lot of TikTokers think so. The brand’s president of fashion, Bruno Pavlovsky, addresses the situation in this interview. “We’re not perfect, he said.” [BoF]

Aurora James has a new podcast. The first guest is her 15 Percent Pledge partner (and Good American and Skims merchant), Emma Grede. [Friends & Family]

More on everyone’s favorite swear. [Vox]

Of course Amanda Mull—who, in another life, ran a website about handbags—does a great job of explaining the Hermès situation. [The Atlantic]

Kering has named chief strategy officer Mélanie Flouquet and chief financial officer Armelle Poulou to its executive committee. [Inbox]

Did you know that Serena Williams, too, has a beauty line? [The Cut]

This was a great shoot, Kirsten Dunst. [GQ Hype]

And this was a great dress, Kirsten Dunst. [Red Carpet Fashion Awards]

The story of Annabelle Dexter-Jones shopping at Zitomer. I love her. [Vogue]

And finally… If the Proenza White Label leather pants sold out in your size, my very snobby French friend Delphine bought the Rag & Bone version and she says they are “beyond.”