Feb 9, 2026

Hi, and welcome to Line Sheet. I landed in New York this weekend, just in time for Puck’s Super Bowl party with Oscar de la Renta. Who won the game? Who knows! But we all had a great time, and not only because there was a guacamole station, co-branded foam fingers, and models carrying diamante’d footballs. Not sure there is another room where you’d find Bill Cohan, Linda Wells, and Phil Oh—plus margaritas served in (also co-branded) red Solo cups. What more could you want?

The best dressed of the night, per usual, went to Puck’s Alex Bigler in an Oscar de la Renta olive-colored ball gown skirt and a Puck-red sweater draped around her neck. Best moment of the night, though, was when ODLR C.E.O. Alex Bolen put caviar on his soft serve. Thanks to Alex and Eliza Bolen, C.M.O. extraordinaire Chloe Popescu (the mastermind of this whole thing), and everyone on Team Puck for making this the first and last time I will take note of the final score of an American football game. (Just kidding, I have no idea.)

Of course, I pay close attention to the tunnel walk. And the halftime show, where Zara (outfitting Bad Bunny) and Luar (Lady Gaga) won big time. Tomorrow on Fashion People, I’m talking to stylist Kyle Smith, who is the official fashion editor of the NFL, and also works with the likes of Joe Burrow and DeAndre Hopkins (who walked the Thom Browne runway show at the GQ Bowl on Friday). We discuss Bad Bunny’s halftime fashion and the other can’t-ignore looks of the day. Plus, I get Kyle’s take on the Alaïa–Pieter Mulier news, Margot Robbie’s Wuthering Heights press tour, and plenty more. Listen here and here.

Perhaps against my nature, this is a very sporty issue: You’ll find some thoughts on the Opening Ceremony looks at the Winter Olympics; editor succession tea-leaf reading from GQ’s Super Bowl fashion show with Thom Browne; and some news from Saks Global. Also, Rachel Strugatz stops by with a scoop on a new haircare brand that’s launching in Sephora this week with an unusual global strategy, offering clues about the retailer’s new focus.

For the main event, I unveil everything there is to know about Skylrk, Justin Bieber’s merch line: who’s behind it, how much money it’s making, and what it may accomplish for Bieber Corp. in a post-Yeezy world. (By the way, the blue silk boxers Bieber wore onstage at the Grammys were, indeed, his own “design.”)

Also mentioned in this issue: Will Welch, Mark Guiducci, Chloe Malle, Anna Wintour, Milano Cortina 2026, Remo Ruffini, Lithuania, Issey Miyake, U.S. Ski & Snowboard, Deanna Stellato-Dudek, Vera Wang, Nancy Kerrigan, Geoffroy van Raemdonck, Huda Kattan, Coldwater Canyon, Scooter Braun, Matt George, Goop, Sydney Sweeney, Ben Schwerin, Demna, Gucci, Dogue, Chloé Zhao, Gabriela Hearst, and many more…

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Four Things You Should Know…

The “global content head” or whatever bowl: On Friday, GQ hosted its second annual fashion show/pre-party hybrid, this time with Thom Browne at the Legion of Honor in San Francisco just two days before the Super Bowl. Browne staged a proper fashion show with a new collection (it was good), and even introduced a new collaboration with Asics (it will sell), so it made sense that many proper men’s editors attended. (Levi’s, which is based in San Francisco, also brought a whole crew to town.)

On-the-ground reports indicate that this concept is a winning commercial endeavor. But it was notable how many potential successors to editor Will Welch, whose run at GQ ends February 15, showed up. There was GQ staffer Sam Hine, Highsnobiety’s Noah Johnson, Chris Black, and Adam Baidawi, editor of British GQ, who also currently serves as Welch’s global deputy. As I wrote a few weeks back, it’s Baidawi’s job to lose, despite the sentiment that he is a safe choice, even more so than Mark Guiducci was at Vanity Fair (he’s doing a pretty good job for now, but probably hasn’t realized yet that he’s wasting precious years playing Sisyphus—Google it) and Chloe Malle at American Vogue (first cover coming!).

But the real difference between Baidawi and the Wintour kids is that there were a lot of people who wanted those two to win based on their near-lifetime service to Anna. And that, fairly or not, his not being American makes him an outsider at an insular company that is still filled with internal celebrities, even if there is scant external-facing talent. Just saying: He’s going to have to do more to draw attention to the magazine—and himself.

Fortunately, though, this isn’t going to be a drawn-out process. I suspect the company will announce the incoming editor within weeks of Welch’s departure, if not sooner. Make sure to text me during the all-hands.
Olympics in the other fashion city: Paris may be the heart of the fashion industry, but Milan is its backbone, and so it’s no surprise that Italian brands played such an important role in Friday night’s Milano Cortina 2026 Olympics Opening Ceremony. Giorgio Armani, which outfits the Italian team via its EA7 Emporio Armani collection, was particularly present. The designer, who died last fall, was honored with an homage featuring 60 models in green, white, and red Armani suits, punctuated by current campaign star Vittoria Ceretti in an Armani Privé gown.

Independence remains prized in Italy, even if the big groups have more control and influence than ever. The dominance of Armani (with an assist from Remo Ruffini and Moncler) underscores the differences between Paris and Milan. During the Summer 2024 Games in Paris, by contrast, the superconglomerate LVMH was an official partner and central to the conversation.

As for the sartorial showings by country, it was pretty boring. (Ralph Lauren was the best, but obviously, nothing will ever beat Lithuania’s Issey Miyake uniforms in 1992 for the Barcelona Olympics.) However, what’s really unique this time is the quality of the buyable merch produced by everyone from Gap to J.Crew, the official “lifestyle partner” of U.S. Ski & Snowboard. (I bought the rugby.) I’m confident we’ll see some great things as the Games go on, too. Did you clock the custom Oscar de la Renta–designed looks for Canadian figure skater Deanna Stellato-Dudek? It’s giving Vera Wang–Nancy Kerrigan, and I kind of loved it.
Saks Global is easing back in: It can feel like the Saks Global that existed in 2025 was a dream, especially with former Neiman Marcus Group chief Geoffroy van Raemdonck now installed in the C.E.O. role. Just this past week, he rehired Cheryl Han, another one of his deputies, as chief marketing and chief digital officer, which resulted in the exit of another three Saks Global execs. (Han had left in August 2025.)

I hear that the company is busy negotiating with vendors regarding back payments, but also establishing best practices moving forward. (Orders during January were business-as-usual, with buyers on the Saks Global side acting like nothing happened in many cases.) To be clear, the restructuring is far from over, and as Dry Powder’s Bill Cohan reminded me when we were catching up last night at the game, there are court filings nearly every day. (Disclosure: Saks sued Puck over our coverage of its liability management.)

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Rachel Strugatz

A new Sephora darling?: There’s a lot of chatter surrounding Ebb Ocean Club, a newish haircare brand that’s launching at Sephora this week. Haircare, of course, is a much smaller category for the retailer than makeup and skincare, but Ebb Ocean Club will be differentiated in a few ways, and has been described as a “hot surfer girl” haircare line—meaning younger-leaning, and a nice complement to all the serious, sciencey stuff that works great but isn’t for everyone.

Two things have piqued my interest. First, I heard that Sephora is already planning to launch the brand in another global market in the next several months. Typically, that’s a perk for super-established or priority brands like Rhode, but I know that one of Sephora’s priorities now is globalizing the organization so that the different markets are less siloed. The other is Ebb’s positioning, which is leaning into the skincare thing, but not in the way you think. Many lines focus on treating the scalp’s skin similarly to the face, but Ebb’s thing is hair barrier health, a category-crossing marketing differentiator akin to Rhode advertising its lip glosses as “peptide treatments.” (P.S.: Sephora still has not made a statement, by the way, on any of the Huda stuff.)

And now, the main event...

Vanilla Skylrk

Celebrity fashion brands are challenging in the best of times, no matter the supporting star power. So what is the potential ceiling for Skylrk, Justin Bieber’s newish apparel line?

Lauren Sherman

On Friday afternoon, while driving up Coldwater Canyon on my way to lunch in Beverly Hills, traffic slowed just enough for me to clock a couple giant S.U.V.s parked on the soft shoulder of the winding road. I noticed a young man with a shaved head wearing drawstring shorts, floppy sandals, and a black, possibly airbrushed t-shirt walking up to the driver of one of the cars. Was that… Justin Bieber? He looked at me looking at him, then I kept moving; there was no time to take a photo, if only to prove to myself that it happened.

I’ll probably never find out whether it was actually him, not far from the home he shares with his wife. But I know that Bieber is in moneymaking mode. As Puck’s own Matt Belloni reported, Bieber owed his former manager, Scooter Braun, about $30 million until last year, when they settled for an undisclosed sum. His performance at the Grammys will likely preface a live tour to promote his 2025 album, Swag, despite the fact that he has publicly called the idea of touring again “daunting.” But it also showcased another endeavor: Onstage, he wore nothing but a pair of light blue silk (?) boxers from his own apparel line, Skylrk, which launched in the middle of last year to relatively little fanfare. The brand is a growing fascination of mine, if only because the undertaking itself seems quixotic. Why is he bothering with fashion?

Of course, celebrities are practically required to have some sort of branded product these days. But it’s difficult to make these things successful, no matter how famous or beloved the star. Even if the product hits, popularity is finite, and any financial windfall depends on timing. No one knows this better than Bieber’s wife, Hailey: Rhode, her beauty brand, sold to E.l.f. for $1 billion last year. The timing was right, and both she and Justin benefited from its success. (Justin Bieber owned less than 10 percent of the brand, according to sources familiar with Rhode’s presale equity breakdown, but that was surely enough to pay off said debts. A rep for Rhode did not respond to a request for comment.)

Bieber has yet to create a similarly powerful product—few do—but Skylrk may be his attempt at a significant exit. Perhaps the quiet rollout was intentional: Bieber has done minimal press to promote the collection, which includes jeans, wrap-around sunglasses, the aforementioned boxer shorts, and the water slides that I saw him shuffling around in (I think) on the side of the road.

If Skylrk looks like Yeezy to you, it’s not just because of the manosphere audience. The team actually shares much of the same DNA, including former Yeezy C.E.O. Matt George, a sort of undercover Zelig type, as well as several designers. (A rep for Skylrk declined to comment on the matter.)

Goop’s Cautionary Tale

Despite the lack of traditional hype, Skylrk is plenty successful. Each 10,000-unit drop—released twice per month—is generating in the vicinity of $2 million in sales. That’s not bad, given the run size, but also not life-changing.

I can’t help but compare Skylrk to Syrn, Sydney Sweeney’s lingerie venture backed by Ben Schwerin and Coatue. Not because both names are missing vowels, or because Sweeney’s current boyfriend is Braun, who became famous for once managing Bieber before he incurred the wrath of Taylor Swift. Rather, both projects feel woefully outdated.

Sweeney’s underwear line actually looks pretty nice (remember, I wrote a book on the subject), but the messaging is off—and anyway, it takes a tremendous amount of capital, market knowledge, and targeted advertising to make a business work in the incredibly crowded underpinnings category. At best, she’ll sell it for a meager profit a couple of years from now. (This isn’t the next Victoria’s Secret or even the next Savage x Fenty, especially with a name like that.) Bieber, of course, is a bigger celebrity, and certainly more beloved, but he’s also making something that was popular five or 10 years ago. Even Demna, the designer from whom this look originated, has moved on for the time being. At Gucci, he’s designing pencil skirts.

Of course, Skylrk doesn’t ever have to be Bieber’s profit center—unlike many influencers who index on ubiquity over talent, he’s a 31-year-old performer who can still make hundreds of millions of dollars via touring and music publishing over the coming decades. He’s not an aging actor or pro athlete at the twilight of his career, or a lesser Kardashian. As a result, his low-key marketing is probably the best way to grow a derivative revenue stream while maintaining his own brand credibility and keeping a bit of distance between the two. It’s increasingly clear that the real money is still in traditional licensing deals—and investing in other people’s better ideas. But when you’re used to being at the center of the universe, even when you’re inexplicably parked on a soft curb off of Coldwater Canyon, that’s easier said than done.

What I’m Reading…

Condé Nast is suing a woman who self-publishes a cheesy magazine called Dogue, citing trademark infringement. I mean, they are not wrong, and Vogue’s Dogue is Chloe Malle’s greatest work to date. [Air Mail]

Best dressed at the Directors Guild Awards: Chloé Zhao in Gabriela Hearst, The Ringer’s Amanda Dobbins in my Loewe dress (this one), and actress Rhea Seehorn in another Loewe dress that I also own (so random!) and showed to Amanda, but we decided the sleeves were too big for such an occasion. (You decide.)

Thierry Conrad Reutenauer is now Loewe’s C.M.O. He’s so nice! [WWD]

Until tomorrow,
Lauren

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