Demna Drama, Condé Sightings & Paris Post-Runway Murmurs

Hi, and welcome back to Line Sheet. What a weekend, buds! Yes, I’m still in Paris, hanging on by the thread of my new Alaïa dress. By the time you read this, I’ll hopefully be done for the day, about to fire up another episode of Mr. and Mrs. Smith. (Unfortunately, I don’t know how to fix the motion smoothing on this TV.) This weekend, I saw a lot of fashion (from the Japanese, to Akris and Alexander McQueen), ate a decent amount of steak au poivre (gotta order it medium here for it to come out medium rare), and met some online friends in real life for the first time (👋 to Alison, and also the nice French journalist having a glass of wine with her mom and dog at Passerina). I’ll wrap up my Paris Fashion Week coverage in Wednesday’s issue, and then it’s back to Los Angeles for the Oscars weekend whirlwind. Most importantly, it’s back to Dan and Fritz!! Two more sleeps. Before we get started, I realized that it’s been a while since I’ve made you feel bad for forwarding this private email, or failing to subscribe altogether. You’re in big trouble. Also, I can tell when you say you’re reading me and you’re not, and I think less of you for faking it. Change my mind about your value as a human being and sign up here. (The LINESHEET discount code still works. Don’t be a scumbag!) Mentioned in this issue: Demna, Balenciaga, Guram Gvasalia, Vetements, Jamie Mizrahi, Meghan Markle, LVMH, Loewe, Chemena Kamali, Chloé, Roger Lynch, Condé, Richemont, Pieter Mulier, Alaïa, Schiaparelli, Daniel Roseberry, Willa Bennett, Marie Adam-Leenaerdt, Rabanne, Julien Dossena, Brian Molloy, Hermès, Nadège Vanhee, Antoine Arnault, Alexander McQueen, Seán McGirr, Sabato de Sarno, Diego Della Valle, Jonathan Anderson, Brie Larson, Meg Ryan, and many more.

A MESSAGE FROM AKRIS

Discover the new ANNA HOBO collection in a range of hues. Crafted with the same impeccable craftmanship and attention to detail that has made AKRIS the fashion world’s best kept secret.

Monday Thoughts…

Had lunch with Sweet Baby Jamie today at Le Bristol: The funny thing about the piece I wrote last week regarding rising-star stylist Jamie Mizrahi working with Meghan Markle is that essentially no one cared about the pseudo-princess’s current plans, but everyone wanted to gab about Jamie. What’s up with ThirdLove’s purchase of her business, The Kit? How good of friends is she with Nicolas Ghesquière? Didn’t her parents sell that Montecito house? (Public records say yes, and that’s why you do a story with Arc Digest, right?) The speculation all feels very high school (like the rest of fashion). Anyway, I boil it down to Mizrahi being the girl with the most cake. And the most hustle. One day, we’ll get into the modern mechanics of her styling biz, but for now all I’m going to say is that she is very nice and I would vote her class president.

Rog watch: Who knows what Chanel and Louis Vuitton will bring, but Condé Nast C.E.O. Roger Lynch has been laying low this season. You may recall that I planned to tally the number of shows he attended in Europe. I didn’t see him in Milan at all, and then he wasn’t at the Vogue World announcement last Monday. He was, however, spotted at Dior and Saint Laurent on Tuesday. Stan Duncan, the company’s unpopular chief people officer, who is “responsible for 6,000 team members worldwide,” according to his LinkedIn, was also at Saint Laurent. How cool that the H.R. person got to attend a fashion show! Anyway, perhaps Roger didn’t think it was worth coming back after last week’s board meeting. Perhaps he’s on a plane right now. I’ll keep an eye.

My favorites from the LVMH Prize: It was so kind of the one-and-only Julie Gilhart to introduce me to several designers at Thursday night’s cocktail reception for the LVMH Prize, the group’s very selective young designer competition. Everyone is talking about Duran Lantink as a favorite (I sadly missed his show Sunday). I was also into Brussels-based Marie Adam-Leenaerdt, whom I mentioned last week, and Mexico City’s Patricio Campillo. But there was plenty of good stuff, and it’s always nice to speak to young designers when they still have hope.

Three shows I liked: I thought Rabanne designer Julien Dossena’s take on daywear looked fresh, I loved the layering at Issey Miyake, styled by Brian Molloy (who, as a friend said at dinner the other night, knows how to tell stories with clothes). Hermès, though: Wow, what a great show for womenswear designer Nadège Vanhee. There was a real power in the pin-straight silhouette, styled by Jodie Barnes. I loved how city it all looked, and of course the accessories—from the cowboy boots to the Bolide top-handle bag—were dynamite. (If you didn’t know, pretty much every bag shape on the market today comes from the Hermès archives. You might recognize the Bolide in The Row’s Nina and Margaux styles, for example.)

Demna Family Drama & Other Paris Notes

More news from my Paris romp—Balenciaga, Loewe, McQueen, and more; the front-row drama, and the behind-the-scenes chatter.

LAUREN SHERMAN

On Friday afternoon, I went over to the Balenciaga offices to meet with still surname-free Demna and peruse a few pieces from the new collection. We talked about Los Angeles—where he showed in December—and good taste versus bad, and how the whole tired-from-inception concept of quiet luxury makes the skin crawl. I told him about John Fetterman, and the uproar over the senator’s sweatshirts. Good taste is often in poor taste, if you know what I mean. Trying to look classy often makes you look pathetic.I liked what I saw at the preview, but the Sunday show, which took place in a box constructed over Napoleon’s tomb—the walls, floor, and ceiling lined in screens depicting “morning to night”—was the best thing I’ve seen all week. Before it started, the ceiling’s digital blue sky made it look as if the sun was shining down on us. (It’s been raining.) The product—as Demna comfortably called it, freeing that word from shame—was refreshingly individualistic. In other words, it was the opposite of the repetition-happy collections that many other designers have been showing. (To emphasize the idea of individuality, every “invite” was a tchotchke sourced on eBay that was related to the guest’s past. Mine was a small porcelain poodle, inspired by Ralphie, the family dog. He now lives with my in-laws in Miami.) The fear among the fashion throngs, including me, has been that Demna was stuck. Could he move Balenciaga forward? Here, there were new things to think about. These clothes were Demna, but they were also straight-up sensational. My favorites were the stiffly wrinkled dresses and tiered shirts reminiscent of a famous Cristóbal Balenciaga silhouette.

A MESSAGE FROM AKRIS

Discover the new ANNA HOBO collection in a range of hues. Crafted with the same impeccable craftmanship and attention to detail that has made AKRIS the fashion world’s best kept secret.

The truth is, Balenciaga—and, more broadly, its owner, Kering—needed a win. This was the first collection that felt wholly divorced from the troubles of 2022, and strangely, I think the trip to Los Angeles may have served as a catalyst. During our meeting, Demna mentioned that his parents were with him in Hollywood, so they were top of mind when I was seated across from his mother a few hours later at estranged brother Guram Gvasalia’s runway show for Vetements, the brand they once shared. (Demna was the designer, Guram was the business guy. They had a falling out.)Vetements was utterly bizarre. I have nothing to say about the clothes, other than, if Demna is full of ideas, Guram has none. The models were the news. Natalia Vodianova opened—her husband, LVMH scion Antoine Arnault, sat front row—while Marcia Cross of Desperate Housewives fame closed, walking as if she had recently been wounded. Where is the money coming from? Gvasalia seems to want to make this family feud into fashion history: He sent out a shirt that said “Not Mom’s Favorite.” You could laugh, and I looked across the aisle to their mother, Ella Gvasalia, to clock her reaction. She seemed unfazed, and I planned to go over to her after and ask what she thought. But as the crowd emptied out, I could see she was visibly upset and decided to let her be. Strange stuff, I hope they sort it out.

McQueen, Chloé, Loewe, Etcetera

Back to actual fashion. The McQueen show was divisive. Some of the industry’s greatest editors and critics liked it. One told me she liked the energy, that it felt young. Others unequivocally did not. My reaction? Oof, this job is tough. Backstage, new designer Seán McGirr mentioned referencing McQueen’s Spring 1995 collection, “The Birds,” but also “anti-politeness,” and the “idea of improvisation.” McGirr’s dad is a mechanic, and there were references to cars: Lamborghini yellow, dresses made out of metal, etcetera. So many looks for a first collection (52).I’m not a fashion historian by any means, but a plain eye can see the connection between what McGirr did here, and what McQueen achieved with The Birds. What upset people, then? Well, it’s a very personal brand; it’s almost as if people have a parasocial relationship to it. You could go on about this collection being too slick, and feeling A.I.-generated. For me, though, it was missing a sensuality that is absent in a lot of fashion today, which was integral to McQueen’s success. That might just be what Fashion is now, but I worry that McGirr’s missive is to design clothes for young people, or people who want to be young, and that it’ll just become a brand that doesn’t have a real signature; a place to find wardrobe fill-ins. In some ways, that is already the case.

In a charming interview with Vogue’s Nicole Phelps, McGirr mentioned that one sneaker makes up a significant amount of the McQueen business—that’s wild, and reflective of the state of things. McGirr, who only started working on this collection late last year and deserves the same space that was given to Sabato de Sarno at Gucci, was obviously chosen by the Kering brass for a reason. But I do wish there was more context shared on that decision.The other debut everyone is talking about is Chloé, almost universally rated a delight. One knowledgeable industry friend argued that McGirr’s debut and the debut of the Richemont-owned house’s new appointee, Chemena Kamali, were on par, but that the context around the collections has made McQueen feel more loaded. Kamali made pretty, familiar-looking clothes for people who want to look pretty—some of whom were old enough to have lived through the brown belt, black peasant skirt era of boho chic from which she mined. Also, Kamali, with her frayed jeans and miles-long waves, is the customer. I like what’s happening at Richemont right now: I went to see Pieter Mulier’s latest Alaïa collection, spun entirely out of Merino wool, at the showroom last week. It looked fabulous, and I love that it’s selling. (After the appointment, I went downstairs to the store to try on a pair of trousers, and ended up buying a dress instead. Whoops.) Meanwhile, Schiaparelli, an experimental brand still finding its commercial footing, often looks great during couture and is inspiring on the red carpet, but has failed to impress me at the ready-to-wear shows. I wonder if designer Daniel Roseberry and Schiaparelli’s owner, Tod’s C.E.O. Diego Della Valle, should take a cue from Alaïa and stay off the crowded de la mode calendar. It’s the wrong delivery mechanism for his ideas. Also, I’m allergic to ties—Highsnobiety E.I.C. Willa Bennett pulls it off, but in most cases, they feel so phony. I know that Schiaparelli’s surreal version, made of braided hair, is supposed to be funny, but it wasn’t. Before McQueen, of course, McGirr was employed by J.W. Anderson. Jonathan Anderson’s studios are fertile poaching ground, and he recently lost a right hand at Loewe, too: Adrian Appiolaza, now designing Moschino. There can be magic in collaboration, but Anderson is his own brain trust. Friday’s Loewe show was so great: the glass-beaded floral sweatshirt, the cargo pants, the tails, the chiffon tartan, with Detroit-born painter Albert York’s small-scale paintings hung gallery-style on walls in the shade of Pantone 577. I like it when designers comment on domesticity, especially when they comment on class, too.

The alchemy of Anderson’s front row shouldn’t be ignored, either. Meg Ryan sat next to Sidney Toledano, Brie Larson sat next to Delphine Arnault, who sat next to Loewe C.E.O. Pascale Lepoivre, who sat next to Yang Mi, who sat next to LVMH fashion group C.E.O. Michael Burke, who sat next to another Arnault sibling, Jean Arnault. It’s so clear that Anderson is deeply important to LVMH, and while I am sure they’ve considered him for jobs at bigger houses, I hope he stays at Loewe for as long as it makes sense creatively. Not only does he entertain us each season, but he’s managed to make it a real business along the way.

What I’m Reading… And Listening to…

Phoebe is back with the “second edit” March 7! [Inbox]The Row released images of the no-phones show. [Instagram] Hanuk, a photographer and documenter of a long-gone scene, keeps posting photos of fashion people from the mid-aughts. [Instagram] If you’re a grown man and still looking for jeans (JH, how are those Orslow’s working out?), Chris has some additional thoughts. [The Strategist] Related, people are emotional about pants. (Great cover, styled by Karolyn Pho.) [The New York Times Magazine] Nick Haramis wrote a lovely profile of Rick Owens. [T magazine] So did Jacob Gallagher. [WSJ] Sorry I dropped the ball on the Naadam-Quince cheap-cashmere battle, but you can catch up here. Why are people so crazy? [Instagram] I’m at the point in this trip where I’ve exhausted nearly all of my podcast feeds. I tried listening to an hour and 40 minutes of my friend Amanda talking about Dune 2, but for once decided that I needed to see the movie first. Instead, I unearthed this interview with David Granger, the former Esquire editor, and was reminded that, for about two years, two nights a month, in the mid-aughts, I used to go into the Esquire office and hard-code the magazine so that they could throw it up on the website. Semi-related: Last week I did a podcast with Granger’s old Hearst colleague, Troy Young, and his content friends Brian Morrissey and Alex Schleifer. [Silly Name and People vs. Algorithms]

And finally… Maybe it’s time to unfree the nipple?Until Wednesday, Lauren

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