Hi, and welcome back to Line Sheet. Men’s fashion week is finally underway. First up, Saint Laurent on the rotunda at the Bourse de Commerce, where Anthony Vaccarello showed steely, sexy, suiting studded with brooch-like buttons; featherweight taffeta windbreakers tucked into trousers; and, as you probably already saw on Instagram, see-through shoes, all backlit by Fujiko Nakaya’s Cloud #07156, a fog sculpture that serves as the anchor for the Pinault Collection’s current show, Clair-Obscur. A strong, clear showing for the Kering brand with the strongest, clearest identity.

Later in the evening, Vaccarello, who is good at parties, co-hosted with muse (and Interview magazine cover star) Madonna. I hope you went, and that you’re still out. I was thrilled to spend an hour between shows with Puck’s very own Bill Cohan (subscribe to Dry Powder here) and his truly great wife, the book editor and publisher Deb Futter. I tried to expense our drinks on Puck, but Bill refused. He’s a class act, or just very rich!

In today’s issue, Malique “Malique@puck.news” Morris gets into the business of being Drake. What exactly is OVO? A streetwear brand? A licensing machine? A big mess? Malique has the answers. Meanwhile, I’ve got some news on Ami’s exit options, stylist Charlotte Collet’s Super Tuesday, and the death of an executive who played a notable role in the history of Condé Nast.

Also mentioned in this issue: Kendrick Lamar, Dario Vitale, Alexandre Mattiussi, Pharrell Williams, Will Welch, Pharrell’s holdco, Oliver El-Khatib, Angelica Cheung, OVO Golf, Michael Grynbaum, Drake’s holdco, Tommy Campos, Hyrox, Kylie Jenner, Noah Shebib, Drew Henry, Derek Jancar, and more…

Three Things You Should Know…

Ami’s exit hopes: There’s chatter around Paris that Alexandre Mattiussi’s French label, which more than tripled in size during the pandemic, is entertaining an exit. But it may be difficult to find a buyer at the right price. Five years ago, Ami sold a majority stake to the Chinese arm of Sequoia Capital (led by former Vogue China editor-in-chief Angelica Cheung) at about an $80 million valuation; two years later, the company took on more money (including from Felix Capital) at around a $300 million valuation. Naturally, the latest group of investors will want to see a material return, but there aren’t many strategic acquirers for subscale brands at those kinds of prices. (That’s why Reformation is I.P.O.-ing.) The good news: Ami is still performing well, has a good business in China, and I’m told there isn’t much of a rush, for now. A rep for the company did not respond to a request for comment.
A Charlotte Collet doubleheader: The French stylist, best known for making normal clothes look interesting and interesting clothes look normal at brands including Auralee and Jil Sander, is increasingly in demand. I hear she’s slated to work with new Courrèges designer Drew Henry this fall. But the big news is that, on Tuesday, she partnered with Pharrell Williams at Louis Vuitton for the first time.

Looks from Auralee (three on left) and Louis Vuitton (three on right) at the Men’s Spring/Summer 2027 shows in Paris. Photos: Getty Images

The story is that former GQ editor Will Welch—who joined Pharrell’s holdco this spring in a jack-of-all-trades-type role that someday, somehow, we will all understand better—facilitated Collet’s onboarding. (Williams typically works with Matthew Henson.) After landing in Paris in March, Welch was immediately tasked with assessing the situation at LV, where Pharrell has been designing menswear for three years with mixed results. A stylist can’t fix a bad collection, but she can bring a new tension or idea to a good one that makes it even better.

So, how did Collet fair? The LV gig meant she had two shows in two hours: Auralee at 7 p.m. and LV at 9 p.m. That’s hard enough for a model. Can you imagine what it was like for a stylist? Collet has been working with Auralee designer Ryota Iwai for nearly a decade, and their work together proposes that the banal doesn’t have to be bland. This season, Iwai could have named the collection “un-tuck it” (get it?) after all the free-flying hems let loose by Collet. As for Vuitton, you could see Collet’s influence in the color pairings, but also the hint of irony. (Williams may be the ultimate optimist, but he’s no fool.) One friend, a marketing executive who had no idea Collet was involved, immediately messaged to let me know that she, somehow, surprisingly, “liked LV.” Good news for Williams, Welch, deputy C.E.O. Damien Bertrand, and yes, also for Collet.

R.I.P. Chuck Townsend: The former C.E.O. of Condé Nast died on June 11 in Vero Beach, Florida, where he was battling a serious health condition, according to a note published by his yacht club. Townsend joined Condé Nast in 1994 as publisher of Glamour and was C.E.O. from 2004 to 2015, when he retired. In Empire of the Elite, Michael Grynbaum’s book about the legacy publisher, he’s described as a “genteel, mid-Atlantic lockjaw type who favored elegant suits and once served as commodore of the New York Yacht Club.” Indeed, Townsend was both an avid sailor and a magazine lifer of the type that doesn’t really exist anymore. In 1975, he parlayed the sale of his own company to Hearst into a job as publisher of Motor Boating & Sailing magazine, eventually becoming executive vice president and general manager at Hearst before decamping for the then-robust magazine division of The New York Times Co. and then making the jump to Glamour.

Townsend’s time in the top job at Condé Nast can now be viewed as the last gasp of the halcyon days, as Grynbaum put it. At the time, Condé’s brands could still exercise considerable tastemaking power from its 4 Times Square headquarters. Its editors were celebrities in their own right, and the luxury ad pages still ran thick—at least in the early days. But it was also the beginning of a period of managed decline that has plagued the business for nearly 20 years. The Townsend era encompassed both the brief life of Portfolio and the closure of Gourmet, among others. I remember him being nice.

And now, here’s Malique on the state of Drake…

God’s Plan for OVO

With Drake back in the cultural conversation after a fallow period, his business partners are hoping to connect on a licensing deal for his lingering apparel concern, OVO. A recent creditor lawsuit sheds a lot of light on why their time is now.

Malique Morris

Last week, I broke the news that Drake was in the process of selling a 50 percent stake in his fashion business, OVO, to Authentic Brands Group—a deal that would pair one of the industry’s most legendary rappers with one of fashion’s most infamous licensing firms. In many ways, the partnership makes perfect sense. October’s Very Own, which Drake launched in 2008 with longtime collaborators Oliver El-Khatib and Noah Shebib, began as a lifestyle blog (which was in vogue at the time) before branching out into apparel—$62 tees and $162 hoodies emblazoned with the brand’s gold owl logo, meant to symbolize Drake’s nocturnal proclivities. With the ABG deal, OVO could expand its distribution of glorified merch without shouldering any risk.

Of course, it’s not exactly the headline that Drake probably wanted amid his big musical comeback. After his 2024 beef with Kendrick Lamar sent the Canadian rapper into the cultural wilderness, he returned last month with a triptych of albums, including one, Iceman, that spent four weeks atop the Billboard charts. But while Drake fans are celebrating his restoration, his apparel business appears to be in trouble.

OVO’s apparel division launched in 2011 with grandiose aspirations to become something like the Supreme of Canada. Under the creative direction of Tommy Campos, a New York streetwear bon vivant who joined in 2013 and left last July, OVO forged the kind of collaborations that would earn it Lafayette Street–style credibility with hypebeasts, including with Canada Goose, Bape, Nike, Timberland, and the Japanese cult label Needles. More recent offerings skew heavily toward Fear of God–esque sweat sets with a few swerves. Like many streetwear faves, OVO’s fanbase also seemed to include a healthy subset of 50-year-old “sporty” men, a demo it’s serving with an OVO Golf subbrand.

Between 2019 and 2024, OVO’s apparel unit generated nearly $400 million in sales, according to recent court documents. But those top-line numbers belied a business on shakier ground. OVO’s ambitions were often all over the place, such as when the company bought the naming rights to the Toronto Raptors training facility, which became the OVO Athletic Centre in 2019. And beginning in 2022, I’m told, management started making it clear to staffers that sales growth was slowing as demand fell short of expectations. In 2024, the fashion side of the business generated $72 million in annual sales, the documents stated, but EBITDA losses grew to $8 million. And while longtime finance chief Derek “Drex” Jancar took over as C.E.O. in 2024, Drake’s feud with Kendrick took a toll—sales slowed and a dozen of the brand’s stores were vandalized.

Could the ABG deal be a bailout in disguise? As I also reported last week, a division of the investment firm Applied Real Intelligence, which issues venture and credit debt, sued OVO on June 11 over unpaid bills. The complaint alleges that OVO received $5.2 million in financing from ARI between July and August 2025, and that the company owes the investment firm $4.6 million. OVO had previously filed a suit on June 2 to dispute the amount owed, according to reporting in Billboard. ARI also claims it had “conversion rights” to acquire a stake in OVO at a 20 percent discount and valuation of up to $200 million. (A rep for OVO did not provide a comment for this story).

The Limits of Celebrity

OVO has a complicated financing history. Before working with ARI, the brand had a credit facility with the Royal Bank of Canada, according to last week’s legal filing. Drake and his co-founders personally guaranteed they would pay back the loan if the business couldn’t, the lawsuit alleges. In February 2025, OVO sought to get out of that facility, and could do so only if management proved it could secure $30 million in financing. I’m told that multiple investors passed on the opportunity.

Drake’s personal guarantee is particularly notable—according to multiple sources, the musician hasn’t been involved in OVO’s apparel business for a while amid his focus on other ventures. In 2020, Drake even launched a separate activewear line, NOCTA, with Nike that sells its own Fear of God–style basics and $160 branded Air Force Ones.

In May 2025, ARI stepped up to the plate, providing OVO with a $10 million credit facility, including a $2.5 million advance, with the rights to the brand’s name and owl logo as collateral. But OVO went back to ARI in July 2025 for what ended up being an additional $5.2 million in convertible notes issued over a one-month period. I’m told that OVO intended to distribute a splashy press release about its ARI investment but reneged at the last minute, with Jancar saying the brand didn’t want anyone to know that the company needed outside funding. In January 2026, ARI issued a press release anyway.

In February 2026, ARI issued a notice of default to OVO, and the brand obliged. Three months later, a $3.8 million payment was made from ADG Sound Inc., a separate Drake concern. Now ARI claims there’s still $4.6 million owed in a “make-whole fee” that ensures the company gets its projected return on investment. It’s unclear whether ABG was aware of the lawsuit when it began negotiating with OVO, but it can’t be reassuring that the company leveraged its name and logo to secure its last injection of cash. On the other hand, it’s also a significant point of leverage for ABG—OVO ostensibly needs a deal a lot more than ABG does. (A rep for ABG didn’t respond to a request for comment.)

Yes, financing is hard these days, and cash is more expensive than ever. But the trouble at OVO is also a referendum on key man risk and the limits of a celebrity brand—especially one that’s been less-than-nurtured by its celebrity. There’s no guarantee of sustaining demand for a clothing brand, not even when it’s affiliated with one of the most famous musicians in the culture. And especially not when the star in question hasn’t seemed too interested in the enterprise of late. In any case, this will all become ABG’s problem soon, and they sure as hell know what to do here.

What We’re Reading…

Nike is replacing its C.F.O., Matt Friend, a 17-year company veteran, with David Denton, a former Pfizer exec. [Nike]

L Catterton is looking to acquire a stake in Hyrox, the German fitness brand and racing event organizer. It seems everyone in activewear wants a piece of the running pie. Let’s see who comes out on top. [Bloomberg]

Ssense is replacing in-house photographers and makeup artists with A.I. as part of its restructuring efforts. [The Logic]

Meta launched its own line of $300–$400 smartglasses with the help of EssilorLuxottica, its partner on Meta Ray-Bans, and Kylie Jenner. The nerd goggles might actually become a thing! [Instagram]

Vuori is looking to double its store count amid its expansion in Asia. Rampant store openings are like the new social-media ad blitz for highly capitalized startups, except with a much clearer path to profitability. [WSJ]

And finally… a correction: Yesterday’s item about Dario Vitale’s prospects mentioned Silvia Fendi. That was incorrect. It was supposed to, obviously, refer to Silvana Armani. Mistakes get made, apologies to all involved!

Until tomorrow,
Lauren

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

Puck fashion correspondent Lauren Sherman and a rotating cast of industry insiders take you deep behind the scenes of this multitrillion-dollar biz, from creative director switcheroos to M&A drama, D.T.C. downfalls, and magazine mishaps. Fashion People is an extension of Line Sheet, Lauren’s private email for Puck, where she tracks what’s happening beyond the press releases in fashion, beauty, and media. New episodes publish every Tuesday and Friday.

Puck’s daily art market email, anchored by industry expert Marion Maneker, offers unparalleled access to the mega-auctions and galleries, elite buyers and sellers, and the power players who run this opaque world.

CNN’s M.V.P.

DYLAN BYERS

Knicks Cyber Snafus

ERIQ GARDNER

Armani Musical Chairs

LAUREN SHERMAN

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