Hi, and welcome to the first-ever Wednesday edition of Line Sheet.

New York, I am back! So back that, yesterday, Instagram’s Eva Chen and I unofficially kicked off Fashion Week with a super-secret, teeny-tiny Puck private dinner in the West Village at San Sabino, a restaurant that is not even open yet. Thank you to the designers, editors, retailers, and stylists who came out to share John Galliano stories, debate the thesis of Filterworld, and discuss what the heck is happening at fashion’s new downtown canteen, the Water Street Associates Building.

What’s that, you say? Don’t worry, I’ll have more on WSA soon, but as usual when we do these things, last night was off the record. I hope everyone enjoyed the fashion real talk. (Even the person who cried.)

Thank you, also, to the incredible partnerships team at Instagram (Wenona forever) and my Puck partners Eric Van Gelder, Alex Bigler, and Liz Gough. (If you want to work with us, too, hit up [email protected].) Thank you to Henry Zankov for designing custom scarves for the guests. Thank you to chef-owners Angie Rito and Scott Tacinelli for letting us test-drive the menu. And most of all, thank you to Eva for making it happen. As I mentioned at dinner, Eva and I met in the fourth row at a Marc Jacobs show more than a decade ago, and for some reason she’s been nice to me ever since.

Mentioned in this issue: Fabrizio Freda, the Lauders, Jason Wu, Joseph Altuzarra, The Ordinary, Tracy Chapman, Shana Randhava, Marni, Francesco Risso, The Row, Daniel Mahler, Stéphane de La Faverie, and many more…

Speaking of which: Today is our inaugural beauty send, featuring Puck contributing beauty correspondent Rachel Strugatz’s revealing look into what’s happening at Estée Lauder. This is going to be a year of difficult, but necessary, transformation at America’s leading beauty conglomerate, with succession questions looming as growing pains mire its M&A opportunities.
I’m obsessed with Estée because it’s one of the greatest, most undercovered companies around, and there’s no one better equipped to shed a little light than Rachel.

But first…

• Micro NYFW drama: There are too many shows happening during New York Fashion Week, always, but the CFDA does try to prevent overlaps. Unfortunately, something went awry with...