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| Hi, and welcome back to Line Sheet. Americans, did you pay your taxes (or at least have your wealth managers mitigate the consequences with elaborate passthrough schemes)?
Thanks to all the readers who wrote in to say they were eager for me to see Challengers, which I’m doing tonight. What’s the point of living in Los Angeles if you can’t weasel your way into a screening now and again?
I received quite a bit of pertinent feedback last week, so thank you for that, too. Today, along with necessary updates on ongoing conversations and Line Sheet persons of interest, I’m finally addressing the rumors that John Galliano might be folded back into LVMH. In my prep notes, I also wrote down the word “Cose.” If you know what I was talking about, reply to this email. We’ll put you on the waitlist for the new clinical trial for Puck’s semaglutide.
Oh, and remember, your accountant should be deducting media subscriptions. Don’t be cheap—sign up for Puck here. Look, you don’t just get me, you get the best of the best on foreign policy (Julia Ioffe), and the wacky political landscape (Peter Hamby, Tina Nguyen, Tara Palmeri, Abby Livingston, Teddy Schleifer), plus the top domain experts in media (Dylan Byers), finance (William Cohan), entertainment (Matt Belloni and Julia Alexander), sports business (John Ourand), the art world! (Marion Maneker), law (Eriq Gardner), and the environment (Baratunde Thurston). If you like what I’m doing, you will also like what they’re doing, and you will also come across way smarter the next time you have to socialize. (Thinner, too.)
Mentioned in this issue: John Galliano, Sidney Toledano, LVMH, Bastien Daguzan, Jacquemus, Fear of God, Bernard Arnault, more Condé union drama, Karl Lagerfeld, The Row, Architectural Digest, Marc Jacobs, Catbird, Salone del Mobile, the Olympics, Hermès, Stone Island, Margiela, and many more. |
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- Wow, that Bastien Daguzan is hot property: Last week, I wrote about the young executive’s strange exit from Jacquemus at the end of 2023. I mentioned the rumors he was headed to Victoria Beckham or Ludovic de Saint Sernin (the latter of which he already advises). More recently, I received a tip from a closely connected source that: a) Daguzan’s new job was actually in the U.S. and b) it was with Fear of God, the Los Angeles-based merch-and-fashion label run by designer Jerry Lorenzo. After further investigation, I learned that Daguzan is a consultant for several brands—and perhaps Fear of God is one of them—but that he’s not currently slated to take a full-time job anywhere. It’s an incredible amount of speculation for one 40-year-old executive.
Regardless, Fear of God is a brand to watch: It’s already quite large ($200 million-plus in sales), and its different divisions can be sold convincingly at the low (PacSun) and high end of the retail spectrum (Bergdorf Goodman) without tension, kind of like Nike, Levi’s, or… actually, there aren’t a lot of small, new brands that pull this off. The difference between a performance brand and Fear of God, though, is that nothing is, to swipe the brand’s own word, essential. Fear of God is broadly known for merch and, in fashion-people circles, suiting. To successfully scale today, however, a brand needs an essential or go-to item behind a trendy t-shirt. Anyway, the show at the Hollywood Bowl last spring indicated that Lorenzo’s fashion ambitions are even bigger than imagined.
- As if morale could get any lower…: On Friday, Condé Nast management sent a note about merit-based raises across the “global workforce,” pointedly and poignantly adding that, if you’re in the union, you won’t be getting one. Management is blaming the union, saying that because the union “ignored” the most recent contract proposal, they won’t be able to institute raises for that group.
I’ve never participated in union contract negotiations, but it’s common sense that you need to make employees feel valued in order to elevate their performance and help the company overall. Alas, we’ve entered the stage of this Condé Nastiness where everyone resents everyone. Employees probably wish that they hadn’t willingly taken guidance from their caustic union leaders; corporate management hates the union; and employees on the list and off are wondering whom to trust. Maybe they’ll all go work for Joanna Coles at The Daily Beast. Condé comms chief Danielle Carrig did not respond to a request for comment.
- The Row’s latest stockist…: Is Walmart? Last week, I reported that a bankrupt Matches was selling full-priced items through Walmart’s marketplace, but that The Row had somehow been spared the indignity. “I wonder if The Row has some fabulous lawyer who protected them from the Walmart thing somehow?” an editor friend asked. “I wonder who their lawyers are. They were the biggest losers in Barneys. Maybe they learned something?” Turns out, the Olsens are actually just like us—or at least, like their fellow designers—because The Row is being sold through Walmart.com. You have to search “The Row fashion” for it to come up on the first page, but it’s there. Including a $2,936.48 shoulder bag.
- More Condé intrigue: Friends of mine have been served a bizarre Instagram advertisement from Hartley Law, a Texas-based firm. The copy reads: “Have you subscribed to or visited Architectural Digest magazine’s website? If you have, you might be entitled up to $2,500 in statutory damages by filing an arbitration claim.”The gist: AD may not have been super-forthcoming about using data-collection tools including Google, Facebook, and TikTok. “Your privacy may have been violated and personal information shared by tracking you without your knowledge or consent,” the ad concludes. The comments on the post are funny: “Is this a joke?” “lol,” “I thought this was @theonion.” Anyway, it's ironic that Condé, a company that is not profitable, is getting targeted for a class action… via Architectural Digest, of all titles. (Once again, I did not hear back from Danielle.)
- The Catbird investment mystery unravels: As I suspected, it was fairly easy to find out how Catbird, the Brooklyn fine-fine jewelry spot, is expanding. Victor Capital Partners, a small firm, invested in the retailer in October 2021. Partner David Affinito—whose wife, Allison Greenwell, is a merchandiser who’s worked at Hermès, Tiffany, Hill House Home, and other places you know—led the deal. The rumor going around was that Victor Capital Partners put in $15 million, but I haven’t been able to confirm the figure. (A rep for Catbird confirmed the investment, but would not share further details.) Founder Rony Vardi, who still owns a “large” part of the company, runs creative and brand direction, while Mo Sakurai was named C.E.O. in 2022.
- The Milano chatter: I’ve never been to Salone del Mobile, the Milan furniture fair that starts tomorrow, but my husband has told me it’s a much more relaxed, pleasurable experience than a fashion week. (He’s been to many of those, too.) Perhaps that’s why fashion brands have effectively taken over Milan Design Week: Advertisers these days are looking for the best ways to reach wealthy, knowledgeable customers, and in many cases, adjacent (or less-penetrated) categories are more efficient.
The usual suspects will be there: Hermès, Loewe (with a bigger-and bolder-than-you’d-imagine take on lamps), and Bottega Veneta (partnering with Cassina on an exhibition featuring a special edition of Le Corbusier’s LC14 Cabanon stool, which we sat on at the last show). Sunday marked the opening of Prada Frames at the Bagatti Valsecchi Museum, a palatial former home, with contributors including everyone from Brigitte Baptiste and Kate Crawford to Alice Rawsthorn and Isabella Rossellini.
Sticking with the theme, Gucci launched a special exhibition today at its flagship store in the city. The Guillermo Santomà-designed space—co-curated by Sabato (no last name needed anymore) and P:S’s Michela Pelizzari—features five Italian design pieces, from Nanda Vigo’s chest of drawers for Acerbis to the Parola lamp reworked in Ancora red. (About a week later, an edition run will drop on Gucci.com.)
Even less-obvious brands are getting in on this, like Moncler-owned, footballer-favorite Stone Island, run by former Gucci executive Robert Triefus, which launched an exhibition featuring 100 “prototypes.” Anyway, it’s no wonder so many publications are all up in this. (The week used to really belong to T, but it feels like there’s room for others now.) If someone wants to co-host a Puck private dinner next year, let Alexandra@puck.news know!
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| Can Galliano Go Home Again? |
| Assessing all the endless, yet increasingly plausible, rumors suggesting Galliano’s LVMH homecoming—and where, precisely, he might land. And if it’s even true… |
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| There was plenty to chew on from the Vogue World press conference in Paris back in February: The Place Vendôme coup, the buy-in of both LVMH and the French government, the sheer magnitude of staging such an event in the lead-up to this summer’s Olympics. Walking out of the Ritz that night, however, all I could think about was the casual conversation I’d witnessed during arrivals between Sidney Toledano—the former C.E.O. of Dior, former head of the LVMH Fashion Group, and current head of the Chambre Syndicale de la Haute Couture—and his long-ago designer, John Galliano. The Maison Margiela creative director was seated on a curved-back sofa with his boyfriend, Alexis Roche, facing out into the gilded Salon Marie-Louise.
It wasn’t surprising that Toledano and Galliano were exchanging pleasantries. I had just previewed the documentary High & Low, the Condé Nast-produced, Kevin Macdonald-directed attempt at charting Galliano’s rise (he was appointed to Givenchy in 1995, and then to Dior), his fall (in 2011, following a drunken, antisemitic rant), and his third act at Margiela. I wouldn’t say Macdonald did anything to exonerate the designer—his shortcomings are obvious—but the relationship between Toledano and Galliano is carefully, honestly, and vividly depicted. (Galliano’s visit to the Dior archives is the emotional peak.) Toledano’s feelings about Galliano—his addiction, his rants—are more believable than anything else.
I didn’t expect the film to facilitate Galliano’s return to the LVMH fold—an idea first sparked by Dana Thomas, the fashion journalist and Galliano biographer, in March. At the time, I dismissed the Galliano-to-LVMH chatter, if only because it didn’t make financial sense. But after hearing much more of the same speculation from sources I trust, I’m convinced that his return is possible, though hardly preordained. |
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| Your glam should be as hands-free as your business calls. (That’s what we call boss energy.) Book now using the code LINESHEET and receive 20% off your next Glamsquad service.
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| The challenge with Galliano is that his creative direction is best suited to an earlier time, when the spectacle of the runway was enough to fuel sales of ancillary products—handbags, makeup, fragrance, etcetera. Today, runway shows have to drive sales of what’s actually on the runway, too. Galliano’s current posting at Margiela works for owner Renzo Rosso, in part, because the brand is already expertly merchandised. Having a critically lauded designer at the fore—even if his designs are but a small part of the commercial offering—is worth the marketing expense. The decade-long investment bore fruit with January’s magnificent-by-most-accounts Artisanal show. And for what it’s worth, people close to Rosso refuse to entertain the idea that Galliano could be leaving.
Today, LVMH requires something different from its creative directors than what OTB has required of Galliano. They are product designers and marketers first, and, if we’re lucky, big thinkers, too. (As I’ve mentioned, the platonic ideal for fashion insiders is Loewe’s Jonathan Anderson: creative, commercial, and confident.) And yet, the notion that LVMH and Galliano are hatching a plan to get back together continues to gain steam, with speculation that the designer has met with LVMH chairman Bernard Arnault regarding a potential reunion.
If there were to be a reconciliation, I could imagine it unfolding in several ways. One scenario is that LVMH would bring Galliano back to revive the John Galliano brand, which is all but dormant. In that case, LVMH could strike an agreement with OTB, Rosso’s holding company that owns Margiela, for him to design both lines. It’s not such a crazy idea: Karl Lagerfeld famously worked for Chanel and LVMH, designing Fendi womenswear, for decades. The difference is that Lagerfeld loved the industry’s hamster-wheel, while Galliano blames it for his self-destruction. It’s difficult to believe he’d be willing to re-engage in that way.
Another possibility is that Galliano would leave Margiela to dedicate himself to his namesake, with the intention of finishing his career there. Or perhaps, most intriguing, he might return to Givenchy, where he started his ascent, and which is currently without a creative director. (There were murmurs that Givenchy would promote an unknown from within, but I’m hearing that is no longer the plan.)
It would be an epic, full-circle end to the drama, and Galliano may indeed be what Givenchy needs: a designer who can make elegant clothing while someone else figures out the accessories business. Regardless of what happens, I would not discount Arnault’s loyal nature. Galliano played a large role in the rise of LVMH, and he knows that.
Just look at the way Arnault has managed the Marc Jacobs brand in the decade after Jacobs served his time at Louis Vuitton. While there were many mistakes made in the five years following Jacobs’ departure from LV, Arnault and his team eventually organized Marc Jacobs in such a way that the designer was able to design freely while others took the irreverence that made him special and created a commercial plan around it. Jacobs is particularly suited for this arrangement—he knows how to play the game. Has Galliano learned? |
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| On PP: “I bought a Phoebe leather bomber, which was really expensive, in that last drop. Not only have I worn it every day since, but I get about a billion compliments. Not just from fashion people. The box it came in was f*cking huge, though.” —A fashion person you all know
On PP, Part 2: “I love a well-tailored investment piece, but I was underwhelmed by the fit and fabric quality, especially for the price. On one coat, the button stance was tight and the upper body was huge. That said, I only tried on two jackets. It's great they are in Bergdorf Goodman, where people can touch, feel, and try on before buying. I may be too jaded.” —A fashion-adjacent person most of you know
On PP, Part 3: “By 1:30 p.m., there was a line at Bergdorf Goodman and many pieces were sold out, including the Bean bag, and the trench in many sizes. Felt like fall clothes in spring. I wanted the pants but they were so heavy. Everything felt too warm.” —You definitely know this one
On Hedi’s next move: “Hedi to Chanel is the hot gossip with the Bellport gays 😎. Makes sense to moi.” —A multidisciplinary designer
On Hedi’s next move, Part 2: “Hedi’s job at Celine was to get them to $3 billion. Or whatever it was. He did that… so why not move on to bigger and better? He is an old dog and knows the mechanics of this industry better than anyone. His contribution would only gain value if he left Celine at its peak. And did you see Hedi’s last Celine collection? It was Dior as ever. That said it all. Sue me. 🍸 🍸🍸” —A designer |
| What I’m Reading… and Listening To… |
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| This podcast confirms that Allure founding editor-in-chief Linda Wells is the GOAT for many reasons, but how she handled her 2015 firing from Condé Nast stands out. She by no means condones how they did it—she wasn’t expecting it, and they gave her very little notice before announcing the new editor—but she acknowledges that it was probably time to go (not only for them, but for her). I appreciated that she wanted to stay in the job because she still liked the job, 30 years later. We live in a time where everyone is frustrated and unsatisfied in their work, even when the work is great, and Wells is a reminder that a lot of it comes down to you, not the people around you. Anyway, I love her. I wish she had gone into how the decline of the C.P.G. ad market likely made her the first of the legendary Condé Nast editors to leave. I also need to know her take on the half-facelift. Part 2? [It Was Pretty Great]
Another Wells-era magazine editor, Joanna Coles, is buying 49 percent of The Daily Beast with former ABC exec Ben Sherwood. Dylan Byers with the scoop! [Puck]
If you’re going to read one Roberto Cavalli obit, make it Eric Wilson’s. [BoF]
The Tapestry-Capri merger got EU approval. Let’s go! [Reuters]
On Lauren Sánchez’s absolutely bonkers dress choice for the White House state dinner. I mean, at least it fits her, I guess? [Twitter]
This is a reminder that writing about something terrible with elegance and care is an actual feat. [Harper’s Bazaar]
In other news, people are dumb. [Instagram]
There will be three films produced by Saint Laurent at the Cannes Film Festival. [BoF]
Someone on Twitter (sorry, can’t remember who) referenced Amy Larocca’s 2007 piece on The Row and it is worth revisiting. [NYMag]
It’s not surprising that Amazon is trying to replicate Trader’s Joe’s products by unearthing trade secrets. This is how fashion works, too. At Victoria’s Secret, Les Wexner would sometimes put competitors’ products on the floor, just swapping out the label, to see how it sold before replicating it. What seems dumb is how they went about doing it. [Wall Street Journal]
Txampi Diz is now Casablanca’s C.M.O.—lots of movement this week in the image departments of the big luxury houses. [WWD]
Jane Herman, of denim expertise and lineage, finally launched a jean. It’s mid-rise, which more of you should be wearing. (I know you all still think super-high-waisted pants look good, but they often don’t, especially when it comes to denim.) And they’re the perfect inseam, too. Get excited. [The Only Jane]
Talk about getting woman’d! [Twitter] |
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| And finally… Bergdorf opens at 11 a.m., not 10 a.m. (In my defense, it used to be 10.) Whoops.
Until Wednesday,
Lauren |
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| Introducing Wall Power, Puck’s private email covering the art market. |
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