Good morning, It was another fabulous week: Matt Belloni surveyed HBO’s new age with Casey Bloys; Kim Masters reported on a Hollywood succession cautionary tale; Eriq Gardner presaged the Paramount-Trump negotiations; Dylan Byers scooped the Redstone 60 Minutes interference backstory; Lauren Sherman and Bill Cohan tag-teamed the metastasizing Saks debt crisis; Rachel Strugatz penetrated the Estée Lauder C-suite; Sarah Shapiro contemplated a fashion retail zag; Marion Maneker previewed the top lots in the May sales; Julie Davich generously discovered a fair for the working rich; Julia Alexander analyzed an NBCU pickle; and John Ourand sleuthed an NBA mystery. Meanwhile, Leigh Ann Caldwell assessed the G.O.P.’s midterm mood; Julia Ioffe articulated Trump’s Obama Doctrine; Peter Hamby charted Pete Buttigieg’s foray into the “manosphere”; and Abby Livingston illuminated the latest impeachment murmurs. Check out these stories, and others, via the links below. And stick around for the backstory on how it all came together.

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JOOPITER, the online auction platform founded by Pharrell Williams, presents The Contemporary Take—its inaugural auction dedicated to contemporary art. Guest curator Martha Stewart shares her perspective on the sale featuring both blue-chip and emerging artists. Bid now, before the auction closes May 6 on JOOPITER.com.

Lauren Sherman games out the Sakspocalypse and conjures Barneys in the afterlife. and… Rachel Strugatz stress tests the new Estée Lauder executive team. meanwhile… Sarah Shapiro checks in with Thakoon Panichgul.

Marion Maneker previews the $1.16 billion May sales and reassesses the John Chamberlain market. and… Julie Davich captures the flavor from Expo Chicago.

Matt Belloni asks Casey Bloys about HBO’s pivot back to the “better is better” days. and… Kim Masters chronicles the New Regency succession stumbles. meanwhile… Eriq Gardner and Matt trade notes on Shari Redstone’s not good, very bad options.

Dylan Byers reveals Shari’s 60 Minutes influence operation. and… John Ourand wades into an NBA mystery. meanwhile… Julia Alexander unpacks Peacock’s NBA hopes and realities.

Bill Cohan chats with Peter Orszag and digs into the Saks debt stack.

Leigh Ann Caldwell gathers all the latest Trump chatter on the Hill. and… Peter Hamby inspects the Buttigieg ’28 tea leaves. plus! Abby Livingston measures the impeachment momentum on the left, and Julia Ioffe explains the unlikely similarities between Trump and Obama’s foreign policy platforms.

Graydon Carter and Dylan discuss the glory days of the magazine business on The Grill Room. and… Steve Kornacki tells John about his pivot to sports on The Varsity. and… Lauren and creative director Jen Brill examine the art of brand afterlife in Asia on Fashion People. and… John Heilemann and Semafor’s Ben Smith dissect the rise of group chat politics on Impolitic. and… Listen to the entirety of Matt’s two-part interview with Bloys on The Town. and… Peter and Eriq forecast the Paramount endgame on The Powers That Be.

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On Thursday afternoon, the first day of May, I headed uptown to meet a friend for lunch at The Mark. The Upper East Side is having a bit of a moment these days—the result, I suppose, of the suburbification of Tribeca and the arrival of a couple chic new dives (Robin Birley’s Maxime’s and Cafe Commerce)—among other factors. I always think of The Mark as ground zero for creative executives, rock stars of a certain age, and highly pedigreed billionaires. It’s also a sentimental favorite of mine: I remember having a celebratory drink there more than four years ago as Puck’s Series A financing was rounding to completion. Anyway, the hotel was brimming with fashion people who had arrived in town early for the Met Gala, the industry’s annual pilgrimage to honor Anna Wintour, which takes place Monday.

A MESSAGE FROM OUR SPONSOR

JOOPITER, the online auction platform founded by Pharrell Williams, presents The Contemporary Take—its inaugural auction dedicated to contemporary art. Guest curator Martha Stewart shares her perspective on the sale featuring both blue-chip and emerging artists. Bid now, before the auction closes May 6 on JOOPITER.com.

I spend a lot of time contemplating the contours of every market that Puck covers—the macroeconomic issues, the players and strivers, the hegemons and disruptors, alike. But I’ve been devoting an inordinate number of hours to scrutinizing the fashion industry of late. In particular, I’ve become fascinated by the travails of Saks Global, the franken-retailer created last year in the roll-up of Saks, Neiman Marcus, and Bergdorf. Seemingly since day one, the company has been star-crossed—rounds of layoffs, payment restructuring, store closures, etcetera—but, as has become the case with our broader economy, the real leading indicator is the bond market. The company’s $2.2 billion publicly traded senior secured bond, due in 2029, was trading at 67 cents on the dollar last week and yielding 22 percent. In other words, the bond had lost a third of its value in the four months since it was issued last December as part of the Saks Fifth Avenue parentco’s $2.7 billion acquisition of Neiman Marcus Group. Meanwhile, a $120 million-ish interest payment is due on the bonds at the end of June. In many ways, Saks Global represents what remains of the multibrand luxury retail experience in an ever more vertically integrated, direct-to-consumer age. And while brands and conglomerates may take issue with the company’s tactics—they’ve pushed back payments to vendors and partnered with Amazon, among other steps—they all need Saks Global to survive. It is, after all, a systemically important financial institution—SIFI, as they say on Wall Street—in the fashion and retail space. The company sells, merchandizes, and stores product, and many brands would be cooked without it. The Saks saga has factored significantly in the recent work of two generationally talented partners here at Puck, both of whom have explored the dynamic and second-order effects with aplomb and rigor. In The Saks Debt Scaries, the peerless Bill Cohan evaluates the company’s financial viability and the predatory interests of its creditors. Lauren Sherman, inarguably the most influential writer in the fashion industry, takes a more granular look at the market aftershocks in Is Saks Too Big to Fail?. Both stories articulate the lingering anxiety within the industry, despite all the pomp at The Mark, about how this might shake out. If you have any time this weekend, I’d urge you to curl up on your outdoor furniture and give both pieces a read. You’ll see the industry in a new way, and feel like you’re reading the biography of our age, one day at a time. That, of course, is something that you can only find in Puck.

Have a great weekend, Jon

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