Hi, and welcome back to Line Sheet. Soft launching here that I’ll be in Paris June 19-25, mostly for already-scheduled meetings during couture and before that, a little family break. However, I am attending three to five shows and also around for playground dates… maybe even a few drinks. Dinner, too? Let’s try! (Also, my Paris babysitter moved to Los Angeles, lol, so if you have any recommendations on the temporary childcare front, please don’t be shy.)

🚨🚨Programming note: Tomorrow on Fashion People, my guest is film producer and couture collector Fabiola Beracasa Beckman. We discuss her latest project, Diane von Furstenberg: Woman in Charge, how brands determine which couture client gets which dress, our buddy Thomas Onorato, going to Bungalow 8 with John Galliano and Mischa Barton, and interning for Karl Lagerfeld. For a good time, subscribe here.

Today, I’ve got some thoughts on Jonathan Anderson and his future at LVMH, plus a Condé check-in (Did you think I forgot about you? Never!), an early readout on a print media launch, and a scoop on some fairly big strategic news from YNAP and their business in China. Also, Rachel “[email protected]” Strugatz is back with news of a fragrance brand that investors are watching.

P.S., thank you to the fashion communications firm that recently signed up for a Puck corporate membership. You are good and honest people. If you would like me to think better of you as well, email [email protected] to talk group rates. (And if you are an island, here’s a little discount anyway.) Let’s get started.

Mentioned in this issue: Jonathan Anderson, Loewe, Fast Retailing, YNAP, Régime des Fleurs, Alia Raza, Chloë Sevigny, Condé Nast, Pamela Drucker Mann, Roger Lynch, Emily in Paris, Philippine Leroy-Beaulieu, Nick Vogelson, Sarah Richardson, Roger Federer, Peter Do, Tadashi Yanai, Delphine Arnault, LVMH, Avery Trufelman, and many more.

• The next Byredo: Perfume is a funny thing. The most personal of any beauty category, we relish in finding a signature scent, or something that makes us smell different than everyone else. I know the goal for most brands is to scale and make money, but something happens when a scent gets too popular; early adopters don’t want to smell like everyone else, and thus, need to find what’s next.

  Byredo and Parfums de Marly already got huge payouts (in acquisitions that valued them at $1 billion and $700 million, respectively). Surely, D.S. & Durga will be next now that Manzanita Capital is an investor. The San Francisco-based venture capital fund—founded by Gap Inc. heir and current board member Bill Fisher—kind of operates like a private-equity shop. The firm looks for majority-control positions, just earlier in a company’s lifecycle than traditional P.E. would.

  Régime des Fleurs, a pretty small perfume brand that all of a sudden seems to be everywhere—including The Row’s stores—may be next. Naturally, Moda Operandi just hosted a party on behalf of the line’s Little Flower perfume at Fouquet’s. Chloë Sevigny, who is friends with Régime des Fleurs founder Alia Raza, co-hosted the event and also happens to be the co-creator of the scent. The event wasn’t tied to a product launch (the scent’s been around for five years). Instead, Jessica Matlin, Moda’s director of beauty and home, told me that Little Flower is the site’s best-selling fragrance.

  Like Parfums de Marly, Régime has actually been around for a decade, but just now appears to be hitting its stride—the result of Raza “professionalizing” and refining the operation, I’m told. The brand is cool, the products are beautiful, and as far as indie fragrance goes, $240 a bottle is practically midprice. Is this a company that could be an eventual acquisition target? All it needs is a viral TikTok moment and it will be well on its way. —Rachel Strugatz

• YNAP exits China: The yappers were yapping all over Europe this evening about an announcement emailed to brands by the Yoox Net-a-Porter Group earlier today. No, Richemont hasn’t sold it (yet) but it did announce that it would be exiting China, a joint venture with Alibaba that was announced five years ago.

  It’s no surprise that YNAP, which is for sale by the Swiss luxury group for plenty of good reasons, is leaving the market. My guess is that this is yet another way of preparing the business to be owned by someone else. As for who that someone will be, call me if you know anything!

• So, um, who is going to get Pam’s job?: Perhaps Condé Nast C.E.O. Roger Lynch has already found a replacement within his ranks for outgoing chief revenue officer Pamela Drucker Mann (her last day is in early August), but it sounds like he will likely appoint an outside candidate. Lynch and chief people officer Stan Duncan are working directly with Spencer Stuart on the search, and are casting the net as far as Hollywood and tech. After all, Lynch needs a scaled operator with deep relationships, and he’s likely to find those outside traditional publishing. If he hired such a person, of course, his legions of top sellers—those who have called on the same portfolios of fashion and beauty brands for decades—will have their guards up immediately, replicating the Jim Norton misadventure. So it goes…

  I assume Lynch knows that it probably doesn’t make sense to elevate a Pam person—or really, anyone internally. However, that doesn’t mean he won’t end up mining from the Condé Nast diaspora. Word is that Josh Stinchcomb, the current global chief revenue officer at The Wall Street Journal and Barron’s Group, was an early target. Before Dow Jones, Stinchcomb spent a decade at Condé in various advertising and marketing roles and was at Wired before the publisher acquired it in 2006. Would he want to go home again? He has the benefit of understanding the culture of Condé while also breathing enough outside air to know that things don’t have to be that way. But Stinchcomb, the focus of many top media executive searches, probably already has a more desirable job. In fact, I heard he already passed.

  There are, however, other options. I’ve heard people chew over the name Lisa Valentino (most recently of Disney), but that seems far-fetched. Kim Kelleher, a longtime C-suite favorite, split in 2019 for AMC and could be an option. (Kelleher also spent a minute at Say Media when I was hanging around there.) Regardless, if it ends up being an outsider with insider knowledge, they will need to know that they are entering a different Condé Nast—a company that has not only been ravaged by layoffs and a traumatic union fight, but where human resources is now tracking One World Trade badge swipes. (The whole scenario has clocking-in-and-out-of-the-breakroom-on-Roseanne vibes.) Mostly everyone, I guess, is required to be in the office three days a week. (Some people, probably the people who don’t actually live in New York, are surely an exception to this rule.) I asked chief communications officer Danielle Carrig about all of this, but she did not respond to my request for comment.

• Let the ‘Emily in Paris’ fashion credits commence: I got my first press release for an Emily in Paris placement: Philippine Leroy-Beaulieu (who plays Sylvie, the boss) will be wearing a Charlotte Chesnais bracelet in an upcoming episode. (Part 1 of Season 4 premieres August 15.) The finale of the most recent season (way back at the end of 2022) predates my column for Puck, but you should know that I am entertained by the show and very entertained by the avalanche of fashion mentions bestowed upon us each season. I am certain Season 4 will be the most outrageously credit-filled yet, and I’ll be sharing the mechanics of these partnerships as often as I can.
• Remember that whole crazy Document magazine drama last year?: When fashion director Sarah Richardson sued founder and editor-in-chief Nick Vogelson? I wish everyone involved the best! Vogelson appears to be thriving. And so is his arch nemesis, Richardson, who is out and about promoting her new pub, Beyond Noise. At the shows last season, she told me she got the idea after reading Bloomberg. (I have to paraphrase because we were just chatting, but essentially she wants to make a thinky publication.) For the first issue of her $95, two-volume biannual, available to order now, she created six different cover pairings (including that profile shot of Vanessa Friedman, with her hair down). Earlier this week, Alaïa’s Pieter Mulier posted a quote from his own interview in the issue. Anyway, who knows if it’ll be a thing, but for now, people are paying attention.

The fantasy is compelling, nonetheless. J.W. Anderson is an anomaly in the current LVMH Fashion portfolio, where Anderson is the only designer left in the group designing both his own brand and a heritage brand. Anderson’s main gig, after all, is serving as creative director for the Spanish house of Loewe, which he has transformed into a billionish-dollar business since taking over in 2013. Meanwhile, J.W. Anderson, despite a successful accessories push, is just too small for a $400 billion holding company to truly nourish as anything more than a project.

Acquiring J.W. Anderson wouldn’t make much sense for Fast Retailing, either. Helmut Lang, now designed by the New York-based Peter Do, has been trouble for Fast Retailing since they bought it from Prada in 2006. The group’s minority investment in Lemaire, the one competitor to J.W. Anderson that currently lives in the Fast Retailing portfolio, was more of an acqui-hire—an effort to retain the talents of co-designer Christophe Lemaire, who now works full-time at Uniqlo, running the company’s research and development center in Paris.

I’m sure hyper-competitive Uniqlo founder Tadashi Yanai—the richest man in Japan, with a family fortune valued at just under $38 billion by Forbes—would love a chance to play singles against the richest man in the world, Bernard Arnault. However, Yanai’s expertise lies in mass-marketed goods, and this would be another distraction for him, too.

LVMH may very well want to keep Anderson at Loewe and watch him potentially turn it into a $5 billion, $10 billion, or, who knows, $15 billion brand. But that’s a pretty unlikely scenario. Loewe, no matter how beloved, does not possess the mythology to go up against the standard-bearers: Louis Vuitton, Dior, Gucci, and the like. The assumption in the industry is that Anderson will someday be put in charge of a part of Dior or Louis Vuitton, or maybe even take total control of one of those brands. He is certainly capable, but whether he would do it, or should do it, is another question. Those jobs give designers a massive stage, an opportunity to do something grand, but they are also high-level management positions that require a degree of professional savvy, shrewdness, and political maneuvering that can be exhausting, especially for a creative person.

But I’m doubtful Anderson would be satisfied designing Loewe forever. What separates him from his peers is his unique balance of creative and commercial aptitude. It’s instinctual, yes, but he also learned from Manuela Pavesi, Miuccia Prada’s “right hand,” who died in 2015. He has the textbook millennial drive, with enough interest in how the business works not to be satisfied with the party line. If he was trying to find a new home for J.W. Anderson, it’s because he understands that LVMH might not be the right place for it.

Anyhow, whatever is happening, Anderson is clearly contemplating the details of his next act, either within LVMH or outside of it. I was told he also recently paid a visit to Alessandro Michele in Rome, seeking advice. Despite some flirtations, Michele has never worked at LVMH, so perhaps he was able to provide an outside perspective.

This story has everything: Succession wafts. A Pep Boys joke. Molly Morse! [Puck]

An explanation of how luxury brands (including Dior and Armani) are being investigated for their labor practices in Italy. [Reuters]

Why is this happening? [The Cut]

Assuming this is all anyone is going to be talking about in Paris. Get informed! [Twitter]

In press trip news: In the same spirit of its beloved holiday gift (a block of cheese and balsamic vinegar), Max Mara took care of its people during a Resort show in Venice. Meanwhile, in Aspen, Loro Piana outfitted a crew of influencers in pointy flats and four-figure fleeces. (A report from the inside: “It was so sick.”) I love the mountains in the summer and may even be inspired to do a ranking of the year’s least-annoying press trips. Send your reviews! [James Aguiar’s Instagram and Melanie Masarin’s Instagram]

This 2018 interview with Ronnie Cooke Newhouse about the Barneys New York ads in the 1990s recently resurfaced, and is worth another look. [System]

I shudder to think about anyone trying to be the Anthony Bourdain of fashion. However, I fully support Avery Trufelman in her every endeavor. Television executives reading this: Please make her show! [Twitter]

Until Monday,
Lauren