Hi, and welcome back to this very special New York Fashion Week edition of Line Sheet. It’s been an absolute pleasure catching up with many of you while avoiding eye contact with so many others. Just kidding… I swear I didn’t see you! (You look thin, by the way. I’m sure it’s natural…)

Also, I very much appreciate all the thoughts you’re sending via text and Instagram about the shows and Blake Lively’s revival of her character in The Town, just in time to accompany Taylor Swift to the Super Bowl. Keep ’em coming. As you know, this is my real email address.

We’ve got a lot going on, so let’s get moving. Very quickly, to my friend who told his sister-in-law that he would auto-forward this newsletter to her: We’re going to put your nanny on Park Ave Mommies Next Door. (J.K., I still love you.) Rachel and I will be back on Wednesday, so if you are one of many on the receiving end of this shameful behavior, do us a solid and join Puck before we sign you up for TheSkimm.

Mentioned in this issue: Steven Rojas, Colleen Allen, Bastien Daguzan, Ludovic de Saint Sernin, Anna Khachiyan, Temu, Elena Velez, NYFW, Piotrek Panszczyk, Bailey Moon, the Newhouses!, Paul Helbers, Zac Posen’s new job, Raul Lopez, Adrian Diaz, Peter Do, Catherine Holstein, Ulla Johnson, Kaitlin Phillips, Donna Karan disappointments, Huma Abedin, Kanye, and many, many more…

• More Farfetch wreckage?: Remember how there was something I thought I was forgetting last week when we were talking about the fate of the Farfetch dregs? I remembered! There were rumors that British retail conglomerate Frasers Group, which bought Matches in a fire sale late last year, might also scoop up Browns, the famous British concept shop that Farfetch has owned since 2015. A rep for Frasers—run by Michael Murray, a former club promoter and son-in-law of controversial retail rich guy Mike Ashley—said it’s not true. I subsequently heard from a source with direct knowledge of the Farfetch business that Frasers was looking at Browns prior to the Coupang deal closing, but walked away after it was announced.

  Whoever takes it off Farfetch’s hands, Browns will likely cost virtually nothing, which is why and how Frasers bought Matches for just £52 million. Unlike Matches, however, Browns is not an internationally known name, and only had business abroad because its products were sold through the Farfetch marketplace. Multibrand retail is trickier than ever. Stores are having trouble convincing brands to sell with them via the more profitable wholesale model unless they have proven themselves essential. (Everyone wants to do consignment, if they want to sell through you at all.)

  Despite all this, I still think Browns will make sense for some acquisitive entity, which likely won’t be able to resist the price and buy-low psychology, even if the Frasers integration of Matches hasn’t been painless. (Wise words from an investor friend: most companies die not of starvation but indigestion.) But what about the other non-core pieces of the Farfetch portfolio? Who should buy the Style.com domain? Remember, Farfetch owns it, too… Seeing its old leadership team—former Condé all-star and SCAD Dean of Fashion Dirk Standen and Vogue Runway and Vogue Business director Nicole Phelps—walk out of a show together this week reminds us of what could have been. Speaking of Condé Nast…

• Oooh, a new Condé Nast article: Friends, do not worry, I am more devoted than ever to unraveling the mysteries of our favorite legacy publisher. In the meantime, I wanted to direct you to this article in The Times of London, which summarizes quite a bit of previous reporting (by me and others, a.k.a. Dylan), speculates about who might be interested in buying the company (that part isn’t too convincing), and takes some notable jabs at GQ (I think we can all guess the source…).

  The good bit: The Times is suggesting that the family is now divided, with Jonathan Newhouse, in London, looking to sell the company, and Steven Newhouse, in New York, insistent on keeping it. Friends, this sort of business-naive journalism always bothers me. This generation of Newhouses has always been splintered, and Steven has all the control. And given the way that the company is enmeshed with the family, a sale would not be easy. Let’s all just relax and let Roger figure it out. Just kidding. Anyway, he was busy this weekend at the Super Bowl. I’ll be tallying his Fashion Week appearances from now on!

• This week in I-told-you-so: Miu Miu and L’Oreal announced a deal to make beauty products, with fragrance slated to launch in 2025. As my 2.75-year-old would say, “I’m excited!” Just a reminder that I reported this a few weeks ago. If you, too, would like to leak information to me, my number is +1 646-241-3902.

• The Euros are back: Regardless of the final verdict on this New York Fashion Week (we have two more days, people), you can’t help but notice that there are more folks from overseas here than in recent seasons. Having editors from London and Paris makes New York feel more globally relevant. I assume Tommy Hilfiger, which has a big business in Europe, and probably Coach and Michael Kors, too, paid for several of these editors to fly over and stay at The Mark. (Remember when that guy Steven Rojas used to put all the O.G. influencers up at the Soho Grand?)

  Also, the French were out in full force at the WME-sponsored Ludovic de Saint Sernin show on Sunday night. (I spotted former Jacquemus C.E.O. Bastien Daguzan.) I’m still petitioning for Marc Jacobs to get back on the official calendar, which I think would compel more international press to join in on the fun—and who knows, maybe even some buyers? Jacobs was actually at Saint Sernin’s show (he stopped by after spending an hour at the Style Not Com event at Bookmarc). I asked him if he liked the show, he said yes, then he and his husband got into their long black car with untinted windows.

• The new front-row fixture: Stylist Bailey Moon, once an in-house P.R., saw his career take a lucky (or savvy?) turn when he started dressing First Lady Jill Biden. Now he’s known as the go-to guy for modern New York women, like Huma Abedin. And Broadway’s best, too, including Rebecca Hall and her husband, Gilded Age star Morgan Spector. (Abedin and Spector were both at the Fforme show on Saturday night, flanking Moon.) He’s also been styling Diane Lane on the Feud tour. All of these people are smokeshows, so that gives Moon a competitive advantage, but still… keep an eye.

• Luar levels up: I caught up with Raul Lopez and his new chief brand officer, Adrian Diaz, last week. They were Zooming from their offices in the Water Street Associates Building downtown, which is becoming the Peach Pit for young fashion people. Bode is in there, too, as is the food brand Ghetto Gastro. Michael Goldberg’s Something Special Studios, the creative agency behind Luna Luna, is holed up there as well. The people behind the building are the same people behind Palm Heights Grand Cayman (you’ve seen the Instagrams).

  Lopez, a Hood By Air alum whose hard-edged collections have earned him plenty of notice, says he hasn’t raised outside capital, at least not yet. But he does have momentum via a hit handbag and a handful of collaborations that help fund his ready-to-wear business. Tomorrow night, when he shows on Scott Avenue in Greenpoint, the audience will get a load of a whole new range of essentials, simply named Luar Basics, plus three new handbag designs. Lopez justifies his move into sweats as a practicality—this is how he and his friends dress day in, day out. But it’s also an obvious commercial play. As Lopez put it, he’s consulted for so many big companies and knows how it’s done, and now he wants to do it for himself. (Diaz, who worked at MCM, was brought in to help execute the evolved strategy.) The duo are aiming to increase Luar’s sales by 20 percent this year: nothing crazy, especially given the macro environment.

  None of it is ever easy. With investors and a supportive board, Luar could get bigger much faster. Without one, things might happen more slowly, and he runs the risk of missing the moment, or simply not building a real business beneath his vision. For now, though, he is confident. The real test will be how the crowd reacts on Tuesday—and how the buyers react this week.

The day of Donna Karan, I had lunch with a handful of ex-magazine editors who now work in the corporate world. We mostly talked about Zac Posen’s new job at Gap Inc., which led to spirited conversations about the impossibility of turning around a brand like Gap—which, let me remind you, is not part of Posen’s remit. The problem, we all agreed, is that it’s nearly impossible to restore some brands by leading with heritage. The sort of sad, but nevertheless impressive, success of Abercrombie & Fitch provides insidious evidence of the grim reality. Abercrombie’s revival is driven by good product that is entirely divorced from its Bruce Weber-era DNA.

I was thinking about this challenge, too, during Peter Do’s revival of Helmut Lang on Friday. The show demonstrated improvement over last season’s fussy debut—a lift that likely owed to his chemistry with Jason Rider, his new stylist. Backstage, I pushed the issue of heritage with Do. I had seen some references to Phoebe Philo, his previous employer, in his work. He instead told me that his use of a Tati bag print, to take one example, was an archival reference. It dovetailed with a series of photos that a friend had sent to me juxtaposing an original Helmut show with Do’s interpretation. His technique was good, especially the manipulation of fabrics (one looked like bubble wrap), but I couldn’t help but wonder: Where are the new ideas?

I know Do has them, since they are evident in his namesake collection. But it’s hard to express them in a revival project, especially when the purpose is fuzzy. Fast Retailing, which bought Helmut Lang more than 15 years ago, has never known what to do with it. Why does the company, the owner of Uniqlo, want to compete on the runway level when it’s a volume business? They don’t seem to know the answer, themselves.

Tommy Hilfiger, owned by PVH since 2010, is reckoning with the same problems. One challenge is that Hilfiger (the brand) never stood for much. Hilfiger (the man) has the best attitude, and I’d say his positivity, and genuine love of fashion, endure. Friday night’s show at the Grand Central Oyster bar was a sort of makeup for the dreadful Brooklyn fiasco a few seasons ago, when rain poured on the audience. (You can forgive a young designer for that sort of thing, but not a multibillion-dollar company.)

Backstage before the show, where I interviewed him in front of a branded backdrop, Hilfiger seemed to genuinely feel bad about the Brooklyn incident. The party at Grand Central, where guests sat in booths covered in custom ticking stripes and Jon Batiste serenaded a gracious Chloe Malle, was a more than sufficient apology. The clothes themselves were fine, a diluted version of preppy streetwear, with oversized chinos and wool baseball caps. I see what he was trying to do. But again, nothing new—almost negative new. Maybe next season.

Backstage, another reporter kept pressing her: Who is the Khaite woman? Holstein, who lost her mother this year and mentioned as much in the show notes, tried to be as accommodating as possible, never defensive. As always, the product was customer-friendly; she is very good at making things people will want to buy. But the seriousness with which it’s presented exposes Holstein to a sort of criticism that I am not sure her fashion demands. She’ll have to work that out. The next morning, Ulla Johnson, who’s been at it longer, made a collection for her audience, devoid of any fashion-industry self-consciousness. If she cares what people think, she hides it well.

I’m glad WME paid for Belgium-bred, Paris-based Ludovic de Saint Sernin to show at New York Fashion Week this season. He’s very good—I am nominating him to be the next Versace creative director, with all that grommeted leather and black velvet. After Saint Sernin, I took an Uber up to the American Irish Historical Society on Fifth Avenue for what designer Elena Velez was calling a “salon and costumed ball,” featuring a discussion on Margaret Mitchell and Gone With the Wind. There was a dress code—“Rustic Americana Black Tie”—and threats that our mobile phones would need to be left at coat check.

Earlier in the day, a private exchange between Velez and the publicist and writer Kaitlin Phillips had been passed around. Phillips, who I really like, basically invented Dimes Square, a micro-society between the Lower East Side and Chinatown where the city’s young and mostly wealthy have chosen to cosplay an intellectual life. Phillips had mentioned in her “close friends” circle on Instagram that she thought Velez might be race-baiting by putting Gone With the Wind at the center of the conversation. Someone screenshotted it and sent it to Velez. They had a confrontation. This was enough for me to want to bother.

I went and stood by the fashion critic Cathy Horyn, who gave me a closed-lip smile. About 30 minutes into my residency, she patted me on the arm and walked out. I did record what I heard of the conversation between Khachiyan, who claimed to be drunk, and Mason, who somehow managed to compare Mitchell to both Judith Krantz and Bret Easton Ellis. Honestly, it was as stupid as it sounds. I can handle pretentiousness. Sometimes I am even amused by pretentiousness. But there was nothing to hang on to here.

What did it have to do with fashion? Velez, who was recently nominated for the prestigious LVMH prize, designed some costumes for Khachiyan and her Red Scare co-host, Dasha Nekrasova. A girlfriend of Purple magazine editor Olivier Zahm was wearing a black pleather bustle. I honestly wouldn’t mind any of this if she was communicating something, anything, other than the desire to be provocative. But she didn’t, so I don’t want to give this any more air than it deserves. Again, Americans these days are insecure and not terribly creative—and it’s a reminder of just how impossibly hard it is to become a boring old heritage brand. Perhaps we should have all stayed home and watched the Super Bowl?

No surprise, but Kering is pulling brands off of Farfetch, according to documents viewed by my boy Malique Morris. Who will be willing to sell through Farfetch after all of this? [BoF]

Kanye West posts $20 million worth of Yeezy orders on the first day of global sales on Yeezy.com. [Instagram]

A lesson in not letting ego get in the way of success. [BoF]

The LVMH Prize finalists include increasingly controversial aforementioned designer Elena Velez, as well as one of my recent favorites, Karoline Vitto. Last year, the €400,000 went to another great, Setchu’s Satoshi Kuwata. [Fashionista]

Any other day and this Tod’s news—that the family is orchestrating a take-private with the help of L Catterton—would be big. The Della Valles have always been closely connected to the Arnaults—Diego has been on the LVMH board since 2002—and LVMH upped its stake in Tod’s to 10 percent in 2021. The speculation, of course, is that they’ll give it a financial sprucing/phlebotomy at the private equity firm and then LVMH will acquire it a few years later, when the timing is right. [Vogue Business]

And finally… Satoshi!!!