Hi, and welcome to Line Sheet. You just have to laugh about this tariff B.S., right? (Okay, maybe not.)

I just spent a very quick, very full two days in London, and now I’m headed to Milan for the week. Below, you’ll find my report from tonight’s Burberry show, plus an update on how it’s going for Alexandre Arnault & Co. at LVMH’s wine and spirits business. (Who even drinks anymore? Well, me. But definitely not cognac.) Also, I’ve got some notes on why Ryan Murphy’s Love Story, despite all the hullabaloo, nails just about everything about the fashion. Finally, I explore the state of play in the celebrity brand ambassadorship market—a Line Sheet preoccupation!—in the lead-up to the Oscars.

Meanwhile, back by popular demand, my guest on tomorrow’s episode of Fashion People is Bernstein luxury analyst king Luca Solca. We’re chatting about what the latest round of earnings—from LVMH and Kering to Richemont and Hermès—indicates about the state of the industry. We also discuss cognac! Listen here and here.

Mentioned in this issue: Alexandre Arnault, Jean-Jacques Guiony, Moët Hennessy, Simone Rocha, Perry Ogden, Carolyn Bessette, John F. Kennedy Jr., Love Story, Calvin Klein, Louis Vuitton, Chanel, Dior, Jonathan Anderson, Loewe, Emma Stone, Renate Reinsve, Teyana Taylor, Timothée Chalamet, Matthieu Blazy, Michael “Mookie” Giugliano, Zendaya, Alexander Wang, Tekla, the Loewe Craft Prize, and many more…

Four Things You Should Know…

Don’t call it downsizing: There is a lot of speculation in Paris about what Alexandre Arnault will do after he and Moët Hennessy co-C.E.O. Jean-Jacques Guiony have concluded their fixer-upper project. Many believe that he’ll likely go on to run an LVMH fashion brand, or some other stepping stone in the succession sweepstakes. In the meantime, however, there is still a lot of work to do in the booze business. The alcohol division’s operating profits shrunk by 25 percent in 2025, with sales dipping 5 percent, dragged down by cognac in particular.

The company is currently in the midst of selling off smaller, underperforming spirit brands in an effort to streamline the portfolio—not unlike the fashion business, where the hyperscaled brands are prioritized for obvious reasons. Arnault and Guiony have already completed some transactions, and I’m told there will be more. And yet the big analyst fantasy of LVMH selling off the alcohol division remains difficult to execute and wholly unlikely. A rep for LVMH did not respond to a request for comment.
The Burberry weather report: At drinks before the Burberry show, where a facsimile of the Tower Bridge was built in the Old Billingsgate fish market (a 10-minute walk from the actual Tower Bridge), a fellow American noted that it doesn’t really rain in London—it spits. So while you may not need Wellington boots for your commute around here, you do need a trench. That basically captures C.E.O. Joshua Schulman’s whole mantra since he arrived at Burberry in July 2024.

Schulman, yet another American with opinions about the weather, has made it very clear that this is an outerwear brand first, and gave chief creative officer Daniel Lee that framework as a remit. It’s working so far at the retail level, and I thought this was the best collection Lee has delivered to date, if only because it felt like what Burberry should be. But you could also see him—or at least, the designer he was when he wowed everyone at Bottega Veneta—peeking through. I liked the velvet pants, the ruffled shawl collar, and the cropped trenches a lot. It was pretty chic. And it will give people a reason to buy another jacket.

A MESSAGE FROM OUR SPONSOR

The Maison is delighted to present the Dance Reflections by Van Cleef & Arpels Festival, returning to New York for the second time from February 19 to March 21, 2026. Discover some twenty performances at this contemporary dance event presented in collaboration with prestigious institutions.

Simone Rocha gets the grand prize: If there’s a reason to go to London Fashion Week—other than Burberry—it’s Rocha, whose ideas are so clear and fun to watch on the runway. This season, she showed in the theatre at Alexandra Palace in far-north London. I lived here 20 years ago, and everything about London still makes me feel young—and, as Rocha said backstage, she’s continuously “looking for the land of eternal youth.”

Her round-shoulder cropped jackets and tiny track shorts for Adidas—a partnership so obvious it feels like it’s existed for ages—were mixed in with seasonal requisites (bossy suiting and squoval shoes), and all laced up with her signature touches. The bows have been upgraded to award-ribbon rosettes, sprinkled on dresses and jackets, in part referencing Perry Ogden’s Pony Kids. I’ve been thinking a lot about world-building in fashion in the wake of Dario Vitale’s departure at Versace, where he so quickly managed to create a new reality for the brand. Rocha is one of the few designers of her generation that has managed to make something that feels singular.

I love ‘Love Story’: What a nice surprise! Love Story, the fictionalized version of the courtship, marriage, and death of Carolyn Bessette and John F. Kennedy Jr., created by Connor Hines and backed by Ryan Murphy Productions, is genuinely fun to watch, and they got a lot right about wardrobing and depicting the fashion industry—down to the pre-cellphone feel of the Calvin Klein offices in the early 1990s. (There are some, of course, who may still bristle at a few inaccuracies.)

I was a teenager in those days and deeply influenced by Carolyn’s natural style. Does this feel like a facsimile? Sure, but a good one. I suspect that the committee that helped Murphy & Co. get their shit together after the comments sections pilloried some early test shots will proudly disclose their involvement now. Also: There may not be a better advertisement for the Calvin Klein brand than this television show, even if I’m not sure there is much the company could have done to capitalize on it. Perhaps reissuing some of the most popular silhouettes of the era, including ones made famous by Carolyn? As I’ve documented extensively, Calvin Klein is a licensing business, first and foremost, and making real clothes—ready-to-wear—is near impossible at this point. (Another thing to be nostalgic about…)

Now, on to the main event…

The Red Carpet Wars, 2026 Edition

The big three players in luxury fashion dominate the celebrity ambassador market—and gain more power with every awards season. That means the rest are left to play moneyball with their rosters.

Lauren Sherman

Every awards season, the real grand prize is dressing one of the five contenders for best actress at the Academy Awards. Each pit stop on the circuit, from the Golden Globes to the BAFTAs, which took place in London on Sunday night, offers a breadcrumb of what those women will wear during the finale. Gone are the days when maybe one or three nominees would score a contract from a major luxury house. Now, it’s near guaranteed that they will all be dressed by one of the majors.

This is especially true this year: Brand ambassadors Emma Stone (Bugonia) and Renate Reinsve (Sentimental Value) are expected to wear Louis Vuitton, and people are betting that Jessie Buckley (Hamnet) and Rose Byrne (If I Had Legs I’d Kick You) will go with Chanel and Dior, respectively. The fifth spot, occupied by wild-card nominee Kate Hudson (Song Sung Blue), is still a question mark. (She did attend red carpet stalwart Giorgio Armani’s latest couture show, but wowed in Prada at the BAFTAs.) Of course, it could all change at the last minute if a zipper breaks or an actress just isn’t feeling it. Where’s the Kalshi market for this?

A MESSAGE FROM OUR SPONSOR

Anyway, it’s a reminder that Louis Vuitton, Chanel, and Dior—the three biggest fashion brands in the world—have a lock on celebrity endorsements. While only a handful will get a coveted brand ambassador contract, most of the top nominees are able to wangle a one-off deal, which can vary from low six figures to more than $1 million for Hollywood’s biggest night. Sure, some actors don’t go for a contract: Timothée Chalamet only signed a fragrance deal and is not obliged to wear Chanel, or anything else, on the red carpet. (My guess is that the Marty Supreme star will wear Tom Ford.) Kirsten Dunst, who has supported her husband, Jesse Plemons (Bugonia), in Valentino, just really likes the clothes, and has arguably been the best organic advertisement for Alessandro Michele’s work at the house. (At the BAFTAs, she stood by Plemons in a puffed-sleeve moire jacket.) But generally, there are fewer and fewer moments like this.

Otherwise, this awards season has unfolded amid a crush of brand ambassadorship announcements, led by Dior, where creative director Jonathan Anderson has smartly put celebrity at the center of his work. Anderson understands that the right actor can be the ideal vessel for communicating what you’re about. Almost as soon as he was in place at LVMH’s second-largest fashion brand, he started signing people, including his ride or dies from the Loewe days: Greta Lee, Taylor Russell, and Josh O’Connor, and even Mia Goth, Mikey Madison, and LaKeith Stanfield. Most recently, there was Sophie Wilde and Ever Anderson (the daughter of Milla Jovovich and Paul W.S. Anderson). Notably, he added these names while retaining the likes of Natalie Portman, Rihanna, and Charlize Theron.

Over at Chanel, Matthieu Blazy’s trusted V.I.P. whisperer, Michael “Mookie” Giugliano, has helped steer an equally diverse roster. Nicole Kidman is back in the fold, with new entrants Maya Rudolph, A$AP Rocky, and Gracie Abrams joining in. The list truly does go on. The activity at Chanel and Dior, in particular, has induced what appears to be a hurried desperation among many of the other brands. Last week, Balenciaga wooed Harris Dickinson from Prada, but also signed the likes of Winona Ryder and Heated Rivalry’s Hudson Williams for its new campaign.

The Ingénue Route

The celebrity rush is indeed related to all the creative changes at the top of the top fashion houses. But even before this latest round of musical chairs, the relationship between Hollywood and fashion had become more deeply intertwined. As I’ve noted before, actors don’t make as much money from movies anymore, and ambassadorships involve lucrative paychecks while serving as marketing platforms for the star, too. (Lee and Anderson are a great example of this dynamic: As his star rose, so did hers.) This dynamic had been building for 30 or so years, but really came to a head right before the pandemic, when brands moved even more of their marketing spend to celebrity and away from traditional forms of advertising. Suddenly, actors were even fronting jewelry and accessories campaigns, the final model-dominated frontier. If you had money to spend during a global shutdown, it was going to be on someone whose image could circulate across the internet. It’s basically stayed that way since.

Not every house plays the game. Prada, which started casting celebrities in its campaigns all the way back in the 1990s, is steadier when it comes to ambassadorships. There’s no rush to name new people, and they are simply brought into the fold as the company—which dresses a wide swath of stars across Prada and Miu Miu—sees fit. Valentino has benefited from Michele’s genuine relationships with stars like Dakota Johnson. Meanwhile, Armani is Armani, and if you want a dress (or tux) that is guaranteed to fit well, there is no better place to go, even if they’re not offering you a contract.

It gets tricky for brands that are big but not big enough to compete with the top three in terms of budget. In the post-Anderson era, Loewe has thus far gone the ingénue route. (First up: Isla Johnston, who is playing Joan of Arc in the new Baz Luhrmann film.) Bottega Veneta has held tight to Jacob Elordi, but also has enough financial sway to snag a prominent placement on most red carpets. And Givenchy has chosen the right celebs to align with (Chalamet, but also Elle Fanning) without actually contracting many of them.

It’s hard to tell whether this is a buyer’s or seller’s market. After all, nearly every celebrity wants to be paid for a fashion association, whether that means simply attending a show or signing a multiyear advertising contract. On the other hand, the options for brands aren’t endless. On a recent episode of Fashion People, someone asked me who should be wearing Celine, which has had a number of good placements since Michael Rider’s appointment, but has yet to establish a memorable celebrity association. It took me a while, but eventually I came up with Camille Cottin, the French actress who became better known in the U.S. after her television series Call My Agent! was a Netflix hit. Of course, she’s already with Dior.

Perhaps there is a world in which brands like Celine don’t worry about the celebrity quotient as much. (Rider is leading in other ways, including runway reviews and advertising campaigns.) However, that won’t tank this micro-market. Talent will keep striving for deals, and the larger fashion brands will continue battling for them. The bigger question is whether the R.O.I. can actually be measured as these companies inevitably modernize their marketing spends. Zendaya, for instance, commands one of the biggest endorsement paychecks in the industry because she moves product for Louis Vuitton. Most celebrities don’t have that effect. The entertainment companies have noticed this already, but the fashion labels have not.

What I’m Reading…

This is funny. [X]

I went to the Tekla store today in London and got to see the candles designed in collaboration with Sara Flynn, a former finalist of the Loewe Craft Prize. Today, Loewe announced its 2026 shortlist. This is a pro-craft household. [Artsy]

Moncler’s shares soared after the company outperformed in the fourth quarter of its fiscal year. And thank god for this blizzard! [WWD]

Best dressed at the BAFTAs: Miyako Bellizzi in Renaissance Renaissance Kirsten Dunst in Valentino (perfect, she is the greatest), Kate Hudson in Prada, Teyana Taylor in Burberry, Emma Stone in Louis Vuitton, Ethan Hawke in Armani, Gracie Abrams and Maya Rudolph in Chanel, Odessa A’zion in Dior, Sadie Sink in Prada. [Red Carpet Fashion Awards]

Alexander Wang bought a Beaux Arts bank in New York City’s Chinatown neighborhood and is opening a cultural center there. [Curbed]

Until tomorrow,
Lauren

P.S.: We use affiliate links because we are a business. We may make a couple bucks off them.

Puck founding partner Matt Belloni takes you inside the business of Hollywood, using exclusive reporting and insight to explain the backstories on everything from Marvel movies to the streaming wars.

Puck’s daily art market email, anchored by industry expert Marion Maneker, offers unparalleled access to the mega-auctions and galleries, elite buyers and sellers, and the power players who run this opaque world.

A Netflix “Killer” Theory

WILLIAM D. COHAN

Trump’s War on Late Night

DYLAN BYERS

Govs vs. Trump

LEIGH ANN CALDWELL

Need help? Review our FAQ page or contact us for assistance. For brand partnerships, email ads@puck.news.

You received this email because you signed up to receive emails from Puck, or as part of your Puck account associated with {{customer.email}}. To stop receiving this newsletter and/or manage all your email preferences, click here.

Puck is published by Heat Media LLC. 107 Greenwich St., New York, NY 10006

SEE THE ARCHIVES