Hi, and welcome to Line Sheet. I’m planted in Paris for the next several days, then off to Milan. Next week, I’ll be back on my regularly scheduled B.S., but until then enjoy Line Sheet Lite, if you can even call it that.

Up top, I share some Gap Inc. H.R. updates, plus another round of Chanel speculation, and a bit of atmosphere from the men’s shows. Finally, I’ve got an interview with the mysterious, if well-informed, menswear expert Derek Guy, better known as @dieworkwear, who became famous on Twitter in an era when becoming famous on Twitter hit differently. (It’s not even actually called Twitter anymore, ya know?) Derek has a lot to say about the state of fashion—both the clothes and the media—that you’ll want to read.

🚨🚨Programming note: Just in time for Vogue World: Paris, this Sunday, Puck co-founder Jon Kelly joins me on Fashion People to discuss the past, present, and future of Condé Nast. (Along with what it was like to be Graydon Carter’s assistant when that job was a thing, Jon also reveals where preppies hung out in Williamsburg circa 2005.) This very fun, fan-service-style episode drops early Friday morning. Subscribe here.

And if you haven’t yet subscribed to Puck—Joerg, I’m talking to you—fix that now. Jon has your coordinates memorized and will personally track you down. Have a great weekend, everyone! Now, let’s get going.

Mentioned in this issue: Derek Guy, Kenzo, LVMH, Nigo, Pharrell, Bernard Arnault, Chanel, Hedi Slimane, Kendrick Lamar, Gabriela Hearst, Jonathan Anderson, Richard Dickson, Gap Inc., Elon, Allbirds, Shein, Billie Eilish, Karl Lagerfeld, and many, many more.

• We need to talk about Kenzo: On Wednesday night, just after landing in Paris, I went to the Kenzo show, staged around the fountain in the garden of the Palais-Royal, just after the sunset. I don’t have much to say about the show, and I suspect few will. There is absolutely nothing wrong with the LVMH brand under superstar designer Nigo, the Japanese record producer and founder of A Bathing Ape, but there’s also very little right about it. The biggest issue is that, unlike its artistic director, Kenzo doesn’t have a personality.

  I understand why they wanted Nigo: He is one of the leading reasons fashion became popular culture over the past 20 years, and he is an ally of Pharrell, who had even been “pushing” for Nigo to get the Louis Vuitton job before he, himself, was appointed. (They co-founded the streetwear label Billionaire Boys Club in 2003.) Nigo is also Japanese, like founder Kenzō Takada, so there’s a shared history.

  And yet, for whatever reason, there is a misalignment here. My armchair analysis: The clothes are pretty generic and inoffensive, so I assume this brand still sells pretty well with wealthy consumers who buy mid- to high-priced fashion the same way the majority of people buy fast fashion. It’s a clear example of the bifurcation in luxury—the increasingly stark split between commodity shoppers and enthusiast shoppers. Also, as with J.W. Anderson, I’m not sure that a small to midsize brand like Kenzo even belongs within the LVMH fashion group anymore.

  Of course, LVMH has more pressing issues: a designerless Givenchy, a slowdown in sales at Dior and pretty much everywhere else, the Olympics, the political upheaval in Europe (and most importantly, France), and a generational restructuring as Bernard Arnault enters his twilight years. So perhaps getting Kenzo right isn’t top of mind. However, it speaks to something more existential: Ten years ago, there were a lot of designers at LVMH that consumers and industry insiders alike were excited about, including Carol Lim and Humberto Leon, who took over from Antonio Marras at Kenzo in 2011. Today, there are just a few. You can’t get the designer-brand appointment right every time, but this feels like a missed opportunity on both sides. I hope they figure it all out.

• The Chanel tell: The speculation around who might be the next creative director of Chanel knows no bounds. The best rumor going around right now is that Hedi Slimane is already working on it, that he’s launching men’s, and that Kendrick Lamar is the first campaign star. I cannot confirm any of this, but if it’s true I’m definitely taking credit.

  Real talk, though: I still think it’s either going to be someone not yet super famous (because the real star is Chanel) or Hedi (the rightful heir), but some other names have popped up. Gabriela Hearst is apparently being discussed among the corporate plebes. My opinion, however, is that Hearst does not need Chanel, and will be more fulfilled developing her own line. I don’t think tenure at Chloé is relevant here—that was a tough situation for everyone involved. If she got the Chanel job, she could do it because of the infrastructure already in place. But again, why would she want to?

  Another person coming up in conversations is Jonathan Anderson, the subject of my column one week ago. As one editor wrote to me, “I genuinely think Jonathan Anderson is a dark horse candidate for Chanel. He wants a promotion that LVMH is never going to give him. (Loewe is too good, and the only person who makes sense as a replacement is Simon Porte Jacquemus, who won’t do it.) When it happens, you can reveal that I was right...”

  This is a decent argument. Who knows what Anderson could achieve at Chanel?

• More Gap Inc. moves: Richard Dickson is really going for it, isn’t he? This week, he poached Mattel’s chief technology officer, Sven Gerjets. Now, a job listing for a V.P. of men’s design position at Old Navy has the employee whisper network all lit up. The speculation is that Dickson plans on changing up the design teams at every brand over the next six months. (Whether that means people are getting fired, promoted, transferred, or a mix of all three, I’m not sure.) It’s good that Dickson is advocating for change. If he’s committed to making that change permanent, he’s going to have to make tough, sometimes painful decisions in the short term.

Earlier this week, amid the men’s shows, I hopped on Skype with Derek—yes, Skype, he only uses Skype—to talk Big Luxury, Elon, skinny jeans, and being nice to people who wear Allbirds. Even if you completely disagree with his position, the ultra-secretive, never-photographed Guy (he swears that’s his real name) will at least help you synthesize your own.

Derek Guy: Cultural anthropologist sounds very haughty.

What would you call yourself?

I’m just a guy who’s interested in clothes. I can’t afford a $10,000 coat. It doesn’t feel relevant to my life. I don’t live in New York City, I don’t go to fashion shows, I don’t hang out with fashion people. I don’t read that many fashion stories because they feel so removed from my life. I would be more interested in reading a story about why pajamas died. I don’t want to seem like one of those guys who says, I don’t watch TV. I don't like football.

There are many people who wear designer clothes. Why aren’t you interested in why they want those clothes?

It often feels like a trend is happening, and then everyone buys a ton of the trend, and then they say the trend is no longer happening. To me, that just doesn’t feel very interesting. It just seems fake.

Where does your expertise come from? Have you worked in the industry?

I’ve been writing about the industry since 2011, but I’ve never worked for a clothing company. And I don’t know what it means to work in the industry. I’ve used a bunch of bespoke tailors, and that’s where my information about tailoring comes from. I talk to some of the leading dry cleaners, people that manage factories, that’s basically it.

Did you have a job before you started writing?

I like to keep that private.

Why?

I’m just a private person.

Is Derek Guy your real name?

Yes.

When you started writing about clothing around 2011, was that for publications? Or Tumblr?

Yes, Tumblr, blog, forums. I was a hobbyist. I don’t think that it’s really even that unusual.

No, but it is unusual that you’ve made such a career out of it. Eugene Rabkin was the forum. Susie Bubble, who was on theFashionSpot a lot, became a famous influencer. The career you’ve built is pretty singular.

It’s not like Twitter pays me five figures a month—which someone suggested and I thought that was hilarious.

I can’t imagine you get paid much at all from posting on Twitter, but you probably get a lot of jobs because you’re now seen as an expert, right?

After the Twitter thing, I’ve gotten a few more jobs from some mainstream publications, but it hasn’t made a huge impact on my income. I do get some money from Twitter Blue. Mr. Porter pays me to write a monthly column. I turn down a lot of stuff because I don’t want to partner with brands. I have a very limited scope of what I feel comfortable monetizing.

You make income outside of writing?

Yes.

In the fall of 2022, [Barstool Sports founder] Dave Portnoy came out with a watch company. From 2011 up until that month, I was only really tweeting to enthusiasts, and making in-group jokes about brands like Kapital and Engineered Garments. I thought Portnoy’s watch thing was a huge ripoff. I don’t remember the price, but pieces were somewhere north of $2,000 and I said, I can’t believe that somebody would charge their fans like two Gs for a $40 quartz movement. I wouldn’t even do that to my enemy, because I think it’s so dishonest. Those tweets went viral. And then Dave Portnoy made a video where he complained about me.

It just seems so crazy, that someone with his success would even notice something I said. And then, after that video, I did a thread. In October, I had maybe 50,000 followers. By the end of the year, that probably doubled. Suddenly, it didn’t feel right to make jokes about Kapital and Engineered Garments, or make fun of Allbirds, because now I had a following of people who earnestly like and wear Allbirds. I found that people liked informational threads. I am totally confused by why people enjoy hearing my thoughts. I don’t really have any explanation for it.

I’m not confused by it. I am confused by the Twitter algorithm promoting you so heavily. You have almost 1 million followers. Have you ever been approached by Musk or his team?

Someone emailed me once: I don't know if I want to say that because, partly because, I don't want people to know that I have an email address, and I don't want people emailing me. Let’s just say that sometimes people ask me questions. Once, someone asked me, How do I get a dinner suit? And what do I wear with it? I answered the question. And then the person said, Thank you. I appreciate the advice. A lot of us over at Twitter appreciate your work. Then I looked at the name, and they worked at Twitter on some high level. I don’t know the exact position. I’ve never spoken to Elon Musk.

There are certain things that are important to me, like immigration, and mass shootings. If you love clothes, it’s weird to me if you’re anti-immigrant, because those are the people who make your clothes. If you’re xenophobic, that’s a weird disconnect. I don’t like the question, because I don’t think about what is a kosher post.

Do you think it’s a race to the bottom to make cheap things? A pair of jeans that cost $20 in 1950 might still cost $20 today, so of course the quality has diminished.

Quality is a very nuanced concept. Unless you’re buying Shein, most clothes are fine in terms of wear. Some stuff wears out very quickly because people buy, like, really tight clothes, and they’re putting more strain on those clothes. If you buy looser clothes and you wear them for a long time and you repair them, I don’t think the quality is so bad, at least on the men’s side. If you buy a J.Crew shirt, and you don’t buy it super tight, it will last a long time. To me, the biggest problem with durability nowadays is not the make of the clothes, but the design.

Why do people buy clothes that are too tight? Is it trend-based, or is it because we’re an overweight society and people are trying to squeeze into a smaller size, or both?

In the early 2000s, designers made slim-fit clothes as a reaction to the oversize fits of like, Armani, in the 1990s. Over time, the slim silhouette became popular in mainstream stores, and now every guy squeezes into these really tight clothes.

That’s changing now, right? Everything is moving toward a bigger silhouette.

You have to pay a lot of money. I was talking to somebody who runs a denim company and asked why they don’t introduce a looser fit. If you’re a guy and you’re looking for a looser fit in denim, you have to pay $250 to all these designer brands—$250 and up.

I’m in Oslo right now, and pretty much everyone is dressed badly. [Note: Except for the people at Kafeteria August.] In most big European cities, in Milan and Paris, and even in London, they try. Here, I might as well be in Podunk, U.S.A. The clothes don’t fit. There isn’t a sense of fashion, nothing. Do you think there’s any chance that we can collectively go back to wanting to look nice?

Most people don’t have very much interest in clothes, and the market is confusing. There’s a hollowing out of the middle; there is either fast fashion, crappy clothes, or a $300 pair of jeans—sometimes even a $1,000 pair of jeans, which is insane for most people. Then, there’s just more cultural language to deal with. There are hundreds of aesthetics, and there are no simple guides. You have to figure your way into some TikTok stream or into a Discord, or the right Instagram account.

Stores are worse now, too. There are fewer good stores, fewer skilled sales associates. You go into a store and everyone’s just kind of shoving some crappy thing into your hand.

If you were sitting in a room with a luxury brand—or a fast fashion brand, actually—as a paid consultant, what would you tell them to do?

I don’t have any views on what I think they should do, but I think the fashion media should be better at telling people about clothes and how to choose clothes and stop caring so much about celebrities and trends.

Well, it depends on if you consider yourself a service journalist or a news journalist. It became less important to those publications to do service journalism when you can go on YouTube and find an explanation of how to tie a tie.

I don’t want to sound like a hippie, but these big media organizations and big brands would be better if they were just small operations without huge bills.

What keeps you caring about this stuff?

I’m a hobbyist. Why do people build little, tiny model trains?

I truly don’t know.

My favorite story to follow right now. [Puck]

Attention, Millennials: The original (and your favorite) tween store—The Limited, Too—now owned by licensing firm Bluestar Alliance, is apparently relaunching. [People, via Casey Lewis!]

Mickey Rapkin interviewed Mickey Drexler about using a BlackBerry in front of Steve Jobs. [Forbes]

The best of the men’s shows in Paris so far: Lemaire, Rick Owens, and Auralee (omg I love it so hard), Setchu, and of course, Undercover. [Vogue Runway]

Jacob’s take on Milan: Let’s have some fun! [WSJ]

I’m pretty neutral on Billie Eilish generally, but I liked this cover a lot. [Interview]

I one-hundred percent agree with Jay Penske on this four-days-a-week-in-the-office policy. (If you are a writer on contract, that’s a little different, but everyone who has to interact with other people at work in order to get their job done will benefit.) [Ben Mullin’s Twitter]

That Brian Molloy! [The Row]

The outrageous high-jewelry press trips continue. This week, it was Chanel in Monaco. They threw a party at Karl Lagerfeld’s former villa. The theme was sport. (Cute?) “Flawless” execution by Chanel, according to one attendee. Seriously, though, I want to do a survey of all the major press trips and rate them in terms of 1) lavishness, 2) R.O.I., and 3) a good time had. Should we do it? [WWD]

Instagram wants you to know that it was Polly Mellen’s 100th birthday. [Photo by Steven Klein]

Until Monday,
Lauren