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Hi, and welcome back to Line Sheet, where you’re free to feel smug for sticking with downmarket
T-Mobile.
I’m looking forward to the upcoming string of couture and men’s shows, and I’m happy to be stopping by for just a minute. If you were planning on attending Giambattista Valli’s show on January 26, however, you may have some free space on your calendar. A stunning report this week in Italian daily Il Foglio suggested that the company is on the brink of closure after Artémis, the Pinault family office, pulled out of its recent investment opportunity.
For today’s very special Inner Circle issue (trade up here), I did my own reporting and found a fashion tale as old as time—or at least as old as the modern luxury industry.
Up top, I also have some thoughts on Sarah Ball’s ascent at The Wall Street Journal, and speculation about who might buy Jimmy Choo. Meanwhile, Rachel Strugatz
explains how beauty brands are faring in the wake of the Saks Global bankruptcy protection filing.
So, if Sarah Ball is not going to be the next editor of GQ, who is? Tomorrow on Fashion People, New York Times reporters Jessica Testa and Michael Grynbaum, the author of Empire
of the Elite, join me for a very special Condé Nasty episode. We discuss the Will Welch exit (and potential replacements), Mark Guiducci’s Vanity Fair, and whether every Condé Nast editor is contractually obligated to thank H.R. lord Stan Duncan in their departure (or arrival) Instagram post. Listen here
and here.
Mentioned in this issue: Giambattista Valli, François-Henri Pinault, Saks Global, Oscar de la Renta, Carolina Herrera, Harvey Weinstein, Courrèges, diva behavior, Zac Posen, GQ, Sarah Ball, Dale Hrabi, Tamara Mellon, Jimmy Choo, Diesel, Estée
Lauder, Sephora, Ulta, Andrea Rigogliosi, Adidas, and many more… |
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A MESSAGE FROM OUR SPONSOR |
Inspired by the relaxed elegance and spirit of Portofino, MALO has quietly perfected the art of Italian knitwear since
1972—elevating cashmere with design and soul. Our independent Tuscan house reemerges with renewed purpose: refined, enduring, and crafted with intention. Made in Italy, offering luxury without noise, only softness, simplicity, and beauty. Feeling over trend, MALO is sublime comfort for modern lives. MALO. Worn by the wind. Kissed by the sun. |
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Three Things You
Should Know…
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- We
don’t know how she does it. Okay, maybe we do: Sarah Ball, editor of WSJ. magazine, is a master of managing up, and this week she pulled off a maneuver that was long expected—at least by me. After taking over for Kristina O’Neill at the Journal’s glossy weekend mag two and a half years ago, the digital-native-ish former GQ editor has been promoted to oversee all features across the publication. In the process, she effectively replaced
Journal furniture Mike Miller, who is out after 42 years. My bud Dylan Byers was the first to report that news over at In the Room.
Miller is not the only one leaving. Also exiting: Dale Hrabi, the longtime editor of Off Duty, the super great weekend section whose
alumni include Rory Satran, Becky Malinsky, Jacob Gallagher, Meenal Mistry, Katharine Zarrella, Paula Knight… oh man, it was such a great read, the last of its kind, really. When I was a freelancer, it was my favorite place to write.
I assumed Hrabi was not long for the Journal even before Ball got O’Neill’s job: He’s not business-minded, and O’Neill had amassed her own power. The more surprising
exit here is certainly Miller, who is viewed as an excellent leader and manager, even if some people think he hung around too long. He also had quite a heavy hand in the editing of features, and was viewed as Ball’s mentor.
Did Ball sort of stab him in the back here? Meh, business is business. Journal editor-in-chief Emma Tucker clearly likes Ball, who has convinced the powers that be that she can do everything smarter, cheaper, and more digitally. Miller was
respected by the newsroom and the commercial side, though, and Ball has some critics—just like Tucker, herself. There’s no denying that her WSJ. is not as appealing to some traditional fashion advertisers, which have reduced their spend or, in a few cases, dropped their support altogether. (Though, yes, many brands have upped their buy with the magazine, I’m told: The company sent me a long list, including Cartier, Prada, Tiffany, Loro Piana, Brunello Cucinelli, and others.) A
rep for The Wall Street Journal told me that WSJ. magazine has exceeded revenue targets every year for the last three years.
Many people like Ball and think her head is in the right place, and my understanding is that Tucker wants more big features like the one the paper published on the
Lauder family battle. However, Ball has yet to prove she can usher through those types of stories at scale.
I’d argue that her WSJ.—now, just a fraction of her purview—hasn’t made any sort of cultural mark since her arrival, even if the digital audience is four times as big as it was before her tenure. And sure, it’s not like people were reading WSJ. when O’Neill was running it, but they were looking at WSJ. Innovators, a fabulous franchise started by former editor Deborah Needleman, is the closest Ball has come to staying in the
conversation. Of course, it’s a different time, and this stuff simply does not resonate like it once did. However, Ball’s lack of pizzazz is particularly notable now that Mark Guiducci has two issues under his belt at Vanity Fair, where even the major screw-ups feel like successes of some sort. Anyway, Ball’s critics are likely chasing something that hasn’t existed for years, but it’s still okay to wish for more. - You can’t go home again… or can
you?: I hear that there are several potential buyers for Jimmy Choo, which Capri acquired in 2017 for $1.2 billion as part of John Idol’s planned rollup of luxury brands that never quite materialized. The most notable is Tamara Mellon, who co-founded Jimmy Choo with its namesake in London in the 1990s while she was working at British
Vogue. (I highly recommend Mellon’s memoir, In My Shoes, as well as the book about the development of the brand, The Towering World of Jimmy Choo. Both are very fun for fashion dorks.)
I tried to sniff around to see if Mellon, whose partner is former power agent Michael
Ovitz, had come up with the financing. The answer was unclear. (If you know, call me!) Most people I spoke to were a bit skeptical, and not only because Mellon blew through more than $100 million running her namesake direct-to-consumer shoe brand, founded in 2013. That said, the shoes were good, and she was one of many entrepreneurs who blew through cash during this period in startup culture. The other likely acquirers are private equity, ABG, or another licensing firm. But as an
investor said to me the other day, “ABG cannot buy all of these companies.” If you know anything, you know where to find me.
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A MESSAGE FROM OUR SPONSOR |
Inspired by the relaxed elegance and spirit of Portofino, MALO has quietly perfected the art of Italian knitwear since
1972—elevating cashmere with design and soul. Our independent Tuscan house reemerges with renewed purpose: refined, enduring, and crafted with intention. Made in Italy, offering luxury without noise, only softness, simplicity, and beauty. Feeling over trend, MALO is sublime comfort for modern lives. MALO. Worn by the wind. Kissed by the sun. |
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| Rachel Strugatz
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- More Saks Global collateral
damage: Among Saks’ top 30 creditors are a handful of beauty companies and distributors, including The Estée Lauder Companies, La Prairie owner Beiersdorf, and Sisley, which are owed $16 million, $22 million, and close to $10 million, respectively. Yesterday, Lauren reported that top creditors hope they’ll recoup most of what they’re owed––up to 70-80 cents on the dollar, depending on the success of the restructuring. More than anything, though, this whole debacle
is probably a sign that makeup and skincare brands should all but exit U.S. department stores and focus on more viable distribution channels like Sephora, Ulta, Amazon, their own direct businesses, and even TikTok Shop.
At this point, department stores almost never come up in my day-to-day conversations with brands, founders, investors, and bankers. When was the last time you went to a department store to buy a makeup product? But this reality is certainly a bit trickier for the
luxury fragrance sector, where about 60 percent of business still comes from the department store channel. Sephora’s sweet spot for fragrance is around $100, and it’s slim pickings if you’re Creed or another luxury perfumer.
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Giambattista Valli’s singular focus on dresses was already anachronistic when the brand was
founded in 2005. Amid reports this week that the Pinault family office has pulled its backing, the model may be effectively over. |
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In the wake of the Saks Global fallout, I keep thinking about the dress brands—the Jason Wus, Prabal
Gurungs, and Elie Saabs of the world—as the last vestige of a proper ready-to-wear market. Sure, they sell daywear, too, but they’re known for dresses, and their clientele are wealthy women who buy full-price gala gowns (and less wealthy women spritzing perfume). The big American exemplars in the space—Oscar de la Renta and Carolina Herrera—still have a very specific cachet. It helps that the former is still run by the de la Renta family, and the latter has the backing of the
Spanish conglomerate Puig. But there are plenty of others that just sputter on, continuing to sort of exist—either by making special-order pieces for private clients, or simply by staging runway shows that are underwritten by who knows what.
I’ve wondered if the dinkier dress brands can survive the Saks Global mess. As one person told me, some suspect that creditors forked over $1.75 billion to rescue the company with the implicit understanding that the biggest brands would be
repaid nearly in full while the smaller vendors would not. One particularly vulnerable brand is Giambattista Valli, founded in 2005 by its namesake, an Italian Central Saint Martins grad who decided to use his European education and breeding to make pretty gowns. Now nearly 60 years old, Valli was the generational bridge between the dressmakers of yore and the modern luxury houses. His ability to secure a spot on the exclusive Couture calendar, along with plenty of red carpet
placements, eventually lured the family office of Kering’s Pinault family, Artémis, to invest in the business, in 2017, in exchange for a minority position.
This was a time when François-Henri Pinault, then the C.E.O. of Kering, was pivoting away from investing in small businesses through the luxury group and instead using the family office to support passion projects. At first, the partnership appeared fruitful. In 2019, Valli designed a collection for
H&M, and business was ramping up. But according to a recent report in Il Foglio, the Italian newspaper, a mid-2025 restructuring forced Artémis to put an additional €44 million into the business, which increased the firm’s stake to nearly 90 percent. The paper also noted that the company lost €9 million last year alone. |
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Now, just six months later, Artémis has understandably refused to continue to fund the losses, and the
company is on the brink of bankruptcy. The designer is currently on the hunt for a new investor, a search that began in November. If he doesn’t find one, he may not be able to stage his Couture show on January 26. Closing the business altogether is not out of the question. |
The Difficult
People Business
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In a business filled with difficult people, I’ve been told that Valli poses a unique set of
management challenges. A source close to Pinault told me that the designer was unwilling to change the way he operated: a combo of diva behavior (terrified team, fear-based leadership) and poor business decisions. Many of the partners with whom I spoke stopped working with him because they had not been paid for months, sometimes years. I reached out to a rep for Valli about this and the Il Foglio report, but received no response.
But no matter how difficult his behavior may have
been, it’s not shocking that Valli was having money trouble. Every clothing brand is compromised right now, especially those without an accessories strategy. Courrèges, another Artémis investment, has fared better on account of shrewder management, merchandising, and store development—all under the direction of fashion industry favorite Nicolas Di Felice. It also helps, in this case, that Courrèges is an unspoiled heritage brand.
Again, on some level, none of
this is shocking. Fashion is a business built on a faulty model, operated by challenging people, and these dress companies simply make the equation even harder to pull off. It’s actually incredible that Valli managed to keep a business built on mediocre gowns operating for more than 20 years without, say, marrying Harvey Weinstein. Zac Posen, who started his business around the same time, closed it in 2019 and is now working at the Gap. In an era when jeans feel
dressy, a brand like Valli was probably all but destined to fail. |
Vogue has launched a book club. The first pick is Wuthering Heights. (Emerald
Fennell’s big-screen adaptation hits theaters on Valentine’s Day.) I hope, for your sake, you have already read Wuthering Heights, but you probably did it 30 years ago, so maybe it’s worth another look. Also great that they did not pick an Emily Henry novel. (No offense.) [Vogue]
One of the great loves of my life, Tim
Blanks, is a model in the new J.W. Anderson lookbook alongside Kylie Minogue and Camille Bidault-Waddington. [Instagram]
The judge approved Saks Global’s DIP financing. Amazon, which invested nearly $500 million in the company, is not happy.
[WWD]
Liana Satenstein wrote about Gwyneth Paltrow’s incredible manicure in Marty Supreme. My friend Sarah Miller had it done, and it looked fabulous.
[N.Y. Times]
Bank of America downgraded Adidas big-time. Never a good sign. [BoF]
Diesel recruited Andrea Rigogliosi, a Miu Miu vet, as its new C.E.O. [Inbox]
The
Nike SoHo store closed. R.I.P.! [Hypebeast]
Somehow, Condé Nast let the trademark for Gourmet lapse, and now some journalists have taken it over and are relaunching it as a newsletter. You cannot make this stuff up! [N.Y. Times]
This is a very diplomatic take on Pierpaolo Piccioli’s first menswear and Pre-Fall collections for Balenciaga. I might write about it! [N.Y. Times] |
Until tomorrow,
Lauren
P.S.: We use affiliate links because we are a business. We may make
a couple bucks off them. |
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