July 25, 2025

Hi, and welcome to Line Sheet. I’ll be back on Monday with more on this Wall Street Journal report that LVMH is finally, actually, trying to sell Marc Jacobs. Meanwhile, Sarah “SShapiro@puck.news” Shapiro is here with your weekly dose of why-is-this-so-expensive news, featuring The Row’s $620 water slides. (Honestly, good for them!)

Elsewhere, Sarah explains why nightgowns and pajamas are suddenly a big business for fashion brands (you can thank Raf Simons in his Dior era, but also Hill House Home), and shares what Line Sheet readers have been shopping for… through Line Sheet. Sarah also heads to Claire’s to explain why it’s about to file for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection… again. Send me your Claire’s stories!

For those of you with the Shoppies: I spent this week searching for a replacement for my beloved grey sweatshirt (vintage, raglan) that I left in the media room at Stade Charléty in Paris while filing my Anna Wintour succession story a few weeks back. (Thanks to the team at Nike who ensured I was able to watch Faith Kipyegon bravely attempt to break the four-minute mile and also deal with another once-in-a lifetime event.) In the end, I exited Scout with a white sweatshirt (I’m easily distracted) and procured a couple grey sweatshirts on Etsy. However, if you don’t have the patience for this kind of combing, Jamie Haller and The Great make new versions that stand up to the old designs.

Mentioned in this issue: Claire’s, Studs, Anna Harman, Rowan, Louisa Serene Schneider, tchotchkes, The Row, Mary-Kate and Ashley Olsen, Bottega Veneta, Raf Simons, La Perla, Hill House, Dôen, Buck Mason, Malbon Golf, Stephen and Erica Malbon, Fabletics, and many, many more…

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Sarah Shapiro

Four Things You Should Know…

The Row’s latest shoe troll, explained: The internet was up in arms this week after The Row’s $620 Ama slides sold out at various retailers. The success of the slides speaks, in part, to The Row’s careful retail strategy: The brand purposefully limits inventory, which allows the company to maintain scarcity (and build hype) while gauging demand before strategically distributing merchandise among retailers.

The pricing is clever, too. While hardly inexpensive, the rubber casual sandal presents a cheaper entry point for new customers, compared to The Row’s $820 leather and nylon sneakers or the $1,090 leather pumps. And, of course, designers and co-founders Mary-Kate and Ashley Olsen are factoring in their brand premium, too. Other category competitors include Bottega Veneta’s Slider ($390), Prada’s logo slider ($575), and Loewe’s puffed-up rubber thong sandals ($790). All of these designers assume you want their version, and are hoping that shoppers forget they can still pick up Adidas slides for $35. (By the way, I found a site that has The Row’s $620 slides for less than $500.)
The nightgown renaissance: In the early aughts, the typical go-to bedtime outfit for most people was an oversize t-shirt and boxers, maybe with some La Perla mixed in for the adventurous. Virtually nobody was spending money on a nightgown. But then fashion designers like Raf Simons started sending nightgowns down the runway, Covid turned sleepwear into daywear, and retailers and brands were excited to have a new category to reinvigorate.

Now, these products have become a reliable staple in many brands’ product mix. There’s also a financial advantage, given that there’s a lower H.T.S. (Harmonized Tariff Schedule) rate for sleepwear than ready-to-wear, which means better margins for retailers. Recent popular examples range from the HommeGirls and Comme Si matching pajamas to the Hill House Home Nap Dress, as well as gemütlich nightgowns from Vermont Country Store, Salter House, Dôen, and If Only If. Zoomers are also embracing the trend, thanks in part to influencers like Paige DeSorbo (Daphne) and Matilda Djerf (Djerf Avenue).
Your Shoppies results, revealed: My latest perusal of Line Sheet’s own ShopMy affiliate data revealed a few noteworthy trends from the first half of the year. The most popular converting brand was Tory Burch, driven by this link. Two of the most-clicked-on items in Line Sheet were the Prince x Abercrombie collab (proving that tennis really is the sport of the summer), and Hill House’s Nap Dress, which performed remarkably well after my interview with Nell Diamond.

Three more standouts included the pink button-up from With Nothing Underneath; the Bottega Veneta jelly mary janes; and Lauren’s red Bally Alva pumps. Plus, there was a surprise hit: the unique Brave Pudding sock booties that were on the TWP Fall 2025 runway. (The brand has recently launched a lace version.)
Store openings, collabs, launches, and more!: Dôen just opened a new location on Nantucket, bringing their signature bohemian-meets-preppy aesthetic to the island … Buck Mason followed its Berkeley store with a significantly larger one in SoHo, its seventh in the greater New York City area, to serve as its flagship for womenswear. The 4,000-plus-square-foot location includes a Fast Times Coffee shop, and separate floors for men’s and women’s … The U.K. drugstore Boots is leaning into being a niche brand with a higher price point, and opening a fragrance-only location at London’s Broadgate Central this fall … And finally, the founders of Malbon Golf, Stephen and Erica Malbon, collaborated with Fabletics to create a diffusion line to test a lower price point, which they hope will extend their reach without cannibalizing the master brand. (They just need to do something about the annoyingly cluttered Fabletics website.) The brand has participated in quite a few collabs lately, including with the likes of Gap, Jimmy Choo, Adidas, and St. John.

And now, the main event…

The Week in Shopping: The Claire’s Conundrum

The nostalgic mall brand had every advantage to capitalize on the exploding tchotchke market and maintain its ear piercing dominance. Instead, it’s teetering on the verge of bankruptcy.

Sarah Shapiro

My beloved tween daughter has never entered a store in which she didn’t want to buy something. So it’s particularly noteworthy that the Claire’s gift card that she received four years ago remains unused in her wallet. We tried again last week, and popped into the store in Aventura, but left empty-handed. Claire’s seems to be the one store where nothing interests her.

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The refined BMW 7 Series is all luxury. With the ability to define your design, the ultimate glamour is yet to be. Learn more at

BMWUSA.com.

It’s just not my kid’s taste. The mall brand, known for trendy accessories and ear piercings, is once again teetering on the brink. After filing for bankruptcy in 2018, Claire’s has a $500 million loan due next year and faces some unpleasant options. Their financial troubles, however, stretch back more than a decade: Apollo took them private in a $3.1 billion buyout in 2007, and while there were murmurs of an I.P.O. in 2023, it never materialized. The irony is that the tchotchke market is exploding right now, and Claire’s should be thriving, given their incumbency advantage. Miniso, Flying Tiger, Pop Mart (the makers of those Labubu creatures), Sanrio, and even Etsy are all pulling major revenue in the space. So what gives?

Retail Paralysis

In short, the business has struggled to evolve with the times. For example, piercing (ostensibly their bread and butter) was apparently doing well as recently as 2021, when the retailer reported nearly $1.4 billion in sales and announced they’d “proudly pierced more ears than ever” compared to prior years. But as the ear-piercing industry moved toward needles, which are considered safer and more accurate, the company continued to use piercing guns.

Then came the disruptors. Studs has raised more than $30 million—most recently, $20 million in a Series B led by Spark Capital—to reimagine the piercing experience. Rowan, which uses licensed nurses and pierces with either needles or a device (never a gun), also raised $20 million in its Series B and is approaching 100 locations. Both brands have moved into malls—Claire’s home turf—and offer modern, hygienic, parent-approved environments, complete with on-trend earrings and polished branding. Studs even coined the term “earscaping.”

Along with premium competitors like Maria Tash, which has 14 locations from SoHo to Harrods to Le Bon Marché, these newer entrants are giving Claire’s competition in a previously uncrowded space. Studs C.E.O. and co-founder Anna Harman told me that 60 percent of their revenue comes from piercing services and 40 percent from earrings sales, while Rowan founder and C.E.O. Louisa Serene Schneider told me that tweens and teens are now coming in for their second, third, and fourth piercings much more frequently than in previous years. What was once a onetime procedure has become a loyalty game—and Claire’s is losing.

As the ear-piercing model changed, Claire’s could have leaned into tchotchkes to offset their losses. After all, bag charms, Labubus (and the knockoff Lafufus), and accessories of all kinds are exploding in the market right now. Tariffs might slow things down over the coming year, but in the meantime, companies like Pop Mart have built entire retail concepts around the trend; Miniso flooded malls with affordable trinkets; Five Below captured the tchotchke impulse-buy market, etcetera.

With prime mall locations and, theoretically, a built-in, kid-to-teen customer base, they seemed to be perfectly positioned. Before the latest tchotchkes trend cycle, Claire’s assortment already included hair accessories, key chains, journals, slime kits, and Squishmallows (those super-squishy stuffies covering every tween’s bed like Beanie Babies on steroids). They could have created an experience where kids came for piercings and left with bags full of trending accessories—then did TikTok hauls and unboxings of the latest collectible. Instead, they let nimble competitors reinvent both sides of their business.

Unused gift cards tell the whole story. Claire’s didn’t just fail to evolve—they stood still, which means getting left behind in retail. After all, with each generation, the tween market is ripe for reinvention.

The Week in Feedback…

On the Loro Piana labor sitch: “Regarding your write-up on Loro Piana, I believe you overlooked a crucial point, one that may prove far more damaging to the brand than you suggest. The core issue here isn’t whether L.P. was aware of its subcontractor’s labor abuses. The issue is that those abuses were driven by a system that’s more concerned with costs than integrity. Worse yet, the cost-cutting was hidden behind a façade of artisanship, exceptional materials, etcetera. The curtain has been pulled. And while I agree that most customers won’t be sufficiently moved by the labor issues, they most certainly will take offense at paying $3,000+ for a cashmere sweater that is known to cost the company only $100. Bottom line: Wealthy folks—especially those who consider themselves discerning enough to spend $3,000 on a sweater—don’t like to feel duped. I really think you’ve underestimated the fallout.” —An ex-LVMH executive

On the fitness apparel wars: “On Running clothing is really good. There, I said it. You gotta schlep to Venice to try it.” —Someone who is worried I’m going to buy that Vuori piped set at Sportsmen’s Lodge later this afternoon

On Skims betting on volleyball: “Women’s professional volleyball has had very poor success domestically. Until a year ago, there wasn’t a single pro league in the U.S.; graduating college athletes were forced to continue their careers abroad. As of next summer, there may be up to three professional leagues starting up in the U.S.: LOVB, PVF, and MLV. LOVB seems to be the league endorsed by ‘serious’ athletes: Of the 13 Olympians from the 2024 games, 10 played in LOVB. The Skims partnership is yet another sign that LOVB will come out on top.” —A volleyball enthusiast

On the Eva Chen factor: “I don’t see how Eva would forgo Meta money and take a big step backward in her career for Vogue and Condé. Everyone currently or formerly in publishing wishes they had Eva’s job.” —A designer

On what Ami Colé’s closure says about Sephora: “Sephora needed a wake-up call. The team is too junior to take joint ownership of the P&L.” —A beauty industry veteran

Have a great weekend,
Lauren

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

Puck fashion correspondent Lauren Sherman and a rotating cast of industry insiders take you deep behind the scenes of this multitrillion-dollar biz, from creative director switcheroos to M&A drama, D.T.C. downfalls, and magazine mishaps. Fashion People is an extension of Line Sheet, Lauren’s private email for Puck, where she tracks what’s happening beyond the press releases in fashion, beauty, and media. New episodes publish every Tuesday and Friday.

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. Wall Power also features Julie Brener Davich, a veteran of Christie’s and Sotheby’s, who provides unique insights into how the business really works.

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