Retail Diary - Week of January 15, 2024
This Week's Topics:
Beauty and Tweens & Teens
Award Season Highlights
Luxury Fashion News
Calvin Klein Ads Controversy
New Launches, Collabs, Corporate Moves & News
What else I ❤️️
Beauty and Tweens & Teens
I’ll leave the parenting insights to the experts, but I want to mention that I first fell in love with Retail as a middle schooler in awe of The Body Shop and what Anita Roddick built. This manifested as me wanting to visit every single ‘The Body Shop’ store I walked by, read her book and pore over the catalogs. It is so cool when we look back to see what experiences later shape us in our career choices. So perhaps the tweens and teens in love with Sephora and skincare could become the next beauty lab chemist, dermatologist, beauty retailers, beauty founders, aestheticians or makeup artist.
The Cut article on Tweens and Sephora “Shopping With Sephora Tweens After School”
Jessica DeFino who writes The Unpublishable on Substack and is a beauty writer for The Guardian, wrote “Ask Ugly” I’m getting ads for beauty products for my baby. Infants don’t need skincare - do they?”
Warning, this is a long podcast! But I like listening to Once in a Millennial author/Be There in Five podcast host Kate Kennedy ramble (in the coolest way possible) about pop culture. She does an excellent job talking about the nostalgia, pop culture connections and falling down the rabbit hole. The episode is also appropriately and cheekily titled “Sephora the Explorer.” Diving in deep (so deep) to tweens and Sephora/beauty.
Gloss Angeles podcast chatting about Sephora and Ulta and opportunities around Gen Alpha.
Award Season Highlights
I wrote a full Golden Globes trend recap in a previous This Will Be Quick edition. You can catch up here if you missed it and want to read.
This instagram reels by Tariro Makoni has been making the rounds as a great breakdown on Ayo Edebiri’s style evolution and work with stylist Danielle Goldberg. (Makoni is a new Instagram find for me and I’m loving her posts!)
Have you heard of Sole Bliss shoes? Apparently it is the secret styling weapon of stylist for the runway and royalty. They have also done a collab with stylist Elizabeth Stewart.
My favorite accessory from the Critic’s Choice Awards was Brie Larson carrying the Olympia Le Tan Clutch of ‘Lessons in Chemistry’ by Bonnie Garmus.
Quick Highlights: Suki Waterhouse bares a bump, leather looks nailing it from Ayo Edebiri/Danielle Goldberg (stylist) and America Ferrera/Karla Welch (stylist), Greta Lee was also styled by Danielle Goldberg and I have a feeling we will be seeing some great interviews with Goldberg soon. Rosamund Pike’s style is also making waves (oh wow, so glad the Simone Rocha dress got a moment - her stylist is Leith Clark) and the whole cast of the White Lotus.
Images via Getty Images, InStyle, Vogue, Bazaar and Karla Welch Instagram.
Luxury Fashion News
Loud Luxury caught my attention in this article from Vogue Business: Loud Luxury, grandpa core and jelly dressing: 2024 Menswear Predictions. Since I love data, and especially the instagram account @databutmakeitfashion, this is a great quote in regards to Quiet Luxury vs Loud Luxury. “As social media analyst @databutmakeitfashion noted, despite media coverage pushing the trend, the number of logos on the runway grew 53 per cent from 2021 to 2023, based on her analysis of the AW21 and AW23 seasons.”
Continuing this trend, we won’t just see Pharrell Williams impact on luxury and Louis Vuitton only in mens fashion. Lots of great reviews on his handbags for the brand. Primary Colors from The Cut here. The Sandwich Bag here and the Fall Winter 2024 Rodeo Runway show from this week can be viewed here from Essence.
We are all paying attention to what direction the new Gucci takes.
I keep sharing articles about fashion sourcers, the new personal shoppers, as I think this is such an interesting business model and very important in the proliferation and expansion of the luxury fashion industry. This is from Glossy: “Luxury Briefing: ‘Desire outweighs price’ as more shoppers tap luxury sourcers”
Calvin Klein Ads Controversy
Most of the conversation has been around Jeremy Allen White’s CK ads, but here is everything to catch you up on Calvin Klein’s ads (which have changed very little in style since the early 1980’s.)
The most recent Calvin Klein ads with actor Jeremy Allen White have been compared to the iconic and history making earlier ads with Mark Wahlberg (Marky Mark) in the 90’s.
Earlier in 2023, FKA Twigs’ had a Calvin Klein ad, with a famous version of the tagline “Calvins or nothing” that was this week deemed too sexually overt and inappropriate. NYTimes writes about the double standards in the ad campaigns and here is Bazaar’s article on the situation. Worth noting that the Kendall Jenner ad that was released at the same time as FKA Twigs’ did not get pulled because the focus was “on the clothing vs on the naked body”
Business of Fashion also has a deep dive on CK ads and getting people talking.
Christina Binkley wrote about the questions it raises for Vogue Business. As she points out “All of this raises thorny questions about how we view sexual objectification, and when we give it, and the brands that profit from it, a pass. In the case of Calvin Klein, the white male and female models got a pass while the woman of colour got banned. She did not appreciate it.”
FKA Twigs’ instagram post with her comments on the matter.
New Launches, Collabs, Corporate Moves & News
Launched
Kim Kardashian is relaunching color cosmetics on January 26th under SKKN by Kim Makeup
Collabed
More from LV - Pharrell x Louis Vuitton x Timberland
Peak bow collab Loeffler Randall x Salter House
A few brands have partnered with the new “Mean Girls” movie (musical) and I loved this Burn Book from Olympia Le Tan.
Acquired
Puig takes a majority ownership in Dr. Barbara Sturm (is Kosas next in line to be acquired?)
Bandier and Carbon38 are under new ownership - BC Brands. This new company, led by Kate Nadolny (previously CEO of Bandier.) These two brands are incredibly similar and have huge overlap so I expect some consolidation to happen.
Corporate Moves & News
Rent the Runway cuts 10% of jobs and the COO exits as part of a restructuring to push towards profitability.
To read more about RTR and Stitch Fix business model, read this article from the WSJ “Renting Clothes Was Supposed to be the Future of Fashion. Then Shoppers Got Bored” I’m not so sure it is boredom, but more based on new disruptors, changing tastes/style and finding inspiration in new places or shopping in other manners (see article above on luxury fashion sourcers. Skipping renting to wear a “uniform” and instead invest in a luxury bag.)
Gregg Renfrew, founder of Beautycounter, is returning as CEO.
Leah Faye Cooper is Vogue.com’s new Digital Style Director (see her recent piece on textured clothing for WSJ here.)
Sarah Jane Spellings, former Vogue editor, is now the WSJ Magazine and Style Editor.
Sustainable Shoe (and accessories) brand Rothy’s names a new CEO and makes other executive moves. Jenny Ming (ex Old Navy and Charlotte Russe) is named CEO and Dayna Quanbeck is named President.
Authentic Brands CEO Jamie Salter states “biggest mistake” in purchasing Forever 21 and underestimating Shein at the time.
De Beers cutting diamond prices to stay competitive stating that the market has been challenging due to lab grown diamonds popularity.
What else I ❤️️
Brilliant use of thinking outside the box. Turning edible but defective candies into a new cheeky product extension - Sweethearts “Situationships Box”
Scratching the itch left by Bill Cunningham showing New Yorkers dressing for cold weather , and an update with how New Yorkers and visitors dressed for the first snowfall in 700 days in NYC. Or if you are looking for warm weather feelings, NYTimes covers Australia Street Style too.
Rethinking future house renovations to include a Snug.
Anna Wintour with Anne Hathaway on Broadway - Gutenberg. This bit was amazing.
Megan Alida Strachan gets real about starting and growing Dorsey with Marie Claire. If you like this, I also highly recommend you listen to her episode of Second Life with Hillary Kerr
First look at the “Kaiser Karl” Karl Lagerfeld series on Disney+
Reminder, I love Angela Hicks’ Instagram
Loved this “selfcheckout” newsletter from Marie Claire EIC Nikki Ogunnaike. She shares her favorite substack newsletters (where the fashion crowd is congregating! It is fun here), her try-ons with High Sport and &Daughter and Becky Malinsky 3 top picks.
This kid and his cool Air Max kicks - knitted by his grandmother!!!
I’ve purchased from the brand Primary and I loved listening to the story from the founders on the How I Built This podcast.
Enjoyed this Substack by Eliza Brooke interviewing “Mean Girls” and SNL costume designer Tom Broecker.
Loved seeing Joanna Goddard in the WSJ with her Big Salad Substack - her community is such a nice corner of the internet!
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What's Next?
Catching up on the latest trends from NRF (National Retail Federation) Big Show 2024, Valentine’s Day messaging coming up and I’m expecting some more fashion/retail news ahead of Super Bowl since more eyes are on it from a pop culture lens, especially with Taylor’s team still in the running (don’t come to me for sports news - just the retail and fashion corner of it.)
Thanks for reading Deep Dive Edition 148
Sarah Shapiro