Department Store Wars

32:56Um, I think what's really shocked people was we had mentioned prior, once we close the deal, we will be able to get things cleaned up. And I think the deal closed a lot faster than, well, you say you were surprised. we were all surprised uh when the ftc just waved us by um in august and um we need and still do the time to work through uh not the paperwork but the actual you know getting the money out the door and just getting it set up and that's why we had to do what we did. But if I can just talk about why the memo. And yeah. Because you know, people forget. You know, I spent 30 years in this business.

33:55I was running Saks Fifth Avenue for a decade. And you didn't hear my name a lot. I wasn't on the line sheet. I'd had a fight for real estate on there. And I was a great partner. and I was, you know, we were paying all our bills. But the one thing I always learned and knew, whether it was talking to my employees, whether it was talking to our partners, our shareholders, whoever, transparency. And as soon as we closed the transaction, that was the number one question. That was the number one question the buying team was getting, these people at Neiman Marcus who just joined Saks Global five minutes before were getting it.

34:32And I figured we owe these people, we owe our partners the answer. they might not like it but this is the best i can tell them right now and this is what i'm going to tell them um if i had to do it all over again i would do it maybe different you know we we have different words uh and the intention would be probably felt a little bit differently but the unfortunately the answer would be the answer but the problem was for months and months and months, there wasn't the transparency that these folks deserved. So I gave it to them and, uh, not because they demanded it, but because we owed it to them.

35:14Can you just walk back for a minute and explain why you owed people so much money or companies so much money? I think, you know, it's going, it goes back to, you know, the, the pandemic. And I think we had a, a call with the brands, over the summer, but Saks Fifth Avenue, the stores, shared a credit group with the Hudson's Bay business up in Canada. And in 2021, we separated at Saks the Digco from the Fisco, which you and I talked about. And it was wildly successful. and you and I, separate podcasts can debate that, but it was wildly successful. And part of the wild success was not my brilliance as its leader or Richard's as its architect, but maybe it was how the US consumer came out of COVID.

36:15A lot of smart people in the retail industry in 2021, right? But it was very successful. So the company felt, and we raised all of the investment that we made through a private placement we did with Insight Partners. where we raised$500 million for sax.com. And we put that money to work in marketing and technology and we invest in, we built a team. And I think the company felt, hey, let's do this up at Hudson's Bay. It's really working well here. They didn't raise the money, they did it themselves. And the Canadian consumer did not respond or come out of the pandemic. In fact, I think they still haven't responded or come out of the pandemic as well as the U.S., and it's been slower.

37:04And they found themselves in a little bit of a pinch from a liquidity standpoint. And with a shared credit group, we had to, or Saks with Avenue, HBC, U.S., had to actually slow down payments in order to balance the liquidity of the entire group. Okay? So that's HBC, U.S. and, um, I think from there that started sort of this, we slowed down, um, or HBC US slowed down payments, shipping slowed down. It becomes a flywheel business slows down and then it just piles up and piles up and piles up. And I think along the way, um, there was always, there was always comfort in the U S that the business would meet its expectations.

37:59There was enough concerns in the U.S. about the business. But again, with 30-day payment terms, even in a good day, it's hard. So there was just a lot of sort of, I'm going to call it, one-time event or pressure put on the U.S. credit group. And that's how it sort of snowballed. Okay. And then second part of the question is, really quickly, explain why the 90 days make sense versus 30? Because I've heard different things. I've heard a lot of people who say, yeah, it's never, I mean, Barney's went bankrupt in the 90s. So we remember when it went bankrupt in the 2010s, but it also went bankrupt in the 90s.

38:43So clearly something is wrong with the model. But can you explain why the 90s makes a, 90 days makes a difference? Yeah, I think, you know, and again, when you, when you are me and you've been doing this for as long as, so when I started in Saks in 1995, there was no internet. I mean, I'm all warned. There was no internet. uh brands as you mentioned most brands didn't have their own stores and forget lv and dior and these guys and chanel they had stores i'm talking like every brand has a store everybody there's meat packing there was no meat packing back then there was no there was none of this there was there was no direct to consumer there wasn't the internet with pricing transparency there wasn't um there was lots of vendor allowance and markdown money and an advertising co-op and And everybody participated in the financial model was very different between department store and vendor, where in fact, the department store was a strong player.

39:40Like you said, there was a reason, a different reason for brands to do business with department stores and 30-day payments made sense. 25, 30 years later, there's all these things are different. Guess what's still intact? The only thing that hadn't changed in my 30-year career in luxury were payment terms. and people are, and I'm, you know, I'm pretty, I read all the comments and, you know, oh, you know, if I buy something from Saks, can I pay for it in 90 days? See, here's the trick.

40:15There's a whole supply chain that happens. The brands have to design the product, make the fabric commitments, buy the buttons, buy the hardware, manufacture the goods, pay the factories, bring in the goods. Everybody in the supply chain is out money a little bit in advance, except for one party, the consumer. They give you the money, they walk out with their product. And as the supply chain got faster, as internet came up, as there was a lot more competition, as there was a lot less time, as pricing transparency became more prevalent, all these things moving, not only are the department stores always selling things, if you turn one and a half times a season or even twice a season in luxury, you're not, you're not fast fashion.

41:06You're not turning nine times. You're not, you know, um, sheen. So, uh, you're already selling things slower. Guess what? Now you're maybe not selling them at all. Maybe you're selling them at a lower margin. Maybe you're selling them at below cost. It doesn't matter you're taking so much more risk and you're out the cash from 30 days from delivery and people on average if you sell it 60 80 90 days from delivery you're probably not selling it again you bought it for 500 bucks you could be selling it for 350 forget the thousand it's retailed for so the margin profile changed the vendor allowance slowed down every brand started building stores we had to change this dynamic do i expect the the brand partners to finance my business no i don't it's not their job but i can't finance theirs either we have to be partners and i think this is a movement more towards that and by and large our brand partners understood that there they might not have loved how it was communicated it wasn't great again it could have been different timing.

42:21But I think by and large, there's an understanding around that. Well, the one thing that I heard immediately was LVMH got preferential deals. Caring got preferential deals. Chanel, I mean, Chanel doesn't wholesale with you, so I don't know how that could be a preferential deal. Well, LVMH does though. Yes, just a little bit. Yep. So did you end up having to do a bunch of side deals with companies? uh we you know look i think um i was on the phone with with a big uh brand partner of ours who said i heard you got uh you gave chanel and this is like a this is a guy who knows the game and who's been in it longer than me and who's a lot smarter than i am and he says to me i know i'm talking to these european conglomerates i'm hearing you're giving deals and i said hey blank you know what I have news for you.

43:15Chanel's got a better deal than you. You know, I'm sorry. And I'm not going to lie to people. Did we make side deals? I'm not going to call them side deals. Uh, just like people had different deals. It was amazing when we put Neiman's and Sacks together. Do you think all the deals were the same, Lauren? Do you think that when I looked, when I opened up those vendor deals and when I looked at the terms that different people had, that they were all identical? No, but payment terms are one thing. I don't have to take any markdowns on Chanel. I don't have to, you know, I don't pay sales commission on Chanel.

43:51I don't have to spend too much money marketing Chanel. I don't have to introduce the Chanel brand to people. There's a lot of different people still think Coco Chanel is alive. I know Coco Chanel ate chicken wings at the downtown Dallas store, but that's a story for a different. Wow. Yeah. actually, anyway, Yeah, we'll come back on Dallas. But I think, yes. Did we make side deals? Yes. Am I willing to talk to any single brand partner? Because look, there are new and emerging brands who can't sustain this type of payment cycle. I'll work with them. this is not about i'm not i don't i know my place in this ecosystem and i know my place in this community and all we did this for you think about the strategy it's to be there for our partners and it didn't come across that way but at 30 day terms the last year and a half it wasn't coming across that way either and this way i could say this is what i can do this is how i can take it.

44:55And if you have an emerging brand, if you have somebody who needs support or help or whatever, we got to work on that. And we got to work with them on what's best for them. Got it.

45:11Speaking of Dallas, so the thing that happened in Dallas where the downtown Dallas store, The lease was up. The people who own the lease, I don't want to get into it. Everyone can Google it. It's on every CNBC page in existence. But the bigger thing was you announced you're going to close the downtown Dallas store, which was very historic. The reality of the matter, when I looked at it and also saw how Neiman Marcus had been managing Dallas, it made sense to me that you would close the store lease or not. But it brought up to me a bigger question. So the first part of this is what happened and you were able, I know it's going to be open for a while, so I don't know if there's anything you can say right now on the status of it, but what happened and then B, what is the sort of plan for the store fleet?

46:13Because as you've said, the overlap even between Saks and Neiman Marcus in many markets is not that high of consumer. So there is an argument to keep both stores. But my instinct was always that if there was a market where you had both or there are some malls where you have both, if the customer overlap is too high, why not invest in one store and invest in making that store the best store, you know, that sort of thing. So the question is one, can you just explain from your side what happened with Dallas and two, what is the bigger plan for the store fleet? Sure. Like, you know, as you mentioned, uh, um, Dallas, uh, the downtown Dallas flagship for Neiman's we own the building actually.

47:01It's a couple of sub parcels. Um, really care that much about the details. But there are six subparcels underneath in which one of them is controlled. And without them, you really can't operate the store, right? Because people need to be able to step on the ground and use the escalator or whatever. So the landlord that owned a couple thousand square feet of the land lease had a 99-year or whatever lease it was, and legacy management let it go. And when we took the company at the end of December of 24, you know, we were told here's the new deal. And, uh, if you don't like it tough, well, we didn't like it.

47:43And again, I want to be very transparent. This is not a very well-performing store. There's no sacks in the market. So this has nothing to do with your other question. This is just as a powerful North Park center. Um, and this is a store that was in, in a capital deficit and would have needed a lot of investment. And, you know, we hadn't made a decision on it, but our hand was forced. And it's like, okay, well, if this is the way it's going to go, then this is what we'll do. And if we were a smaller company, everything that played out after that moment, no one would have known. But since everyone was paying so much attention to SAC and what was going on, it was out there.

48:23But really, simply what happened was we said, okay, we'll close. And the city of Dallas jumped in, and the community got behind it. the landlord worked with the city and then the city worked with us. And look, we still have to reimagine that store. There's not a place there for just a Neiman Marcus. There needs to be, it's a Neiman Marcus, but it needs to be reimagined. I'm going to keep the store open through the holidays as we work with the city on trying to develop something interesting and different to bring the community back down there and together. I will tell you the

49:05overwhelming support that the community has for that store. It's an important part of the legacy of Neiman's. And by the way, that Dallas store, I think, is really where luxury came into the United States. I mean, that was like it, not just for Neiman's, not just for Dallas. That was it for all of us. And I understand the importance of it. It's just a matter of redefining and reshaping what it is. And what you guys all got to see was it happening and playing out in the public sphere, which was unfortunate. And then your folks that you deal with, Lauren, here on our side, our communications people, we have to keep saying, we're going to close the store, we're going to close the store, we're going to close the store.

49:44Because we didn't want to create a narrative within the organization. We had people's jobs. We had people that worked there. We couldn't, you know, lead them on. And when we had a solution, we announced it. So that brings us to this bigger store question, though, because you could argue, if you're a cold and callous person like I am, that that store should not be open. I'm sorry that it's, yes, I understand, but like, it's not as, you're right in that North Park is a powerhouse and that's where people go shopping. And so more broadly, how are you thinking about the store fleet and how to manage it now that you are one company?

50:28Yeah, I think, and we did a lot of work on this during the diligence. And I don't think there's, you know, we want to grow this business and you don't grow by shrinking the store base. To your point, if there's clear overlap and there are easy places where you can, you don't need both, or one is severely deficient to the other, or one is under, you can appreciate this, Lauren, as can your listeners. The store matrix and the assortment in the store makes a big difference. You know, if you have a C or D store, you know, that could be, you know, why burn the calories on it? But there's not many of those.

51:09And the ones that everyone's really interested in, whether it's the ones in Bell Harbor or Booker Tone, Florida or Beverly Hills. These are powerful, powerful stores that do a lot of volume and make a lot of money. And it is not a math exercise. Close one and just move all the volume. You saw that when Barneys closed. You know, Barneys closed in New York City. It's not like Sax and Bergdorf picked up all that volume. It like went poof into the night. Some to the brands, some to gone, some to Essence and Matches, whatever. Uh, so if you are holding that, you have to be very careful and these are well-appointed, well-invested stores.

51:50Uh, and we just don't see a reason, um, to, to disrupt, uh, something that's working quite well. Okay. So I'll be tracking your store count. let me let me just say and this is a conversation not an interview we will again there will be opportunistic we're going to take a look and there's going to be a rationalization it's just going to be small yeah not going to be what i think you and others might expect um and even some would hope uh but there'll be closures um over the next five or six years So that kind of brings me to the HBC issues that have happened while all this stuff is happening to you, where there are going to be a lot of closures in Canada of stores.

52:41They had to liquidate all but six of their stores, one of the SAC stores that's there. It's a different company, and maybe you have a very clear way of explaining this. I've tried, but it's a different company, but they were operating some SAC stores in Canada. the company filed for some sort of thing that is not the same name as chapter seven or chapter 11, but they had to liquidate. So Hudson's Bay Company is in Canada, pretty much the only, I mean, Holt Renfrew, yes, but really the department store of Canada. It's like all of our department stores in one. It's really important to people. People are very emotional about it.

53:33Starts a couple of weeks ago. There are all these headlines that they're going to have to liquidate. People associate HBC with Saks Global because Richard Baker is connected to both companies. And at one point, I don't know how, but you were all connected or parts of Saks was connected to HBC and Saks Global spun off, but they were the same company at one point. So how have you managed communicating that when you're dealing with all this other stuff? We've only gone through half the list of stuff you've been dealing with. So how did you deal? What is your sort of line about what that means and how?

54:17Because I think what it did was also got people more nervous about SACS Global because they still associate it with HPC. Yeah, I think they should be less concerned about SACS Global. Again, I think a lot of the pressure that SACS was under in 2023 was a result of its cross-relationship with Hudson's Bay. And the fact that we separated at Hudson's Bay, um, when we formed SACS Global, uh, should, was a, was a, um, from a capital structure standpoint, uh, a, a positive, if you're looking at our business from that standpoint, um, when you think about what I'm telling people or what's my line, uh, look, the first thing I'd say is, you know, I, I know a lot of the people that worked or work, um, at Hudson's Bay and I feel for them.

55:08And I really do. I mean, these are great people that work really hard and it's, it's an unbelievably phenomenal brand. I mean, they study this brand in elementary school in Canada. Uh, you know, it's a big deal and I get that. So it's, it's, it's tough to see this and, and I feel for them. Uh, that said, we're two separate companies. It has actually not been something that's been confusing. Uh, people seem to get that. Uh, and we haven't had to deal, uh, with much of, uh, of that. And, you know, um, we're watching it sort of like you are, I'm not very close to what's happening up there. Uh, it is two ownership groups, um, two separate credit facilities.

55:51Uh, so where I'm not even, you know, necessarily not getting any updates or hearing much of what's going on. Uh, and you know, again, aside from the just human aspect of it not being a good thing. Okay, two more bits and then let's talk big picture and future. Layoffs seems pretty standard. You're going to have layoffs as the business integrates, I assume. Yeah. I mean, it's, look, it's not the story of this. You know, everyone has to remember the plot. And it's why I sent that memo out. I know you, you said it was so I can, I can make right with my people, but it's, it's really about, um, we're trying to create something great here and we're trying to create this personalized, very tight relationship with the consumer type of business where we're sticky.

56:51We're sort of always with you. We know you well, you trust us. We've always got what you want or a destination. And then for our brand partners, also, we want to be reliable. We want to be a strong counterparty. We want to be someone that can help them grow, which again is not something, and we can call it like it is. That's not something that Saks was for the last 18 months. Now, I've been at the company 30 years, running it for a decade, but you're graded, like you said, Lauren, you know, have the last 18 months gone. So we got to work on those things a derivative or a byproduct of this combination is going to be redundancy like you said there were two ceos um i lost and jeff wall won but and i'm here i am but there's going to be redundancy across the organization the the the management of that is listen the goal for us is we've got to do this properly and deliberately we've got to have the right talent.

57:53Um, at the same time, we've got to treat these people the right way. These are hardworking people that have all been in one of these two companies, you know, one year, five years, 10 years, 20 years, it doesn't matter. And you have to understand that, you know, you have to do it right and you have to treat them right. And it's just taking time to do that. Uh, so, So there will be reductions and it's going to be a multi-year transformation. But these are, you know, it's interesting. If you go back, Lauren, and look at what you've been writing about the last six or seven years, what's happening at all these other retailers all the time is changes in the headcount, transformations.

58:36This is not very different. It's just a lot more deliberate. And again, there's a really, really big pivot and transformation at the end of this that makes it worth the effort and the time that we're all putting into it. We're going to talk about that in one second. The two more things I wanted to discuss with you are customer refunds. So this is a win for you, I think. One of the other narratives that was happening as the deal was closing was that customers were complaining online on social media that they were having to wait a long time to get their refund if they return something online. I know we discussed the return fraud issues, but generally it was frustrating.

59:28It sounds like, from what I've heard, that you've gotten that back under control and that customers are now receiving refunds in a normal five - to seven-day thing. Can you speak to a normal five - to seven-day cycle? Can you speak to a bit very shortly about how you got it back on track? Yeah, the issue's been resolved. And again, we were doing it. It was an online fraud issue. And it was a lot of different reasons. But we had to end up hand-checking, you know, almost everything that came back. You know, you get back empty boxes, boxes with rocks in it, boxes with goods that are, you know, counterfeit, whatever.

1:00:10So you have to make sure that actually you're controlling all that. Not just from your own standpoint, but from the customer experience. We're automated. So if somebody sends us a box of rocks and we put that box of rocks back into the bin where the perfume is, we will send somebody else that box of rocks if they order it. But we used what we're using. We used data, whether it's AI generatively or ML, to understand customers, to be able to sift through, to be able to know who's a potential bad actor. And really, it's a very, very small percentage. And so we were able to just go sort of return back to moving a lot faster.

1:00:51Do I look at it as a win? Not necessarily, but we got it back to where it should be. And it was unfortunate that it was there. Well, I'm sure you understand that as all these vendors were not getting paid or having back pay, then suddenly customers were also experiencing that. It felt like it could be related, the two things. well we're we're back now uh again issue resolved on the returns um and understand how it can look and feel um and uh the you know i don't i'm not gonna give you the specifics but the amount of the customer refunds are not they're not very mature you know in the grand scheme of things it's not something that was going to make a difference.

1:01:43So we've gone through every issue I could think of. And now we have the big macro issues. So it sounds like most of your brand partner relationships are on the right track and you're shipping goods. I get tips, they're not shipping to you, then I see the stuff in store and online. So it seems like all that stuff, you're moving towards the right direction, inventories towards the right direction. And now you're faced with tariffs, potentially, whatever that does, maybe not to the pricing itself even for a while, but to consumer behavior. There are people saying we're already in a recession. as you continue on this path of making this one business, which is going to take a lot more time and effort and work, how are you dealing with these big issues that are sort of facing the consumer right now?

1:02:52Yeah, I think, again, I like to consider myself pretty battle-tested. I think in the 30 years, I think about where I was positioned in the company right after 9-11, where I was positioned in the company during the Great Recession in 08. I was a chief strategy officer. I was the head of merchandise planning after 9-11. And of course, I was CEO during the pandemic. And there were so many things in between, whether it was the bubble burst in 2000, the presidential election that nobody won in 2000. and then there was a bunch of other really, you know, recessionary moments. And then there were some great times that no one ever believed, right?

1:03:34Our business is filled with insecure, paranoid people, right? So it's all stimulus money. It's never good. It's never good, Lauren. It's either things are too good. It must be the stimulus. Things are bad. Here's, here's how I, the one lesson I've learned is luxury is a long game and the strategies that we have in place, what we're trying to do, which is again, make this the most unbelievable experience for the customer. Okay. Really, really deliver on that. That's by the time we're ready to your point, by the time we're done, it won't be tariffs. It'll be something else. It might be killer bees.

1:04:08It might be, you know, the title shifts. I have no idea what's going to be happening two years from now or three years from now. Um, uh, but right now let's just answer the question that needs to be answered. You said it well, right? What things are going to cost? That's challenge number one, but that's not even the greatest challenge. You know, people like, you know, I like to myth bust here. People think that wealthy customers don't care what things cost. I mean, that's crazy. We serve the entire continuum of luxury consumers at Saks, right? everyone from the most core that spend that walk their dog in Brunello Cuccinelli all the way to the person who's buying one pair of Gucci shoes or Chanel shoes that they saved up for all year that entire continuum not one person that continuum says oh I don't care when prices go up of course they do and that's why we have loyalty programs that's why we always manage our alterations cause it's why people like value but i think the bigger concern for us is going to be the uncertainty of where the consumer is i mean the markets are up and down uh people worried about the economy writ large like you said recession you look at savings rates um in the country right now uh they are um below pen pre-pandemic levels but only slightly and i need People like me in my business, right?

1:05:38You have 40 % of my business is done by 2 % of my customers. Okay. Those people don't worry about savings rates. If you ask them by and large, again, they don't want to pay$10 more for something. They don't. They're smart and sophisticated shoppers, but they also don't know what a dozen X costs right now. So I'm not going to hide behind that, but they need to have, um, they need to have certainty around what's going on. They need to feel right and be in the right mood. So you put them in one bucket. The other sort of 90 % of our customers that do 60 % of our business, you have to worry about things like job security.

1:06:15You have to worry about things like how it's going to work. And if everything else in my life, if my iPhone 17, which is going to come out in September, is going to be$2 ,300, that might affect what I spend at Saks or Neiman's. so what i'm expecting right now is going to be um a little bit of a turbulent uh next few months just as we bop around and then one of two things will happen either things will calm down in the back half or people will just get used to the bobbing and weaving in the turbulence and um we'll see a little bit more of a leveling off in the back half and that's how we're sort of looking at it all that mind uh we got to keep an eye on the purchase levels um what kind of sales expectations we have and we have to be very careful and deliberate with our with our working capital um but uh you know and we're looking at prices because you'll ask me next you know probably in that you know eight to twelve percent increase uh which is by the way you know this sort of in line with what luxury has been moving every year for the last bunch of years again it's great customers don't love it they've been pushing back on it but it's not going to be something aberrational how much of that and then i have one more question for you how much of that increase like i guess you're in a good in a good spot in a sense because you're not the one who has to deal with the pricing part of it like you your prices sort of make themselves because of the way your model works but you're not buying raw materials you're not doing all of that stuff you don't have to deal with like exporting from one country to another importing stuff here like I mean you do but not as so is some of this for you like how do you plan for that like that's I I mean, I don't know how anyone can, but for a company that's not, I mean, I guess you're making private label stuff, but still there's.

1:08:25No, this is to your point. You know, we, there'll be suggested retails. There'll be, and we're going to, you know, we're going to have to see how people handle what the cost increases are. But don't think it's not going to be of consequence to us. again, if things become too expensive, uh, customers ultimately want them, but they'll want to pay less. And they eventually, if they wait it out, they will, and they're going to pay us less. They're not going to pay, uh, the person we bought it from, uh, less. So, uh, you know, I'm forecasting it again. I think we're going to, there's a little bit of turbulence ahead.

1:09:04Um, and we're not, there's no panic right now. I mean, I compare this to other moments and, you know, this is just one where the worst thing you can do is overreact one way or the other um you know so uh you know slow and step okay final question it's december 2025 you've been paying you've been by all accounts you've been paying the back payment because there's no way you're not going to pay that right There's no way. So you're paying it. What does the new Saks Global look like in December? Because that's not that far from now. So you don't have to have all the answers. But what is the path that you want to be on by the end of the year?

1:09:51Yeah, I think, and it's scary, but like, yes, the fact that we're paying, that's like, so now what do I do with all my time? But no, I think you can really start, the customer is really going to start to see the benefits of this combination. I think the hyper-personalization efforts that are ongoing and that we started at SACS are going to be much more informed by the data. So the marketing you see from us, the personalization on the SACS website that you'll see from us, everything will be much more dialed up. You're going to have, we're already piloting inventory being shared across the platforms.

1:10:22So as a customer, again, you're going to see that benefit. And we're going to start testing and learning about things like loyalty and other benefits for customers across the platforms. so i think you're going to start to see the beginnings of what we're trying to do here lauren which again is transform this thing transforming it to something new and by december which is not long from now um i i do believe people are going to start to see it crystallize and um you know i think people are going to start to get very excited about it mark hopefully next time we chat we can just talk about the customer and what it's like to make a great experience in store and all that stuff.

1:11:04So maybe January, 2025. I hope so. Thank you for doing this. I really appreciate it. No, thanks for having me. And I love what you put out there, even when it's about me. Thank you. I appreciate you, Mark. Thank you. Fashion People is a presentation of Odyssey in partnership with Puck. This show was produced and edited by Molly Nugent. Special thanks to our executive producers, Puck co-founder John Kelly, executive editor Ben Landy, and director of editorial operations, Gobby Grossman. An additional thanks to the team at Odyssey, J.D. Crowley, Jenna Weiss-Berman, and Bob Tabador.