Flip-flopgate and Vanity Fair Guessing Games

0:03Hello and welcome to Fashion People. I'm Lauren Sherman, writer of Puck's fashion and beauty memo line sheet. And today with me on the show is Bryn Walner, founder of Dime Peace, live from the Upper East Side. We're talking watches and wonders, Vanity Fair, the Rose Flip Flop Gate, and plenty more. Hi, everyone. Hope you're having a great week. I am recording this early because I'm flying to New York for a puck event presented with Tishman Spire at Rock Center on Tuesday. I'll share more about that later in the week. And on Monday online sheet, there may be some breaking news. I am working on something right now that could break by then, but you never know.

0:52I've got lots of good stuff happening. More sacks, more Vanity Fair, more Balenciaga, a fear of God scoop. On Tuesday, Sarah Shapiro is going deep on Urban Outfitters. On Wednesday, Rachel Strugez has a huge beauty scoop. It's all happening. Let's get going with Brynn. Bryn Wallner, welcome to Fashion People. Bonsoir, Lauren. Bonsoir. Where are you coming from? You just landed in New York, I hear. Yes, I'm currently back on the Upper East Side where I just moved. I've heard it's a big movement. It's very trendy. It's very trendy, yes. So I'm in New York in my new apartment, but I'm also fresh from Geneva where I was for...

1:40a whole week for watches and wonders, which is my biggest work week of the year. And also that of the entire watch industry. So what did watches and wonders used to have a different name? Yeah. So it used to be S I H H S I H H. But then there was also Basil world. So these are two separate trade shows. And S I H H was run by Richemont and Basil world was everything else. And then this was before my time because I came into the watch industry in 2020. But, you know, I heard that there were some murmurings about things that just weren't working and it was getting too overcrowded at Basel. And then the pandemic hit and it was kind of the chance to hit the reset button.

2:31So they kind of merged. And there in 2022, Watches and Wonders was born. And that's most of the watch brands, excluding the Swatch Group, which is Omega and Longines and other brands. But over 60 brands were exhibiting this year, which is, I think, a record high. Wow. Yeah. Are there a lot of new brands right now coming out? Or are there brands that are old that are sort of being dusted off? Like, why were there so many? yeah that's a good question that I don't even know myself I know that there are lots of new brands micro brands independents um but then older brands that are kind of getting revitalized um but like I said I'm still newish to the industry so my priority is like the big heritage brands whenever I'm there because obviously you can't see 60 brands in a week and most people are only there like I don't know like four days maximum because then it turns into the public days which is also a new thing like this has always been a trade only thing journalists retailers buyers and now there are two I think three additional days that have been tacked on in the past couple years for the public and those have been really high traffic days and people have to pay to go.

4:01It's not invitation only. So it's kind of indicative of like watches gaining this bigger presence in the popular imagination and becoming really a destination. That's so interesting. Is it like sort of like the Detroit car show? I've never been, but I heard American cars are coming back. I guess so. Depends on what happens tomorrow or the day after. And the day after, every day is different. Every day, what a surprise. And I was wondering how long we'd get in this conversation without mentioning the big T word. Oh, my God. I don't know what you're talking about. Je ne sais pas. Neither do the Swiss watch brands.

4:47that's interesting so so you what did it because you watches and wonders that it fell right amid april april 2nd liberation day the day where all these tariffs were announced including a 20 blanket on the eu that i'm still unconvinced we're recording this sunday night and this weekend musk was like you know there just shouldn't be any taxes between the EU and the US. So I was like, oh, we'll see what happens on on April 9, right? Or whatever. But what was the reaction when you were going around to the different brands talking to people? Was everyone just talking about tariffs the whole time? Or were they not super worried about it?

5:33Yeah, I mean, the Swiss watch industry is not one to wear their heart on their sleep. and there's not a lot of you know people are acknowledging that this is a looming threat and obviously you know it's written on the wall it's if you look at the charts uh switzerland is going to be hit with a 31 percent levy um and so that's pretty high um and so you know people seem to be spooked um and it's really depending on who you're talking to like i was talking to a smaller brand and he's like i asked him straight off i'm like what are you doing um to protect yourself and he's like well we sent all our orders out early because if they're in transit they can't be affected before april 9th and we're just gonna hope for the best but then what you were kind of saying earlier it's like you really just can't predict what's gonna happen it's kind of like the tick tock bait and switch like who knows who knows who's shaking hands with who behind the scenes like this could all turn out to be um you know be reversed and it's just one day at a time as the alcoholics like to say yeah oh i think this is the first aa reference ever on fashion people Oh, my God.

6:57So interestingly, I was talking to someone today who brought up the point. Yes, I was it's Sunday and I was talking to someone about work. You know, this job, you just, you know, it never ends. We love my work so much. so one thing that was mentioned that I thought was a really good point in terms of luxury this person was like I don't think that the luxury brands and watches are a little different so we could kind of go into how they're priced but I don't think the luxury brands are going to the prediction was like most of the prices are going to go up about 10 percent and And the idea is like, yeah, that's not, it's not nothing.

7:47But right now I was looking at a lie addresses on my Teresa today and they were all like $3 ,500,$4 ,000. So what's another 400 bucks to onto that, like that type of thing. And then also, um, the landing cost of these things is different than obviously what the customer pays. So what a lot of these retail brands do is they sell the product to their American subsidiary. So say a Chanel bag costs$2 ,500. Chanel US may only be paying, I don't know,$1 ,800 for it or whatever. The point being that the taxes are going to actually be lower. or it's not going to be on the full price or even the price that they're sending to wholesalers.

8:42So say they're charging, say a bag costs$5 ,000 and they're charging the retailer$2 ,500 for it in a wholesale deal. Their subsidiary is only paying$1 ,800. So you really only get to get putting that new tax or that new tariff on the$1 ,800, not the 5 ,000. So it's I mean, it's not nothing, but it is something to think about with luxury goods. I think with with cheaper stuff, it's not as it's not as easy. But yeah, do you think with watches, because watches are so particular and they're so the way they they control the distribution? so in such a specific way that a lot of people who buy watches will just buy them in Europe or or kind of get around it yeah I was sharing a cab to the airport with an editor this morning the Geneva airport um and he was like you know these high net worth clients these are the people who are buying you know$15 ,000 and up watches which I feel like$15 ,000 is even on the low end these days for for the for the big watches um you know they can just buy them in Europe so why even go to the U.S.

10:07but what makes this interesting is that since 2021 since the pandemic the U.S. has emerged as the Swiss luxury watch industry's highest consumer group. So the biggest amount of Swiss watch exports are going to the U.S. and we superseded China after the pandemic. So you know what does that mean if all of a sudden the U.S. went from the highest consumer group to now we're buying these watches elsewhere? Like I don't know what happens in that weird dynamic. yeah it means that europe is same thing with luxury goods generally i think that 2022 was louis vuitton's like best year in the u.s ever and lvmh it became a one it it was sort of battling with china in the late 2010s overall lvmh as as u.s and china split in terms of what was a bigger market.

11:06And I think now U S is bigger again, or was, and we'll see, but yeah, it's, it's a real, it's a real problem. What do you attribute other than you and dime piece, because you definitely have inspired a new generation, not only of women, I would say of men to, to think about watches. and we've seen sort of a move away from just buying fashion in in the first half of the 2020s to buying hard luxury jewelry and watches um and i think as people you know on the wealthier end their wealth amassed and they got all that crypto money they were like i want to spend it on something that'll last but um what do you attribute it to i have this theory that the Apple watch came out in, I believe 2014 and a lot of people who had never owned watches bought them.

12:03And it took me, I, I got one. I had never worn a watch as an adult, really not even as a younger person I had tried, but never like got into it. And I wore the Apple watch up until 2021. And then And it started weirdly, even though I was at home, maybe because I was on Zoom all the time, I started to feel like I had outgrown and I got the Hermes Apple Watch, which I like. It's super lovely band and everything. But by 2022, I turned 40 and got one. And now I never wear the Apple Watch. I went for a run today and I was like, I don't want to even I wanted to do speed work. But I was like, you know what?

12:46I actually don't care because I don't want to start getting the watch line. it's summer in LA already so I'm just curious from your perspective like what do you you started Dime Peace in 2020 how did you get into watches and what do you think the sort of turning point was for this new generation of collectors to come about yeah um so how I got into watches I mean And before 2019, I didn't even know any watch brand besides Rolex. I mean, Rolex is the household name. And even then, I didn't know anything about Rolex other than my dad had one in the 80s. And I think I knew of its presence abstractly sitting in some, you know, drawer gathering dust.

13:31He never even wore it. So I got a job at Sotheby's in 2019. I was on their editorial team and I was brought on to create content to bring a younger audience onto their website and the watches department saw what I was doing and wanted me to kind of give that treatment to that category because you know in the grand scheme of the auction world watches are easier to buy and ship and you know maybe they're less money than a Picasso and so So they kind of were like, okay, you can create some cool content around watches. I commissioned out all that writing, but I had to edit these pieces and learn about them and learn about these greatest of all time watches.

14:13And I became very fascinated by them. I think it was a mixture of like history and culture and style. um and also it just it just it's so rich um and so i became fascinated by them i started seeing them everywhere and tv shows and movies and on the subway and and yet i was shocked that it took me this long to get into watches and i was about to turn 30 and i was like how is it that i don't even have a watch on my radar as a 30th birthday present. Like I'm not even aspiring to own one. How did the industry screw up this bad? Because I'm looking at myself as a representative of a demographic that's, you know, about to turn 30.

15:01I live in New York City. I have this great job. And how is it that none of my friends and I care about watches? Like that's a huge miss. And And I do think it's been very male dominated, of course, but also I think the advertising has been pretty inspiring. And so to bring it to the pandemic, I got let go by Sotheby's. They got acquired by Patrick Drahe and a ton of people got let go. I got let go the day of the pandemic. It was a big introduction in New York City, like when people were starting to line up at grocery stores. but Sotheby's shout out they gave me some they gave me some severance and so I had time to really think about what I wanted to do and reprioritize and I was about to turn 30 like I said so I said I want to watch and I started Dime Peace kind of as a personal research project like I didn't know what to buy I had no idea what my taste was and I also knew there was a gap in the market for women and watches and kind of content created towards that.

16:07And before I knew it, I was getting hit up by Nikki Oganake at Harper's Bazaar, and she wants me to be their monthly watch columnist. And I'm like, oh, shit, now I really need to learn about watches. But kind of, you know, since then, I launched a website, I've written for numerous different outlets this is my fourth watches and wonders and you know in 2021 there was this huge spike in um prices of watches on the secondary market so as i was coming into the watch world just by chance the pandemic hit and wealthy people are starting to spend a lot more money on watches you're seeing you know records breaking at auction across the board this is huge like you know patek fleet nautilus which would retail for 35 000 is going for like uh like 235 000 and people are seeing this and their eyes are popping out of their skulls and it's generating all these headlines um and then we have the pandemic where people are like what does it all mean and somebody like you who's had an apple watch and you know a lot of watch people or a lot of people like to assume that watch people hate the Apple watch.

17:23But I think that Lauren, your your instinct is correct here that it's actually a win for the industry and that it got watches on people's wrists. So, you know, in this time when we don't need wristwatches. So yeah, but the pandemic kind of induced screen burnout, the headlines that these watches were making, you know creators quote unquote such as myself on social media presenting kind of like fresh perspectives on this very exclusive very once very stuffy kind of industry and product is now being seen anew with all this buzz around it um and I think you know the the pivot to hard goods people just want something to invest in and I don't know when you bought your first watch were you like this might be a good investment for me did that even come into the consideration It definitely did It was kind of a thing Weirdly I don't know if it's living in New York For all those years And also being a fashion writer From the beginning And writing about luxury goods from the beginning I have very little price sensitivity When it comes to Clothes and handbags and shoes and things Like I'm Which doesn't make sense because they depreciate It very rare does a handbag Maybe will appreciate I bought a Chanel bag in 2010.

18:46I bet that that is much more valuable than it. Like I could probably sell it for more than I paid, but generally that's not the case. I would say that moving to Los Angeles and having a home and thinking more about things. Also, I don't need any more clothes. So, and the clothes got less interesting. I mean, the, the, the intersection of the clothes and the handbags and stuff getting less interesting intersected with the pandemic, pandemic intersected with people wanting to spend more money on their homes and furniture and things. And then also, if I'm going to buy something, yeah, I would love for it to have a value at some point.

19:32But I also feel I know enough about diamonds, for instance, to know everything is a construct. But it definitely was a thing of like, if I'm going to buy myself something and this was my birthday gift for my 40th, but like if I, I definitely want more watches now. I want to get a couple other, like I would do vintage. I did. I just went, my husband just went to the store and bought one for me. I don't think I would do that again. I probably do secondhand, but yeah, I think that like it, it just felt like you said, it's very rich there. That can mean a lot of things. But the one thing it means is the experience is richer.

20:16Like the feeling every time I put that watch on, I feel really good and it feels special. And I don't have a lot of fancy jewelry. I have like one gold necklace that's not super fancy. My wedding ring, my engagement ring. I love them, but they're not fancy at all. But that watch is like, and it's modest, but it feels really special and makes me feel good in a way that like a piece of fashion probably can't anymore. And I think a lot of people feel that way. Yeah. I mean, I feel the exact same way. It's the cherry on top of my outfit and it's kind of the elevator because I'm like you, I don't have a ton of jewelry.

21:02So we have a couple other topics I wanted to dig into with you. But first off, If you are chatting on your friend on the phone on the way home from the airport, what were the sort of big picture other than the big T? What were the other T? What were the trends that you saw? Did any brand really stand out to you specifically of winning this week? It's funny. I had a friend who went to CinemaCon this week, which is another trade show where the... where the, and Matt Bellany, my colleague at Puck did a podcast about this, but with my friend Amanda, but they basically all the studios go and present trailers of the movies they're going to have to the movie theaters.

21:48Oh, sounds awesome. I was like, I would like to go to this trade show. It's in Vegas, but so what were the big, and they had, they had their big takeaway of what happened at cinema combo. What were the big trends from watches and wonders? Like, what did you take away from the week. Yeah, absolutely. Well, if I was on the phone with my friend, if I were on the phone with my friend, I would set the scene first. So just to give the outsiders an idea of what watches and wonders is like, the scale is just mind boggling. So you're, you're at this trade show kind of convention center, maybe like a million times the size of the Javits Center.

22:30And you walk in and everything is dialed. Like you have these people, these greeters in uniforms. You have super high security. It's all kind of facial recognition. People with signs, all the shuttle buses are taken care of. There's a cloakroom. There's a place where you could put your suitcases. There's security. It's like before you even walk in past the security area. It's already a huge projection. And then you walk in and it's, people call them booths, but booth is such a small word compared to what you're actually seeing, which is these structures that the brands have built that are only supposed to last for the week.

23:11And they're the size of houses. So the Rolex and the Patekali booths, quote unquote, are multi-story buildings. They're bigger than brownstones in Brooklyn. And they have full on reception centers and people greeting you and plants and running water. And, you know, there are there are stairs and different rooms and you have to check in and then you're you're, you know, swept past the reception area into a waiting area. And then you go into a smaller room and you see the quote unquote novelties, which is what we're all gathered around to see, which are the novelties. And so you take the Rolex novelties and these are arguably always the biggest of the year.

24:01They're the ones that everybody anticipates. Everybody wants to see what Rolex is coming out with. um rolex had a really interesting new product this year called the land dweller so you may have heard of the sea dweller and then in 2012 rolex introduced the sky dweller and now for the first time since 2012 this is a completely new rolex model and it's called the land dweller and it's this 70s inspired design it's kind of a baby uh if if the oyster quartz and a date dress had a baby it would be the land dweller and it's got this fancy new bracelet and this beautiful new movement and everybody was kind of losing their minds over that um in part because it was leaked so this is another thing about watches and wonders and just the luxury world in general but i feel like the word embargo is like tattooed in my mind um and you don't want to break the embargo and yet some people do so prior to the land dweller release um the official release i don't know who but somebody leaked these really blurry kind of sad photos of the watch and i think it's funny and yeah and this kind of happens but it's always a little disappointing and like everybody's just like but then it kind of like sets the rumor milliflame like what is that new watch and then rolex had kind of a controlled leak where it was roger federer wearing the land dweller like petting a puppy or something i forget that this was a week ago i don't even remember the image but so we kind of knew what was coming and then you get to see him in person or in the metal as watch nerds like to call it in the metal in the metal so I mean the lingo is crazy but yeah so the land dweller I think was the biggest release of the fair and it's you know it's polarizing and I will say that you know if you look at the history of watchmaking all the huge heavy hitters now like the Audemars Piguet Royal Oak or the Patek Philippe Nautilus.

26:05The fans were not fans of these watches and now these are the most important watches that you could buy today, fetching the highest on the secondary market. So we'll see what happens with the Landwiller, but it's polarizing for sure the way that it looks. I think it's a very loud watch. The dial itself is very loud and kind of flashy and this is not something subtle. This is not stealth wealth. This is not what you would wear if you're wearing the row. But then there's also the Cartier. You know, the Cartier releases, they always have a ton. That appointment always lasts like an hour because there are so many different watches to look at.

26:45And the big showstopper from the Cartier bunch was a watch called the Tank à Guichet, which... Parlez-vous français, Lauren? A little. I speak LVMH French. Moi aussi. You already know. anyway guichet means window so it's like this kind of fanciful design from 1928 reimagined for now and it's a jumping hour complication which we don't even need to get in the weeds with that but um just know that the tanka guichet was Cartier's biggest launch this year and it's what everybody's talking about um and you know I can go on and on there's well you mentioned the you wouldn't wear that Rolex watch with a look from the row.

27:33And I did want to talk to you about these flip-flops from the row that are$690. But before that, pricing-wise, you mentioned that$15 ,000 is not that much for a watch in the grand scheme of things at this point. Has the pricing gotten crazy the way it has with with luxury goods in the last few years yeah and i've been wanting to kind of dig more deeply into this i know that the pricing has gone up on the primary market so i think that the the land dweller for example the lowest price uh reference of that it's steel and it's 13 ,300. But it gets tricky because you see that price and you're like, oh, okay, cool.

28:27Yeah. For a new Rolex. And you may know this and the listeners may know this, but you can't just go into a Rolex boutique and buy a Rolex. It's not happening for you because you're not in the system. It's the Hermes Birkenberg model. Is there any? Because there you can go into Hermes and get certain bags in certain stores, not every store, but there are certain, I know someone who bought an Hermes and was like, I just walked in and I said, well, show me which bag you bought. And they showed me. And I was like, well, that's why, but I'm not going to say which bag it was, but, but, um, all Hermes bags are great.

29:09But, um, but is, is like, could you buy some, because when my husband did not buy me a Rolex, he bought me, but from one of the big houses, a watch that I would think, yeah, a watch that I would think would not be, that would be desirable to women who have seen Challengers, if you want to have a hint. But is it that you just can't buy any? Or can you go in and will there be some models? There will be some, Maybe like one lady's watch kind of sitting sadly in the corner with her diamonds. Got it. Nothing that either of us would want to buy. Or maybe you and I would want that watch, but a big collector or a watch guy.

29:56Or even just a guy with$15 ,000 to spend on a Submariner, which even I don't know how many years ago, like seven years ago, you could just walk in and buy that watch. And now it's out of the question. So, yeah, but you kind of get yourself into the system. You get yourself on a wait list and it's kind of luck of the draw or not. Oh, man. Well, best of luck to everybody who's trying to buy watches. Yeah. And, you know, who knows where those tariffs, where we're going to feel them. And also it's going to hit the secondary market as well.

30:37So, we'll see.

30:43So moving back to the row The third mention of the episode Or fourth I wanted to discuss with you The style section did a very fun conversation Between Jacob Gallagher Stella Bugbee, his editor And then Misty Weiss-Eidel Who is their shopping columnist Misty and Jacob have both been on Fashion People. Misty used to write for me years ago. So I've known them all for all three of them for a long time. But they had a nice conversation about these flip-flops from the row that look like Javianas, but really good colors. They are$690. Check them out. I am just curious. They had a very interesting conversation.

31:32It was edited and it was clearly very tight the way it was organized. I don't have. I would say I'm a person that if I like something and I do think the road does the best version of everything, I will buy it, even if the price seems a little crazy. If I can afford it, not go into debt and be able to pay my son's tuition, like maybe I will I will partake. But I would say that like I don't know you live in New York City. It feels like a repeat of the jellies from last summer where everybody's jellies were falling apart I haven't lived in New York for five years, but all I know is that my shoes last so much longer now than they used to I can wear I have four inch heels that I wear occasionally I it's just made my life so much richer from a shoe perspective because But I just don't know in a world.

32:33I also hate flip flops and I would never wear them in any circumstance ever because they're so uncomfortable to me. But do you think this is going too far? I mean, it does feel like they're laughing at us, kind of, doesn't it? But the one thing I will say is that one of them, and I can't identify which one, has been photographed in these. So I don't know if they actually buy anything from themselves. I assume they do probably at a very deep discount. I don't think they just usually with these kinds of companies, you still have to make a purchase even if you're the owner. But I don't think the upper is fabric, which is nice.

33:19The lining is rubber. The sole is rubber and sole and sole. So they're made in Italy. Yeah. So I don't think they're not terrible. They're not like bad, bad. They're not going to be junky. But also made in Italy can mean a lot of things. Like you can just buy the materials and then assemble them in Italy. But would you engage with these even on the secondhand market? Well, no, because kind of what you were saying with the jelly, like once it becomes a conversation piece and there's kind of a tea, you know, profile on it and then there's the there's the cut article that's kind of like poking fun at it and I just feel like it's just going to become one of those things like the mew mew like super short skirt or something that you kind of see everywhere so I personally wouldn't partake but I wouldn't be surprised if I see them around and I mean I will say I know that MK and they love their Havaianas I feel like I still have my navy blue pair and that's somewhat influenced by them and my mom, she's very loyal to her flip-flops.

34:29So some people love flip-flops, but yeah, I mean, they're going to get grimy though in NYC. Yeah. I have resorted to buying black Chacos because they're very similar to a style that Hermes did that I would have totally bought and was very high quality. I just never got around to it for whatever reason. But yes, I think the other thing that the road does is they do inspire people to buy Tevas or Chacos or whatever their whatever like traditional shoe they are riffing on they they make that a bigger thing and you know every single brand that makes flip-flops is going to do a red flip-flop with a black strap yeah in that way it's kind of exciting just to see the ripple effect for sure i also i will say i'm looking at them on my theresa and they have like a style this outfit and they had a pair of jeans that a glitter wide leg jean which is i actually think i own these in i don't know i own them in something and then the what the one thing i'll say is the white t-shirt the row t-shirt 550 $50 that honestly is not that much for a t-shirt at this point.

35:50The wall street journal did a thing about how there are a thousand dollar t-shirts. Everything is 500 for a t-shirt is like the new 100 for a t-shirt. So I have, I, I actually don't own any t-shirts from the row, especially not any white. And I don't think I've ever owned a t-shirt from the row unless I got it at like, uh, off price or something, Lomans or something like that. But I'm looking at these t-shirts and they've got like a butter yellow one. They've got a cream one. They're really nice. You might turn into a row t-shirt girly. I mean, I would absolutely never. I famously do not spend money on clothes and watches.