Gatecrashers and Gatekeepers

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 Robin Gavon, Pulitzer Prize winning journalist and author of Make It Ours, Crashing the Gates of Culture with Virgil Adler. Before we get going, I wanted to remind you that if you like this podcast, you'll definitely love Puck, where I send an email called Line Sheet. If you're a fashion person, you get that reference. It's an original look at what's really going on inside the fashion and beauty industries. Line Sheet is scoopy, analytical, and above all, fun.

0:44Along with me, a subscription to Puck gains you access to an unmatched roster of experts reporting on powerful people and companies in entertainment, media, sports, politics, finance, the art world, and much more. If you're interested, listeners of Fashion People get a discount. Just go to puck.news slash fashion people to join Puck or start a free trial.

1:09happy friday everyone what a week on tuesday i hosted a puck dinner with shop my at a lovely restaurant called le petit chaise which i am definitely mispronouncing and a nice man today explain to me how but i'm still gonna get it wrong it is the oldest brasserie in the city and it's run by this very nice group of guys apparently including antoine arnaud he was not around at the restaurant, unfortunately, but there were tons of amazing executives from across the fashion industry here who came out. And thanks to all of them and to Tiffany and Anisha from Shop My for making it happen. I mean, without them, we wouldn't have been able to do it, but I think it was very productive for everyone involved.

1:57It was a really good vibe. They enjoyed meeting people, everyone wanted to be introduced. That's the point. I love these things. I don't know if we have time to do any more this year. I have so many booked, but if you want to do one, call Alexandra or email Alexandra at puck.news and maybe we can squeeze you in. I also have been going to shows. I've been going to tons of meetings and I wrote a lot of letters, a lot of letters this week, including one that you will have to read next week because on Thursday night, as I was walking into the stadium in the 13th, a Ron a small to watch faith Kibiegaan, try to run a mile under four minutes, which apparently no woman has ever done.

2:47And Nike put together this event breaking for, I got a text as I'm going into breaking for, I skipped the Rick Owens show for it. and the text says, did you hear? I immediately think like something bad happened. So I call this person and it turns out it's about Anna Wintour stepping down. The reality is, and I'm not clear why the company did not send a press release after the announcement was made internally because I think it would have made it a lot easier. But I found out very quickly that she she's stepping down from being the editor in chief of American Vogue because there are no editors in chiefs at Condé Nast anymore.

3:35There are heads of content and they're regional. So this job, the regional head of content for American Vogue has been technically on the org chart for like since COVID, like for five, they did a big, the company did a big reorg chart and this is on there. And I guess Anna and whoever else has not had time to fill it because they've been really busy with a lot of other stuff. Uh, but she's still going to be the head, the global head of editorial content for Vogue sort of like that's Will Welch's title, I think at GQ. She is also still the chief content officer of Condé Nast. So she is in charge of everyone and she still runs the Met.

4:17So I think this means that I thought maybe she would just fully retire next year and go on a speaking tour, but I don't think that's happening. So best of luck to whoever gets this job. In line sheet on Thursday, I kind of went through who the obvious candidates are and who I really think is going to get it. And I will say I'd made a guest appearance on How Long Gone, where I kind of went into all my picks. My top pick when I was talking to the guys at How Long Gone changed within, I'd say, 30 minutes of our conversation because I had more conversations. I was thinking it was going to be Samira Nassar when I chatted with them.

5:06But then I like got off the phone, talked to someone else and I was like, oh, actually, that doesn't make sense. You're right. And it's actually this person, but you have to read line sheet to see who it is. I'll, I'll discuss her in, in later weeks. Anyway, it was crazy. I left my sweatshirt at the stadium. If anyone finds a vintage gray sweatshirt at the stadium in the 13 Aranisman. I would love to have it back. And I hope you enjoy this conversation with Robin. It was interesting. And maybe I'll write more about this at some point, but to have the Nike conversation that Robin and I have about Virgil and then to be at this Nike event.

5:48And then it was Nike earnings on Thursday night. And it's just a lot of worlds coming together. And in the middle of it. I wrote this Anna email, so enjoy it. And please enjoy this conversation with Robin. I think I'm going to have her back in a couple of weeks to just talk more about her career and also more about Virgil. We could have done another hour. So thanks again to her. And I hope you all have a great weekend. I'm sure I forgot a bunch of stuff. Oh, Monday, it'll be all about Jonathan Dior, LVV, all that good stuff. Robin Givon, welcome to Fashion People. Thank you for having me. It's such an honor.

6:31I'm so happy that you're here. Congratulations on the publishing of your book, Make It Ours. How happy and relieved are you? I was a bundle of excitement and anxiety prior to publishing, but now I'm in a state of like exuberance. I'm just really happy that it's out there. And that people feel like, so far, people feel like it is a fair assessment of Virgil's fashion career. Yeah. So what made you want to do this book? What was the sort of jumping off point? And you, I remember chatting with you about it early in the process and you did say, I'm really focusing on this specific time in his life.

7:26And obviously you go into his background and how he got to Louis Vuitton, which was sort of the most symbolic part of his life and fashion. But what spurred the idea? Was it his passing? It was a combination of things. After his passing, I was really kind of taken aback by the degree to which there was this outpouring of emotion from people that seemed to feel like they had lost a friend. There was this sense of intimacy that was surprising to me. And then a couple of people asked me if I had ever thought about writing about Virgil's career, and I hadn't. And then that kind of put the bug in my ear, and I thought, hmm, is that something that I would want to do?

8:22And what made me ultimately want to do it was the fact that, as anyone who has access to Google knows, I was often critical of his work in fashion, particularly the women's. And yet, I was a witness to the amazing fandom that surrounded him. And it was a disconnect. And there was this tension there. And as a journalist, when there's this space where there's tension and you're trying to figure out, okay, why are these two things in opposition seemingly? It's ripe to explore. So that criticism of the actual work and show by show, and I think about this a lot with Louis Vuitton in particular because the Louis Vuitton shows were not well-received generally.

9:22They weren't seen as good runway shows. But the thing that you talk about quite a bit in the book that, and everybody who is listening to this should have read the book already, but if they haven't, please buy the book immediately and then re-listen to this. But you talk about this 3 % rule he had. And I feel like for me, the way I bristled at his work is connected to the 3 % rule. And can you explain what that was and what it did to the way he operated? Yeah, I mean, I think that was foundational to the exasperation that many in the industry felt. I mean, his 3 % principle was this notion that if you change an existing item by 3%, you had essentially created something new.

10:26and a little bit of it I felt comes from the sort of DJ ethos because he was a DJ and DJs are constantly remixing and for them yeah like you take someone else's melody and you take someone else's lyrics and you remix it and you have created this sort of new entity and in fashion that doesn't play very well. And, you know, he would often take things that other people had created. And, you know, I think you can make a really strong argument that, you know, he hadn't changed it by 3%. And even if he changed it by 20%, it still was not like his to say that, you know, his to put his brand on it. And, you know, it was an interesting way of thinking about doing fashion.

11:25It was an interesting way of skirting around criticism. It certainly got him sued and got him, you know, made him the recipient of cease and desist orders. But it also kind of rolled off his back. And he kind of put it in the category of, you know, shortcuts. I mean, he loved shortcuts and sheet codes as, you know. Did you like talking to him? And how many times did you do like a sit down, longer interview with him? my relationship when he was you know alive and working was very very distant i mean we had a professional relationship and i never did a like one-on-one sit down with him um you know i talked to him um you know in those sort of circumstances where like there's a lot going on and there are like people around and he's talking about this project or that project but i would say the most interesting and the longest conversation that I had with him was really during COVID.

12:41And he was talking to a group of students that were part of his scholarship fund. And like we sat down beforehand and chatted, and then we did a whole conversation for the benefit of these students. And then I facilitated a conversation between the students and between and him. And that was interesting because it was a chance to see him sort of one on one, one on one in front of an audience and then one with students. and you know he didn't he didn't change his tone at all he was very much himself in all those circumstances and he had a way of speaking that was in big paragraphs and he used this kind of language of like, I mean, it was an interesting combination of sort of both intellectualism and also sort of wide-eyed, tell me what I don't know.

13:51I'm just a kid working through this. And I think it was that combination that was so engaging for people who felt like they were outside of the industry or just really trying to learn from him, that he could come across as both an expert while at the same time channeling their curiosity and sense of being an outsider. Yeah, I only did one longer one-on-one with him, but in those scrums, which are either backstage or at a store opening when you get 15 or 10 minutes with him or what have you. And I don't do tons of those, but I found him to be, he was so open. And sometimes I'd be like, oh my God, this is amazing.

14:50My mind is blown. And then I'd listen to it and be like, what does this mean? It doesn't mean anything. Or it felt like all the sort of slapdash, I'm going to do everything really fast and do a ton of stuff. And it being good isn't important. It's about doing it was the art. And the interviews he did in many cases also felt like that. Like Like the fact that he would ask for the recording of the interview, which I remember the first time the guy who was his sort of right hand, I forget his name, but he would be like, he would love the recording of the interview afterwards. Can you send it? And I was like, is that ethical?

15:40I don't know. It was so weird. But I was like, this is so interesting that he wants the recording. But I just like on that point, I was going to say that I don't know if you were. Well, two things. One, I listened to so many of those talks that he gave at Columbia and the High Museum. And, you know, there's a lot of Virgil speaking to groups of students like that. And that's when I realized that sometimes it was like he was working things out in real time and he would listen to him and he would contradict himself. And in one sentence, it would sound like this very weighty realization about the ways of the industry.

16:31And then in the next sentence, he would contradict that. And I don't know if you remember, just in like one of the, my first sort of searing memory was when he was up for the LVMH prize. And we went to that, it was the semifinals and like all of the finalists were there in their little booth with their collections. and he was there and I remember sort of trying to get to his collection and there was this sort of scrum of cameras there and it was because like his ultimate hype guide the artist formerly known as Kanye was there and was literally sort of sitting there pulling pieces off of the racks and going, isn't this the best jacket you've ever seen?

17:28I mean, it was quite sweet, but it was also like, let me get around you so I can actually get to the guy. And he was there and, you know, had this very sort of chill, low-key personality and just really just sort of wanted to engage and was willing to engage and just talk about the clothes and sort of do that kind of, you know, very humble, vulnerable work of chatting up like all of these editors who were coming in and being quite honest about it.

18:11Can you talk a bit about, I do think I was there, was Kanye wearing a RAF jacket, a RAF Simmons jacket? Probably, yes. I think, well, was this like 14 maybe? It was either 2014, 2015. Yeah. It was the second season round of the prizes. Because I remember I interviewed Delphine Arnault and she said Nicola Gessgare. So, or no, she said Nicola Gessgare. And I was like, okay, I guess that's how you say it. But everyone says it different. And then I remember Kanye being there and I think having a photo like with Karl Lagerfeld and it was a big to do. But can you I wanted to talk about his relationship with Kanye.

19:00But then also there were, there was this group of guys that he came up with, many of whom have, um, become successful designers and fashion designers. And they all sort of do a bunch of different things. And there was something Heron Preston, one of these designers said that he said that they all met. I think it was in the La Skeena part of the book where you'd kind of talk about their scene at La Skeena and about them talking to a Nike executive and the Nike executive saying you got to get under their skin. And I can't get that out of my head. now I'm going to this Nike event tonight. And it is such the definitive thing of what makes all of this stuff work is you have to get under the skin.

19:50But anyway, Kanye and Virgil, and how did that evolve as Virgil surpassed him in the world of fashion in so many ways? And then this other group, because for me, like Matthew Williams and Heron, who Heron is great. really like him. Matthew, I've interviewed a few times backstage and think he's interesting. But it always felt like to me that they were never going to sort of develop enough because it really was Virgil. I'm so curious how you see the dynamic between all these guys changing as Virgil's star rose? You know, I, starting with sort of the Kanye piece of it, what was helpful for me was like, this was such a discreet period of time before Kanye becomes yay and all of that yayness happens.

21:02And it was a great period to look at because it felt, in hindsight, so optimistic and so exciting because Kanye was coming off of those first two albums, College Dropout and Late Registration. administration he had his his star was ascendant he had financial means and this interest in fashion and this incredible ambition and it was like he was just sweeping so many designers of his generation into this sort of cyclone and if nothing else during the reporting I was sort of left thinking, my God, like who didn't he ask to work with and who didn't at some point contribute to a collaboration or advise him or something.

21:57And, you know, when Virgil came along, he talked about how in some ways they were kind of two sides of the same coin, that they connected with this ability or this desire to really talk about design in sometimes esoteric ways and to just, you know, talk and talk and talk in a way that they hadn't really found another person that they could really go into that kind of, go down those sort of rabbit holes with. So that was that initial connection. And then when you have them side by side, their temperaments were so different. And that was one of the other things that I felt was important to really talk about in the book, the way that Virgil invited people closer, and the way that he was caught in a constant state of sort of tell me what I don't know, tell me who I need to know, which can on the one hand seem a bit sort of cravenly ambitious, But on the other hand, is really an expression of vulnerability, of saying, I know I don't know everything and I'm looking for guidance.

23:14And that can be really attractive. and Matthew Williams said to me that you know one of Virgil's strengths was this idea that like everything was a prototype and he didn't feel the need for things to be perfect before he could let them out into the world which is really not how most designers operate and this notion of everything being a prototype everything being just sort of part of his practice one freed him to produce an insane amount of product it I think helped to buffer him from the criticism of some of that product because if it's just a prototype well then you're judging an unfinished thing I think it's just part of the process and if it's a prototype it is a way of saying that, you know, it doesn't have to kind of rise to the standards that you set.

24:20So it was, I think, both a really savvy way of thinking about the work, a savvy kind of marketing thing and also a really, uh, a really, uh, uh, consoling kind of way of protecting your ability to be creative and to experiment in a billion different fields. And I guess it's also this idea of it's not about perfection. It's about the idea. And if the idea is good. That's what shines through. I think one of the things that frustrated a lot of designers, more traditionally trained designers, is the point of it is to focus on the product and to make the most creative, the most beautiful, the most well-conceived garment that you can.

25:19and that wasn't Virgil's focus. I mean, in having conversations with people who worked with him in the realm of architecture, it really was not about the ultimate garment. It was, what does this garment mean to people? What does this garment say about a community of people? Which is a bit esoteric, but it really comes down to, I'm going to build this brand and I want the brand to resonate with people. And as long as people think that the brand means something in the same way that, like, you wear a sports jersey, it's not about the jersey. It's about the name of the team that's on the jersey and all the layers of meaning and community and identity that's connected with walking around wearing a Yankees jersey.

26:16Well, the story that you tell about the double RL, are they like double RL Rugby's or something? The Rufflorn Rugby's, yeah, from Pyrex Vision. Oh, yes, yes. So you tell the story of him rehashing this stuff and Gian Deleon, who I actually don't know if that's how you pronounce his last name, but that's the name of the game on this podcast. I don't pronounce any names correctly. Um, and I just saw him today, but you know, Jean is such a good writer and I've been thinking about it a lot. Like his, his work in that era was so important and he obviously has a really nice job at Nordstrom and I, I think he, he loves it, but he really, he really captured that time in a special way.

27:09But he says something. You quote a piece he wrote for Complex in the book, something about it's not awful that he's charging so much. It's awful that people will pay that much or something like that about these Ralph Lauren rugby's. But what it reminded me of to an extent, and I can't remember if you go into this or not, but it did remind me of what Dapper Dan did in the 80s with taking, and obviously he was taking like garment bags from Louis Vuitton and Gucci or whatever and remaking them into things. but did you feel like he, because he didn't, he didn't come up in a traditional fashion way.

28:01He also didn't grow up in a way that he, I don't even know if he knew who Dapper Dan was like, would that have even been a part of his sort of cultural history, um, growing up in the nineties and 2000s in Illinois or what have you. I know it's not actual Chicago suburbs, but I'm curious what you think. Yeah. I'm curious what you think, if there is some connection between that, what Dabber Dan did then and what Virgil started doing and evolved it to. I think there is a connection and I think that the same, I mean, there's some differences, but I think in the same way that what Dapper Dan was doing and the controversy connected to that, as well as the revisionism of that era, I think is really interesting.

29:11You know, people have celebrated Dapper Dan tremendously. And I think, you know, he did a lot for bringing, you know, a cultural sensibility to the forefront. But at the same time, he was also infringing on copyrights. And, you know, and Virgil had that same kind of sense that you can just take what's out there and make it yours in whatever way that your creativity allows. But when he was growing up in Rockford, which, you know, I go into the history, a little of the history of that town, because it has a really interesting sort of racial segregation history that would have affected him as he was growing up there as a high school student.

30:10I mean, it's kind of situated equidistant from Chicago and Iowa, and it's about an hour from the Wisconsin border. So it's both isolated. It's very Midwestern. But at the same time, it is close enough to Chicago. It is still, you know, it was an industrial kind of city. and you know he's growing up at a time when you can get access to European fashion magazines and big fashion magazines but you have to like order them from like the Barnes and Noble and so it feels that much more precious that you're getting these bits of information and you're seeing this stuff. And he was definitely a kid who was engaged with brands and logos and, you know, the big luxury brands, but also the streetwear brands that were coming along, the skatewear brands that were coming up.

31:12And I was fascinated because he talks so much about doing things for his, you know, 17-year-old self and speaking to the 17-year-olds. And fashion was in this incredible state of change in 1997 and the years surrounding that. So even if you had just like the slightest interest in fashion, you would have been pretty captivated by that. And if you were a kid who was interested in skateboarding and hip hop and Nirvana and all that, and you had people like Raph Simmons coming into the game, that was completely captivating and energizing for Virgil. And he continued to talk about how much he loved Raph's work, even as Raph criticized him as a designer.

32:11It's amazing to me that he knew who Raph was because I didn't find out who Raph was till the mid 2000s, probably when Kathy did that profile of him in the Times magazine. because it's just, I am, I think, two years younger than Virgil was and grew up in Pittsburgh and read tons of, I read British Vogue a lot. I was a really big Anglophile and was obsessed with fashion in the 90s and read Harper's Bazaar. And I'm sure I read you for your year at Vogue. but um but but and but I didn't have any sense of I guess also I mean it's menswear and but I thought I love that part of his of his history and the Rockford stuff and him growing up in the middle class neighborhood not where most of the black people grew up and also his mom being a seamstress and what kind of effect that must have had on him.

33:17And it just all of it together. And then studying industrial design, which is such a thing of the Midwest, I feel like Frank Lloyd Wright. And, um, there's so many great architects and it is such a, yeah. Um, it, to me that part of it, it informed so much. Do you think there was a time, and I want to talk about, I don't want to keep you forever, and I really have 50 million. I want to kind of talk about the business itself and how he changed it and also what you think his success reflects about the business. But when he got the job at Vuitton, A, can you sort of paint in a light of like what significance that ended up having and what it had when he was appointed.

34:13And also the executive who was the CEO, Michael Burke at the time. I don't think I knew before I read your book that he was the reason Virgil had. He used to be the CEO of Fendi and he had been the lead of a big Fendi turnaround when LVMH fully acquired Fendi in the early 2000s. And he was the one who engineered Virgil's internship at Fendi, which I guess I maybe knew because it's obvious, but that's a long way to say, do you think putting him in that job, it was really obvious from the outside why he was getting the job that the kind of product he was making was performing well and it and it fit well with the kind of Louis Vuitton's a culture brand it's not a fashion brand but can you tell me what you think it meant to to the industry to society and why you think Michael understood Virgil's value Yeah.

35:20I mean, Michael told me this great story about his first meeting with Virgil. And it was in Tokyo when he was at Fendi. And they were doing a product launch there. And Kanye was going to perform. And the night before their performance, Nigo, who had sort of suggested Kanye as a performer, said, you know, hey, do you want to meet Kanye? Do you want to have dinner? And so he gets together with them for dinner. And he's in this room with Nigo and Virgil and Kanye and what he describes as these incredibly cool young Japanese kids. And he's sitting there and, you know, he's sad, but they're looking at him like he is like the ultimate fashion insider.

36:18But he's sitting there not really talking all that much and looking at and feeling like the outsider and kind of absorbing and listening to the dialogue between these really sort of interesting, very culturally engaged, like pop culturally engaged young people. people. And I thought that was so interesting to me because he's the one at the table who is, who's got all this clout, certainly like this establishment clout. And he's not taking the lead, but rather he's sitting back and he's listening. And I think that says a lot about just the way that he operated in that moment as a CEO. And, you know, to bring in Virgil and Kanye as, you know, these interns, I think took a lot of confidence in his point of view, but also a lot of confidence in his position within the LVMH universe.