Lauren Sanchez's New Bag

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2:33Chantal Fernandez:Hello and welcome to Fashion People. I'm Lauren Sherman, writer of tux fashion and beauty memo line sheet. And today with me on the show is Chantal Fernandez, writer at The Cut and New York Magazine. Chantal is here to take us inside the world of very important customers, also known as VICs. She tells us how much they're spending with luxury brands, what luxury does to keep them spending, how Lauren Sanchez Bezos became their queen bee in just a week, and so much more. before we get going I wanted to remind you that if you like this podcast you'll definitely love 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 along 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.

3:37Chantal Fernandez: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.

3:49Chantal Fernandez:Happy Friday, everyone. Hope you had a great week. I am back in Los Angeles for exactly eight days. I'm very happy to be here. The weather is beautiful. I hope to see many of you. But you know, I had an amazing time in Paris. And I am glad that my family and I are going to be there for a good chunk this year. So much going on. I learned so much in just a few days. And a lot of that reporting will come out in the coming weeks. But it was it was a great trip. Check out line sheet for some fun scoops and such. But I also wanted to very quickly offer some notes on the rest of Couture since you all have been asking.

4:23Chantal Fernandez:I know many of you are not crossover readers, but you should be. Sign up. It's not that much money. You can expense it. Anyway, first of all, I wanted to tell you all that Jacob Gallagher would love everyone to know that he loves Chanel. He totally got it. So anyone who was wondering, I had a couple people DM me about him. Hopefully, he changed his mind. Now that he saw this Couture, he did. He thought it was fabulous. He stands by his feelings about the New York show, but whatever. He'll come around someday. Anyway, my personal take was that it was the exact right proposal of what couture should be, which is what I wrote.

4:59Chantal Fernandez:And couture is a very unique category because it's like the ultimate example of selling a dream, but you also do like ostensibly have to sell the clothes and most of them do get sold. Not a ton, but you know, like these are$300 ,000,$400 ,000 pieces and some people just sell one set some people sell one set per region some people sell five of each you know that type of thing but it's and you can customize it blah blah blah but anyway it's not like a volume play but it is a good chunk of money in terms of Chanel in particular I know we talked a lot about Dior with Chris earlier in the week but in terms of Chanel I you know obviously personally loved it it's it really is any fashion writer or critic who says that their own taste doesn't kind of come into their assessment of brands as lying and you have to be like super aware of it.

5:49Chantal Fernandez:But in this case, it's been really fun for me to write about because I love it. And I also think it's really well done. I would say if I was a rich lady, that's what I would be buying. But I know people who bought some of the Dior, it looks fabulous too. So on the Chanel, I we all obviously wanted these shoes and again it's just like a very clear indication that Chanel the two-tone kind of round pumps understands its brand positioning and its need to change a bit for a younger consumer I'm not talking about like Gen Z I'm talking about like 40 year old women or 35 year old women it needs to be conservative and not trendy but it does need to speak to how people have changed.

6:32Chantal Fernandez:Like if you talk to someone who works at Saks or Nordstrom, like a personal shopper, they're kind of the women in their forties and fifties. They buy the row, they buy Phoebe Philo, they buy Givenchy. They're not, they don't want to look like old ladies. So the, yes, the aesthetics are all different, but I would say that there is a customer there and that's where the customer in the U.S. with a lot of disposable income has moved and the Chanel Ready to Wear in particular, I think, is this kind of cemented that he knows what he's doing. And there was a lot for a lot of the clients that the older clients too, that maybe preferred the sort of more whimsical Lagerfeld.

7:20Chantal Fernandez:There was a lot of whimsy in this too. But I think that they understand that They don't want to be trendy, but they also need to speak with what's happening in the market and with consumers. I thought that he just really struck a great balance. I also really like Dior, and I thought online Dior was more striking. And I wrote about this. It's interesting. They were both great in person, and I feel very happy that I got to see both. It's super valuable. Well, I don't get to go to shows all the time, but in this case I didn't. It was really, really great. I think that the lighting at Chanel, for someone like me who just takes a few photos, wasn't great.

8:04Chantal Fernandez:My photos weren't great because I am not an expert photographer. Whereas Dior, I didn't have as good of a seat and my photos were just way better and more dynamic because of the lighting. And also his color palette was more saturated Jonathan's than Mattu's. But I would say in person, the Dior was amazing. It was like a thinky collection because that's who he is. And there was a lot to love. And also there was a ton on offer for the client when you went in. I think there were 60 looks and there were 100 looks when you went in. So a lot of what I heard from the VIC pool was that they were excited about the other stuff too.

8:44Chantal Fernandez:And it sold extremely well and people bought it. There are a lot of galas coming up in the spring. um well I don't know how maybe it will be ready for Matt I have no idea how that works it might be too too long of a lead time anyway or for fall what have you but um I thought it was great but I thought that like Dior won online and Chanel won offline but they were both fabulous and both were very clear the headline on the puck piece about Jonathan's collection Anderson's collection was that like this is why he got the job and I think that and I think that about Matt too as well um I think Jonathan's job is harder than Matu's.

9:20Chantal Fernandez:They're both really hard. And it's been fun to see how it goes. And obviously, we love Matu's taste in music. Joan Baez, Oasis, The Verve. You love to see it. And that is, I don't know how he's going to keep it up. My suggestion is Jewel, Foolish Games. I thought it was coming on Tuesday. I thought that was going to be what he ended with. So let's see. that's my suggestion if someone at Chanel's listening and wants to whisper that in his his ear I also just wanted to say that like this was all happening in the backdrop of this luxury industry slowdown on Tuesday LVMH released their earnings and kind of said this year 2026 it's not gonna be super easy they have a lot of they did really well at Louis Vuitton last year because of the Murakami stuff early in the year and they're gonna have to as they call it a retail anniversary it which isn't going to be easy hopefully the ship and shang to high and all the like crazy renovation of stores which seems to be really successful for them will help but look like i think the market was i don't know it's the the shares dropped seven percent i think they're being a little bit too negative like this business is not going away it's still going to be incredibly profitable it's just we it it's not the center of consumer spending anymore other things are.

10:42Chantal Fernandez:And that was going to happen no matter what, but the pandemic just sort of delayed it. And one of the hilarious things from the Bay and Altagama report was that cruises are up 12%. And so many people messaged me and said, that's crazy, but people love cruises. I will never go on a cruise. But a lot of people like them, rich and poor people, and like Wilco does cruises, people love cruises. So it's just all happening on the backdrop of that. And we have to see all these businesses manage it because it's look like Dior, Celine at LVMH. These brands are going to see a big bump because they were down a lot last year.

11:18Chantal Fernandez:Is it going to be the same kind of growth that they saw for the last 15 years? I don't think so. And they just need to manage for that. And I'm sure there are small people in that building doing buildings, doing modeling to be careful of that. Obviously, companies like Chanel and Hermes, which are owned by the families, are just really I mean LVMH is controlled by the family but those are private businesses and mostly private Hermes obviously has some public offering but the point being that like it's gonna be easier for Hermes and Chanel to manage it LVMH has a much bigger bigger challenge on on their hands but I think it's manageable and I'm excited to see how well Celine does I every single person I talked to this week was like buying Celine.

12:06Chantal Fernandez:I want Celine across like real fashion people. And that's exciting. And I think it's going to it's going to hit. So I hope that they do. LVMH does one of those things where they're like exceptional performances. Celine, even though they'll never break the numbers out. Maybe they will someday, but it's I think it's going to be good. And finally, the other thing I just wanted to say is I love that sea glass green color that Matt to Blasi is introduced in his first collection. It's a very Chanel color. And obviously the red that he paired it with is a very Chanel red. But it was so it's like my favorite color combination ever.

12:42Chantal Fernandez:It was my bridesmaids dresses were that color, which should I have had bridesmaids? Should we have just set a 50 person wedding? Anyway, but I love that. It's my favorite color combination of all time. And he did it again in his show. But I also saw it. There was like tons of they called it jade at armani which the armani couture was exceptional it was just amazing and if like these clients like they're just so spoiled if you have the money there is a beautiful clothes and also valentino used it he his red was like a little bit more magenta but i love i just love this color combo and i can't wait to see it in every single um i've always wanted a kitchen in that combo too.

13:23Chantal Fernandez:It's very Italian. I love it. Anyway, read more by subscribing to Line Sheet at Puck. And let's get going with Chantal.

13:34Chantal Fernandez:Chantal Fernandez, welcome back to Fashion People. Hi, how are you? I'm so good. Thanks. How are you doing? How's the baby?

13:42Lauren Sanchez:He's really good. He's in potted plant phase and just very cute. I've never heard that term, but I understand it. Yeah. No crawling, just sitting and being cute. Oh, you're so lucky. Just wait.

13:56Chantal Fernandez:It does, you know, it does get more and more fun. Although this morning, it's quite early here. It's almost 6.30 a.m. here. And I was supposed to meet you at 6.15 to do this. And Fritz came into my room at 5 30 was like i'm sick and i also feel sick in a different way because i had over 24 hour commute home from paris and so i feel terrible this is like the sickest i felt in like decades and he's like i am sick i cannot go to school and i'm like i don't understand what to do I'm sorry and Dan is all it's fine it's fine so you were telling me there's a new Victoria's Secret documentary that I didn't even see but you already watched it tell me all about it as I'm sure many of you know Chantal and I co-authored a book together called Victoria's Secret no it's called Selling Sexy Victoria's Secret and the Unraveling of an American Icon and you can buy it anywhere books are sold or listen to it anywhere books are sold but tell me about this doc who did it why didn't they call us they probably did i feel like so many people called us about this stuff and i was like we would just be like okay fine and then nothing

15:16Lauren Sanchez:would come of it well they reached out to the to the cut to share it so that's why how it got to me but um it's not very i mean it's not very long they made it themselves about the last fashion show it's like 20 25 minutes long and it doesn't have a ton of views on youtube or anything but it's very sweet because it's all through the eyes of Adam Selman. And my big takeaway was like, they really made a good decision in having like such a likable central character to this current phase. Like he's just so lovely to watch. And like Amy Sedaris is there. He's just, you know, he's very, and it's his first show.

15:52Lauren Sanchez:So it's all through his eyes of like experiencing it for the first time. And the models are like, oh yeah, we've done this a million times. So it's, it's kind of sweet in that way is this um was it supported by the brand or is it separate yeah yeah no no no it's like fully brand content that they are it's like another way that they're

16:08Chantal Fernandez:marketing it yes okay now i understand why they didn't ask us to yes no no it's it's it's marketing of their i thought it was one of these people who called and were like we're gonna do it i'm like someone already did a documentary no no no you're never gonna find out the thing you want to find

16:23Lauren Sanchez:out. No, this is like content from the brand, like another way that they are sort of playing with the history of the fashion show and all the behind the scenes clips instead of doing those little segments that they used to do. I guess they put it all into this one documentary is very sweet.

16:38Chantal Fernandez:Well, I love saying that Adam Selman is the Ed Razek of his generation, which I'm sure there are people who love that comparison. And I don't think that comparison is quite right, because he's like a designer no but his job is ed's job he's not sure he does not design he's head of marketing and and all that stuff yeah but i think he has a different sense of it yeah sure but the actual job is the same job which is interesting it is interesting because he's like obviously complete opposite from ed rizek in every single way also an awesome just a great person. I'm really happy for him. It's done very well.

17:19Chantal Fernandez:Like the brand has performed in recent months. And a lot of that has to do with how they manage the show. And I was extremely skeptical. And I still think like, is it modern to do that? I don't know. But it's working so good for them.

17:32Lauren Sanchez:Yeah. And I think he has a good sense of like the campiness of it, but not going too far into that. So it was it was interesting to watch. I don't know how many people would like organically watch this unless you're a super fan. Sort of that audience is so much smaller. But

17:46Chantal Fernandez:it was interesting they put it out yeah that's interesting well thank you for the update and thanks for doing the the homework as always okay so the reason I wanted to have you on this week is I just got back I was in Paris for like five days and I went to a bunch of tour shows and I hadn't been well I had been like probably to a couple in the last few years but not like gone to all of them in probably 10 years and what I either it was January so I think they're smaller overall because it's cold and it was you know obviously snowing in new york there was a lot of stuff like keeping people in their homes but um the shows were really tiny and they were mostly made up of clients customers who will buy these pieces some of them cost a million dollars a dress some of them are you know three a lot of stuff is like three four hundred five hundred thousand dollars and so i obviously people talk about vics a lot but i thought that this piece you did how was it like about a year ago on the cut or yeah or um i think it was for the fashion issue not last year but the year before okay so like a year and a half ago about vics and why very important customers is the long long version of what they're called and and how they They've become so important.

19:06Chantal Fernandez:They always were, but in the era of only really expensive stuff sells, they became increasingly valuable to these big companies. And I guess to start, can you just kind of explain what a VIC is and how it's evolved over the years? Because they've always existed.

19:28Lauren Sanchez:Yeah, I think there's just more of them and they carry more weight in this industry as it's gotten bigger. there's a stat that I think originated from our friends at Business of Fashion, but that the top 2 % of customers generate more than 40 % of sales for these luxury brands. And I'm sure that number, that ratio has only gotten more stark.

19:48Chantal Fernandez:Yeah. For like multi-brand retailers, a lot of times it's like 80%. It's crazy.

19:54Lauren Sanchez:So yeah, their influence in this business is grown. There's more of them. The wealth of the wealthiest people in the world has grown. Income disparity has grown. So it's just the focus on them is more than it was, you know, a decade or two ago. And there's many more of them at shows as a result. So yeah, a very important customer is someone who spends an outsized amount at a brand or at a department store and is rewarded and sort of encouraged to keep spending with a bunch of perks that have nothing to do with dresses and handbags, whether it's invitations to shows, trips, anything you name it.

20:34Lauren Sanchez:It's sort of like these brands have turned into hospitality machines to keep these people entertained and excited and also give them a place to wear what they buy. Even if you're the richest person in, I don't know, Utah, you're probably still wearing your workout clothing most of the time when you're home. And then this is an opportunity to wear that couture dress you bought is to go to, you know, a fancy dinner or a ball or whatever in, you know, twice a year.

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22:08Chantal Fernandez:The question I have for you, let's start with because there are different tiers of these things. There's like the VIC, VIIC, VIIC, you know, it depends on like Like the couture customer, I assume, is sort of the top of the heap. But it's also like you buy one or two pieces that are really expensive instead of buying a bunch of stuff. But these runway shows, like I've heard figures and I'm curious what you found in your reporting. I've heard figures that like a person who gets invited to a runway show often are ready to wear runway show. so that's like normal clothes we'll spend like you know upward of 200 grand a year but the thing is that like it costs them to to get these people over to fly them first class to put them up at the ritz or wherever they put them to wine and dine them to wherever it is that's like 30 grand a person.