The Row vs. Donni

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 Puck's very own retail correspondent, Sarah Shapiro. We're talking the future of The Row, executive changes in a way, the latest in tariffs, and plenty more.

0:26Happy Tuesday, everyone. Hope you are having a great week. I ventured over to Rodeo Drive last night to see the new Tory Burch store and have dinner with that crew at Mr. Chow's. Everyone was there because everyone loves Tory. It was really fun. I really do love everyone involved and we had a great time. I have a very busy week this week, including going to a taping of Everybody's Live on Wednesday. That is John Mulaney's live talk show that is filmed here in L.A. I'm very excited. It just so happens that my colleague Matt Bellany is interviewing John Mulaney next week at Puck's Story of the Season event, also in Hollywood or West Hollywood or somewhere.

1:10like that. I'll also be there. I'm going to sit down with White Lotus star Parker Posey. So if you have any questions for Parker related to the show or how she works with costume designers or why she's so funny, hit me up. And if you're in Los Angeles and want to attend our event, which is happening May 20th, email fritz at puck.news. Members of the various academies and guilds will be prioritized, but I am sure we can make room for you. Let's get going with Sarah.

1:43Sarah Shapiro, welcome to Fashion People. Hi, great to be back. How's it going? How was your weekend? My weekend was great. Did you do a lot of channel checks or did you avoid? You've been really channel checking the world over. Yes, and I have a few channel checks planned for during the week this week. Sometimes it's easier for me to get to the stores during the week. Yeah. But this weekend I did not hit up any. I'm happy for you. We're going to talk about a few of your channel checks later that you've done previously. But to start really quickly on this tariff news, apparently China and the U.S.

2:27have reached some sort of semi-deal. I don't want to get too much into it because literally this publishes, we're talking Monday morning, this publishes Tuesday morning. It could have changed. But essentially, can you just very, very quickly explain what the U.S.-China tariff agreement entails? Yeah. So it sounds like there is, and again, who knows, because this continues to change, but a 90 day pause, which will bring the tariffs back down to 30 percent for Chinese imports, which had been at 145 percent. And then China is reducing their tariffs on American goods that they had set at 125 percent to 10 percent.

3:14So this is to allow businesses to figure things out and potentially for deals to be had as well. Yeah. OK, so let's not talk about what actually what the implications of this specifically are, because, again, I don't know. But the thing was, I was talking this weekend with an executive. I just feel like the disruption of this, wherever you live, whatever's happening. I assume the 90 day pause on the European tariffs is up soon. I know that there are a lot of brands that are getting or companies that are getting exceptions, things like that. But it's just so disruptive to the businesses. And this executive was kind of like a lot of these companies, no matter kind of no matter what happens, they're not going to survive this because they've been spending all this time rearranging their supply chains.

4:14And then what if, like this person said, what if they he decides Vietnam or Cambodia, which is where a lot of the bigger companies or a lot of the lower price companies produce quite a bit of stuff? Or even if you're not producing stuff there, you may have parts coming from these places. What do you think? You know, four years from now, what do you think the shakeout is going to look like of all this? So I don't think a lot of these tariffs are impacting. The idea of just figuring out your supply chain is already needs to happen. Like it needs to just be diversified because of changes that happen and not being too reliant on one factory.

5:00Because even that factory could just go under. Not even related to all the tariffs. The thing that I'm actually seeing the biggest impact on is all the confusion and what this is happening at the ports or shipping, not necessarily through the ports, but just through, you know, FedEx and DHL and UPS and stores that ship direct like online e-commerce deciding if they're going to pause shipping to the U.S. because what's going on and all the confusion and what duties are popping up when somebody receives their package. That, to me, is where I'm actually hearing so much more of confusion and impact for the consumer and for stores as opposed to the tariffs directly.

5:47Well, stay tuned. This is a developing story that we can't we can't get rid of as much as we try. the other there were there you also had a piece in monday's newsletter about jen rubio the ceo of away stepping down from that role she was also one of the co-founders of away and became the ceo a few years ago after their original ceo exited her co-founder in the business can you tell us a little bit about the new CEO of Away and what you think. I love any category where I see a real quote unquote white space, as they love to say in the marketing world. And I think luggage is, there's Samsonite, there's Tumi, there's cheap stuff, and then there's Ramoa or Ramova, whichever way you want to pronounce it.

6:41I think both are acceptable. But Away has really overtaken this market of like people who are too sensible or feel like Ramoas too expensive, but who could probably afford Ramoas. So it's like a pretty savvy customer. And when I travel a lot, I'm at the airport and there are just so many of these luggage bags. Can you tell me a little bit about how the company's doing and who this new CEO is and what you think she'll bring to the table? Yeah, so the new CEO is Jessica Shinazi. I've had the opportunity to check in with her a couple of times. But what I think is really interesting is her background.

7:25She was most recently based in Chicago and was the president of the America's business of Dyson, which, as we know from Dyson, has quite a few products, but in this space is really known for their air wrap and for their hair dryer. So again, it is a product that disrupted an industry that came in from the outside and also is a little bit more expensive than some of the others. Although now the whole industry has come up, I think, around it and you have T3 and all the other players in there too. But it created another way to do a product and it also grew their business through third-party retailers.

8:11They also have some of their own stores. So there's quite a lot of similarities between the businesses. Her background was also at, she's had stints at LVMH, ReachMont, Amazon. So all of these things that, in addition to a new CEO coming in, she had joined, Shanazi had joined the company in late 2024 and was already starting on some other new projects, which are that they're going to be launching in Nordstrom 60 stores as well as online. And that will get them much more, you know, people being able to view the product in person. And they will also be on Amazon stores or on Amazon. Were they weren't on Nordstrom prior?

8:58They weren't in Nordstrom prior. I don't I. Are you sure about that? I they currently have not been, although it's launching now. I do not know if they weren't at some point. There are other brands like Base. So, I mean, if you think of the luggage space, there have been so many competitors that have come up. I often think of the luggage space as similar to like Casper and all the mattress brands that popped up. And so there have been other luggage companies that have popped up. You could certainly get a hard-sided suitcase, rolling suitcase from other retailers, but they have not been on Nordstrom before.

9:35That's fascinating. So you have this item on Monday and then you're going to talk to them more next week. So stay tuned for that.

9:50The other thing I wanted to chat with you about is Donnie, this brand D-O-N-N-I. You have a big piece on Tuesday about Donnie, which has become a big topic of conversation during our Friday editorial meetings and also just among our, I'd say, the subset of American customer age 30 to 50, essentially, many of whom are moms. Happy Mother's Day, by the way. I don't know if you saw the piece just a side shout out to the team at Vogue who published the don't call me mama piece which it's fine and my kid calls me mama I don't want a fitness instructor calling me mama I don't want to see mama on a t-shirt and I don't want to see mama anywhere where they say you got this mama my friend Molly Creeden who is a writer who has a full-time job So she was never able to pitch the mama dialogue story.

10:56But she has been wanting someone to write this, why it's offensive to call someone mama for the last three years. And now thank you to Vogue and Amanda Hess, who is the author of this piece, who wrote the mama thing. But anyway, there are a lot of moms wearing this brand. I'm aligned with you there. Yeah. So, yeah. And if you love being called mama by your fitness instructor, that's OK, too. It personally really bothers me and I find it annoying. But can you explain a bit for our listenership who has never heard of Donnie what it is and why we are so interested in it? The Cut also just did a big piece on it.

11:40What makes this business so fascinating? Yeah, I think it is. It's fascinating to me also because it depends on what community you're in. Either you're totally aware of this brand or completely unaware because it has, you know, so it's a D2C direct-to-consumer business. There's no stores that are Donnie stores. So the brand is sold directly. The founder is Alyssa Wasco. She does sell at some retail. Yes. So that's what I was going to say. She is on Shopbop. She is on Revolve. There are some boutiques that also have it, but it is pretty limited that you wouldn't just like you could walk down the street and run into a J.Crew store or Madewell, and it's not the same for that brand.

12:32So I have found like in my own community, the people that wear Donnie tend to be somebody who is in the fashion industry in some way. So I don't, I personally am not seeing it at school pickup drop-off or sports weekend games. I'm not gonna reveal my friend's school, but let's just say this is a guy I know who is connected to the fashion industry, but doesn't, I wouldn't say works in the fab, but is connected, as you said, so would be aware of this. And his wife works in fashion. So says and goes to a school in his kid goes to a through kindergarten through 12 or preschool through 12 private school in the valley that many of our listeners and, you know, you definitely know someone.

13:23what what does he say to he said to me and this is a school with like quote unquote more creative types but I asked around and it it does seem to be popping up at a lot of the private school drop-offs in LA let me find what he said he said what's up with Donnie it's high key the rich private school mom pickup pant so I think and I think from I ran into when I was in New York I had brunch or breakfast whatever on i sounds like i'm i don't i was just talking to someone this morning i don't really go to brunch like i don't i don't think of it as brunch but i have breakfast in trebeck late though right yeah like you don't so i eat like a 11 a.m breakfast lunch situation usually yeah um i ran into ruthie friedlander friend of the pod who is who actually worked with the what's the founder's name alissa wasco alissa wasco yeah alissa wasco at chanel because ruthie used to work in pr at chanel and then she uh alissa was a visual merchandiser but she was wearing the taffeta pull-on pants that i've also seen my friend becky malinsky wear on instagram and seem to be they did a big gifting it sounds like around them and which you were you reported on.

14:46But the pull-on taffeta pant is really cute. I find this brand very interesting. And the reason, A, it just feels like a Sarah Shapiro-coded brand. It's like your sweet spot of a lot of heavy on the DTC, California, entrepreneurial, also a decent-sized business. Well, how much would you pin the business to at this point, like in terms of revenue? So the estimate that I have is 10 to 20 million. I asked for comment and they don't comment on their numbers as many brands don't. But I think that sounds accurate. And I think if I can give a little bit of context about the pants, because I will agree, like the current pant is the taffeta.

15:28They did it in red and white and blue and white gingham. There's also solids and the colors are like corn or there's another light blue color. Yeah, like cornflower blue. They're really pretty. Or like a really nice red. Yes, yes. So they get their colors really right. I think for a lot of this, they're like piece dyeing and panel dyeing. So the construction is, you know, definitely thoughtful. It's made in LA. But the pants, back to the rib kick flare, which is probably the one that is seen all over it drop off. It is recognizable. Even like the Viore performance pants, you know, it's the Viore performance pants also because it has that little V logo on it.

16:15Yeah. The white tag. These don't have any logo, but it is also so identifiable because it is a thick ribbed pant with the seam down the front, very much like a high sport seam down the front. And very much when that pant was totally taking off. This pant is the same silhouette. And, you know, a rib kick flare has been popular. It was popular in the 50s and 60s. Like, it's a style that comes back. But in this particular material, it also happens to be a great, you know, even though we're not saying mama pant, but like, it's a great pant for that kind of thing because you can put it on. It doesn't look like a piece of athleisure or workout gear, but you could still go on a walk with it, be messy on the playground, go to work and look like you're wearing a regular pair of pants.

17:08And it's not like it's easy to throw in the wash. It's like all of those kind of things that made it fit. So these items have their moments and that they're identifiable. And I think that's like an interesting marketing point for these brands. It's funny. So I surveyed people who go to Harvard, Westlake, Oakwood, Hollywood Schoolhouse and the center in Los Angeles. And then also UCLA Lab School, where we know people wear it because Laurel Panton, I would say, who's a writer and fashion editor and all these things and has a big subsec. Like she's sort of the like poster child for these pants and this brand.

17:52I'm sure that Laurel is the first person that to ever wear them that I saw and like wear the knits and all that stuff. My friend who goes to the center says and is a very discerning, let's just say discerning fashion customer, former fashion editor says, I said, do people at the center wear Donnie? Assuming no, but trying to get a sense of who's buying it. this person responds, not that I know of. I don't know anyone who wears that. Look, this person, I would say, is probably not looking at other people's clothes. Hollywood Schoolhouse, Oakwood, Harvard-Westlake, and UCLA Lab School all have Donnie in there.

18:33And what I think is interesting about this brand, the ribbed pant does look a lot like the high sport pant. You have both, right? So it doesn't fit the same way. The high sport pant is like thicker, correct? Yes. The high sport is thicker and feels much more, I don't think I would say like a professional pant, but like it, it feels more like something whereas, and I, I love both of these. I mean this, the kick flare pant for anybody who wants to know details about me, I just love wearing this kind of silhouette. Yeah. And you're petite. So it, it really works well on you. I am 5 '2", yes. So, and the Donnie one, I was fine with it at the full length, but I did end up getting it altered, and that worked fine.

19:19So that's the other thing, you can alter it. The high sport, you can't alter. But the Donnie one also, it just feels so much looser. Like, it feels almost like, I mean, not a pair of sweatpants, not a pair of leggings, So but it's the same kind of like comfort feel. Yeah, I get it. So what I think Alyssa has done, Alyssa Wasco, because Alyssa Zachary is the founder of High Sport. What Alyssa Wasco has done with this Johnny brand, which obviously I'm not a consumer of this brand. Like seeing Ruthie in these taffeta pants, I was like, oh, they look so good. but honestly I'm not it's a little trendy for me like I I get too wrapped up and I don't want something I want to when I buy something I want to be able to wear it for the next four years on the regular like I want to know that I'll still be wearing it four years from now that doesn't mean I don't cycle stuff out but when I buy stuff that's trendy I tend to get very mad at myself and so I really try not to.

20:32And so I love it all. I think it looks good. Her knits look really nice. Laurel, I remember sort of wearing the knits really early. And the thing I would say is she is sort of taking from a lot of the more expensive brands like the Roe, High Sport, Totem, which is like a diffusion of the Roe or whatever. Like they're all sort of playing off the same things And you can't say like it's really hard to say like this person copied this person because all this stuff, none of it's original. It's just like sort of the flavor in the air. And what I think Alyssa Wasco has done really well is pick up the right colors.

21:11Like she has a great sense of color. She has a great sense of silhouette and what people want and also what people are willing to the price value equation. So the the how much people are willing to spend is a big part of this. And also, I don't want to reveal your whole piece. I think people should talk should look at it. But the final thing is you you did this because a lot of the stuff sells out. And the thing you and I have been talking about that that Mickey Drexler has really imparted on me is if it sells out, it means you didn't buy enough. I mean that's always my first question when I hear something sells out it's like how how many did they actually make I mean that's the your sell through of 100 is not great if you didn't buy that much of it yeah totally totally okay so more on Donnie in Tuesday's email you should definitely everyone should check it out it's a really fun fun piece

22:23really really quickly i wanted to chat with you about the barney's announcement that there might be a barney's new york television show i have many more details in monday's line sheet the people who are producing this is this woman rovner susan rovner i believe her name is who used to run nbc universal she has a production company and she partnered with josh schwartz and stephanie savage who are the the people behind the original gossip girl and the gossip girl reboot and a bunch of other stuff but most people know them from gossip girl the oc did they do the oc also Oh, interesting. Okay. So the OC, they have a first look deal, which it means what it sounds like it means.

23:17I was like, do I need to describe what this means in my piece? And I decided no, because it just means that you go to the studio first. And if they don't want it, you could sell it elsewhere. But it's with Amazon. And the first project they say they're doing is a show about Barneys New York. Let's not get into the details here because I did more reporting. You can find out exactly what's going on in my piece. But the question for you is, do you think this is a good idea? In any form, no matter what happens. Because the thing about Josh Schwartz and Stephanie Savage, I talked to some of my Hollywood friends and I wouldn't call them sources.

23:59It's just people who know these people and are connected about this. And they were like, well, they usually they do get a lot of stuff done, like a lot of these things. I was talking to a writer the other day said she's developed 10 things over the last five years and none of them have gotten produced. But she still she's made a lot of money. It's just such a weird, a weird business. But it's not a weird business. Sorry, I don't want to offend anybody. But to me, it is as someone who writes something and it gets published 20 minutes later. But there is a big chance this will actually happen. So do you think, what would you want out of a Barneys television series?

24:39I mean, this is so tough because the nostalgia about Barneys is great. But like, if you're not, if you don't like actually have the experience of being able to go into a Barneys and discover the new product, I don't know if it means much. but I will say that all of these shows in the same vein like I will watch any fashion show that comes out at least once you know give it a chance for the first episode to see if they can really nail what the world is like what the behind the scenes are all of that but I don't know if it has the same pull that when God I mean Gossip Girl the reboot didn't have the same pull that the first Gossip Girl had in terms of like the impact on the industry.

25:26I mean, Blair Waldorf wore a headband and then everybody had to wear a headband. And I don't know if we see shows that have that same sort of pull. So rebooting a show or creating a show about Barneys, does that mean that, you know, Barneys comes back? I don't think so. Well, that's the question. And also, do we want, I've been writing about Barneys so much lately, and there's going to be more because Gene Pressman, one of the former owners, the Pressman family, his dad founded Barneys. He has a book coming out in September. So this is going to just become a much bigger storyline for us. And I would just say I had a column a few weeks ago about Barneys and because they're still Barneys in Japan, it's through a separate deal.

26:15It's been operating there since the 80s, but it looks sort of like the Barneys of 2016 after Mark Lee, who sort of the developer Richard Perry, who bought Barneys and once told one of his I was I don't know if Richard actually said this, but I was told by one of the Barneys employees that he was like, for me, this is like owning the the Yankees. But Richard Perry owned it and he enlisted Mark Lee, this amazing executive, to sort of remake Barneys. And the Barneys that he remade is the one that is still alive in Japan. And it's just like creepy. It truly is like a zombie. You just you look at it and it looks like nothing's changed in the last 10 years.

27:01But I just think I don't know, I would be interested in have you ever read Judith Krantz's Scruples? Do you know what? I don't think I've read it, but I know the lore. Yes. I'm a big reader. So good. Well, you don't need to be a big reader to read Scruples, but Hillary Kerr recommended it to me years ago and it's so good. It's like about Georgie. It's basically based on Giorgio Beverly Hills, that big, that store that was on I think it was on Rodeo for years that was very famous and it's it's a fictionalized version and it's basically a soap opera I was just thinking about it the other day something else conjured it and I feel like it could be really fun I just don't think you need to use Barney's the other thing the my deepest concern about it is what they're gonna put in the store because the biggest problem with fashion stuff generally is when there's a fashion show a runway show like fashion television series when there's a runway show or there's a collection or there's we've discussed at length on this podcast about emily in paris and what they get right about fashion what they get wrong i think the the way emily dresses is a little bit out there but is extremely fun and a sort of exaggeration of what a PR girl who lives in Paris who's American would wear but I that doesn't bother me I think that that's fabulous the thing that bothers me is when they do like it's kind of like writing a rock song for a TV show if you don't get it right it's really like and most people don't get it right just don't just don't show the runway don't do that if you have to have a whole store like what was what show was i watching recently oh i watched this movie where they're the girlfriend starts dating a new guy and he's a fashion designer and they had the shop and the clothes are just i was like well this is so bad it just that's what i'm nervous about like what do they fill the racks with maybe they could cgi designer clothes onto of the racks but that is the part of it that i'm like it would be better for them to do something set in the 80s or 70s where you could make it i know it costs a lot more money costume dramas are very expensive but it just would be way more fun i think for it to be like if they set it at barney's in 1982 when they had all this armani and all the japanese designers and stuff on the racks or there's that store.

29:41Did you ever see Mr. Selfridge, that show? I loved that show because it was said. Wait, who was in it? Someone Good was in it, right? Yes. Oh, the same guy from Jeremy Piven. Oh. Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah. I don't, yeah, that, yes, yes. No, I did not watch it. I loved seeing the behind the scenes of a department store and what it was like to run it. And there, the products, it was so old. Like, you wouldn't expect to see brands. Yeah, it was set in, like, the late 1800s or something, right? Yes. Or the early 1900s. Yeah, I mean, I think a really fun thing would be to do things set at Sharivari, which was, like, it was this amazing store on the Upper West Side, owned by this family, and it was awesome, and it was, like, all the cool people worked there, And it was like in the 1980s, there was a I'd be more interested in something like that.

30:41Or you could do Barney's, too. Like, it's fine. It's just I'm nervous for what do you put on those racks? Also, it's just the whole thing is is I don't want to I don't want to mention any of the plot details because I think what was originally reported is probably incorrect. And so I'm doing reporting as we speak to clarify. And so once I clarify a little bit and I'll keep up on this story because it's it really is the cross section of our interest. Sarah, we should run soon, but really, really, really quickly since we're talking about all of our favorite brands today. I did a column on Monday about The Row, and I think everyone should check it out.

31:31It's sort of an extension of the podcast I did about The Row with Misty Whitesidell from The Times, just discussing, like, what are the prospects for this brand? Long term, I think there are very few founders with such discipline and ability to stay the course. But I do, I kind of bring up this idea of that we don't think of the row as being like a pandemic era or pandemic boom success story, but they really are. like it at the same time people the reason people were buying sweatpants or the reason people were buying the row is just a slightly more niche customer because of the price you know it's prohibitive prices but what happens when you become the sort of basics matt schneier did a piece on them right before the pandemic actually that was sort of about you either shop at uniqlo or The Row, or I think a lot of people shop at both.

32:28But what happens when that sort of basic, simple style is no longer the fashion conversation? And I think the conversation for minimalist fashion and people who like minimalism has become a lot more about looking sexy, looking a little edgier, and that's been driven quite a bit by Phoebe Philo, but other designers as well. And you see it across the market now where there's just and there's a great quote from Alexa Chung in a recent profile that like she didn't dress. She spent her whole 20s like trying not to dress sexy. And I think there is a thing happening in the culture where people who were probably not interested in bandage dresses in 2008 are now like, oh, I didn't wear a bandage dress in 2008.

33:21I'm 45 years old. I want to wear something nice and try to not completely hide my body. And that's sort of the antithesis of a lot of the real silhouettes and things. I'm just curious, as someone who follows the market and follows all of these brands super closely, what you think about the current state of that business and where you think it needs to evolve in order to stay at pace with the culture. Yeah, I mean, I still see the impact on the row on various brands. I mean, their most recent, and some of it is just their styling. Yeah, there's so much the styling. Seeing, you know, right now I'm seeing so much of people, stylists and fashion pieces talking about wearing multiple shirts at the same time.