There’s The Row, and Then There’s Everyone Else

0:28Hello and welcome to Fashion People. 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. 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. If you're interested, listeners of Fashion People get a discount.

1:05Just go to puck.news slash fashion people to join Puck or start a free trial. Happy Friday, everyone. I am still in Paris. One weekend, I'm actually staying for a few days after the shows to do more meetings. So if you're in town and we haven't gotten together, please let me know. We can get together. It's already been a very interesting week here. Some strong designer debuts at Tom Ford and Dries Van Noten. Sarah Burton at Givenchy is today. Of course, these are not the biggest debuts of the year. Those come in the summer and then in the fall at Dior, Chanel, and Gucci. And those are the ones that have the potential to change the course of the industry.

1:48So all of this is very exciting, but more to come, as we would say in the CMS. This week in Line Sheet, you can read my reports in and around the shows, as well as some distractions, including an update on the state of Marquesa, which has been in the press again because of co-founder Georgina Chapman's red carpet run with boyfriend and two-time Oscar winner, Adrian Brody, who did an insufferable speech at the Oscars that you can hear about elsewhere. Just Google Adrian Brody terrible speech. Best celebrity sighting so far this week at Fashion Week, though, was Jack Dorsey at Rick Owens. Love to see Jack Dorsey out and about.

2:35He's a big fashion fan. I also did a little bit of shopping. I went to Dover Street Market twice. They have the nicest stuff in Paris, the best food. You can hang out there and work on your computer and they have a beautiful courtyard. It's just really lovely. I was looking at the Phoebe Philo stuff there, but then I ended up going, and Misty and I talk about this on the podcast. I ended up going to the Phoebe Philo shop at Gallery Lafayette, which is really good. I felt like I was back at Celine on Worcester Street circa 2018. And across from Phoebe Philo is the brand new build out from the row just in time for Paris Fashion Week.

3:16As many of you know, I've been wanting to do a standalone episode on the row forever. And I was having a hard time finding the right person to discuss it with because the people who really know the row do not want to piss the row off. So they do not want to do a podcast. They love to talk about it privately. I totally understand. why would you want to piss them off? That's my job. Luckily, Misty, who's a contributor at the New York Times, has been reporting on the brand for almost as long as I have. We go way back, so this was very fun. Misty Whitesidell, welcome to Fashion People. Thank you. Thanks for having me.

3:51So Fridays, we always ask, what did you have for breakfast? I had a banana. Just a banana, Misty. Where is your protein? Just a banana today. Do you need to pair that with protein next time? Okay, I'll think about it As one of my fashion children So thank you for doing this podcast where we're going to deep dive on the row And we'll get into it really quickly But I wanted to talk a bit about you And you have a really great beat at the New York Times You cover shopping, but you've been a fashion journalist for a long time I've known you since you were Anne Sloey's intern at Paris Fashion Week with her.

4:33It's true. So long ago. Do you remember how fun that was? It was fun. It was, I saw the last days of extravagance in fashion media, which was great to be a fly on the wall. Do you still talk to Anne? We have fallen out of touch recently, but I'd love to catch up with her. Same. Should I have her on the podcast? I think so. So yeah, I'm sure she has a lot to say. Yeah, she was one of my idols growing up. She's truly the best. But I remember you, when Anne's kids were little, you kind of going around with her to the shows. It must have been really, really fun. It was. It was great. And I was in college at the time.

5:12So it was a great education. Amazing. So you have been writing about The Row for basically since you were in college. they probably started right around the time you were in college or right before everyone who's going to listen to this knows who they are but I think it would be good for us to sort of establish how you if you were going to explain the road to someone who had never heard of them before in 60 seconds or less, how would you do it? I would say that this is a very premium luxury brand founded by Mary Kate and Ashley Olson, the famous twins of Full House. And that this is a company that I think their influence has really spread across fashion, particularly coming out of the pandemic.

6:09It's existed far beyond that. But I think coming out of COVID, they kind of gave people a prescribed way to dress that really caught on. And that we've seen those headwinds throughout the industry thereafter. Great, great way to say it. And yes, it's interesting. So much of how people think about them is connected to the fact that they were child stars. And they're a couple years younger than me, but I grew up, I was, I'm 42 and watching Full House, not loving it, to be honest, but it was, it was just a part of everyone's lives. It was never one of my favorites, but, um, and then they were child stars.

6:50They had this direct video sort of Disney like movies series that were very, very big. I think probably more for your generation. Like it takes two. Wow. Wow. And then they, they developed this incredible taste. They did this book. I remember they released it maybe right before the row started or right after called influence. It was just like in the mid two thousands, their personal style, which was kind of messy and oversized. They're very petite and a little bit all over the place, very boho at the time, but there was always, there was an edge to it. It wasn't sweet in any way became people just started copying it like crazy.

7:39And then they launched with their old friend, this woman, Danielle Sherman. They launched this line of t-shirts called the row named after Savile row. And within years, they became legitimate fashion designers. It was, it was interesting because they sort of started at the same time as Victoria Beckham and also as Jessica Simpson. and Victoria Beckham's line is high end. She still has it. It's very well regarded, but I'd say that she's still a celebrity first. Jessica Simpson wasn't ever interested in being a real designer, but she became a very successful entrepreneur with her fashion brand. But the row became Mary Kay and Ashley Olsen, who really prefer if you write their names to say Ashley America, Kate, they became legitimate fashion designers.

8:38And as you were tracking that before you started reporting, and then as you were reporting, what was, how did it change? Like when I would say pretty quickly, people respected it because you could tell they like knew their stuff, at least they had really good taste. And then I noticed when I started to really believe in them as designers was their head ups would go to work at other brands and the line would still be good. So to me, the sort of key is everybody's always wondering, like, is it the number two who's really making the clothes good or is it the top person or are they just a figurehead?

9:22And I'd say nine times out of 10, the top person, you're creative director, you're the one directing great to have talent under you, but it's all about you. But with someone like that, you of course think they have some sort of behind the scenes person making it good. And I think when Nadege, who now designs Hermes and then also Francesco went to Theory, who was one of their other designers, I realized, oh, it's them. Like they are the real deal. What was your experience? Yeah, I mean, I think they've always stood for taste. I mean, you spoke about their, when they arrived at NYU in the early 2000s, and they were walking around New York, vintage was still, you know, it was not a mainstream phenomenon that it is now.

10:09And they really pioneered wearing old clothes and making them look new and interesting. When they launched the row, it was sort of this premium companion to Elizabeth and James, which was their other brand that I don't believe exists anymore. But they were really charting it as a very high end offshoot initially. And I remember when it arrived at Barney's, it was a huge deal. Ultimately, as I reported later on, Barney's became, they owed them a huge debt when they closed down, which led the road to some financial difficulties. But when they initially arrived at Barney's, I think that really put them on the map as a brand that was legitimate in the fashion space.

10:58And they really, at first, they were, I think it was almost all t-shirts. And Danielle, who was their co-founder, whose family had roots in Savile Row, and now Danielle designs, as you know, a jewelry line called Sherman Field, 1957, which was the name of her family's clothing brand in, I think in England on, on Savile Row maybe. But anyway, when Danielle left the row, she actually went to Alexander Wang and did tea by Alexander Wang, which was a subline that was very successful. But I just remember they did like$200 t-shirts or$300 t-shirts, which at the time now, the wall street journal just wrote, wrote, ran a story about $550 t-shirts, like 200s, pretty good.

11:45But it was about this idea of like what you're saying, taste. It was about we know what's good. And that has manifested itself in the design, especially in recent years. So I would say, you know, the first decade of the row, I think they launched in 07 or 08, the first decade - 06 even. 06. Okay. So first decade, first like 12, 13 years, it was really about minimalism in the era of Phoebe Philo. So, you know, everything, I believe Phoebe Philo is the Coco Chanel of our time. And pretty much everything comes from her. Like when you look at people on the street, so much, I was at Stella McCartney yesterday and someone was wearing a knit and it looked like an old Celine knit.

12:46It's just so much of what we wear in terms of silhouette came from her early collections. And the row never felt like a copy entirely of Celine. It was more, you could tell they were using like Romeo Gili. They were, they were grabbing, as you said, they were big vintage people. They were grabbing a lot of vintage. Galanos, I heard was like a big thing that they collected in the early days. And you could just see, they took a pattern from this designer, pattern from that designer, but they were able to do something with that because they had such a particular idea of what they liked and everybody likes what they like.

13:33But then during the pandemic, something did change. Um, maybe we can rewind a little bit prior to that because the Elizabeth and James stuff happened. And they sold that or they did that deal with Kohl's. That was prior to the pandemic, correct? I believe it was around that time. I mean, in that period, the contemporary market of labels sort of shifted and that glut of brands and that Elizabeth and James original price point disappeared. So they were part of that broader shift. I remember I did a piece with them when they were launching vintage. They had a sort of vintage capsule within Elizabeth and James.

14:23You go to H &M now and there's all this vintage. And I interviewed them. I think I've only interviewed them two or three times. But I went in and I remember the thing that we talked about the most though was how slowly they had built the row and how carefully and they had investors pretty I don't know how early on but early on and just it was never reported um including it ended up in in the future people knew that Byron Trott who is also was an investor in Tory Burch was one of their backers but um and Elizabeth and James had a separate investor cap table, I believe, or something like that. Who knows?

15:09They're very, very private people. So some of that information will never be totally clear, but they were just very serious about it. They wanted to build a luxury brand. They didn't want to sell it to someone. They didn't want to be the designer of Armani, even though we would all love that. They wanted to do their own thing. And then as you reported, Barney's happened and they were one of Barney's. One of the things about the real that's interesting is that they sell a ton of ready to wear. They have many, many SKUs. And I think at the time, especially in the 2010s, they had even more. And you'd go to Neiman Marcus or to Barney's and there would just be racks and racks and racks of different styles.

15:57And they owed them$4 million, right? They were the top, they were the brand that they owed the most money to when they went bankrupt. And it was damaging to the business. I remember going to the sample sale in October of 2021. So I was in New York on maternity leave and I took my kid and he was sleeping on me in one of those like carriers. And I just bought everything because it was essentially all the Barney's product was there and everything was like$2 million a piece. Yes. But you reported on that extensively and what happened to them during the pandemic in the early days. Can you explain what they were experiencing, especially because of the fallout of Barney's?

16:50Yeah. And this is, it predates my time at the New York Times. I was at Women's Wear Daily at that time. I had heard through the grapevine that the row, like so many other brands at the time, which I think is worth noting, many brands in fashion were experiencing trouble. I think what was surprising about the row laying off their design staff and other key members of staff is that they are obviously founded by two women with immense personal wealth. And also two women that we have almost grown to consider infallible in a lot of ways, especially in the fashion industry. So it took a lot of people by surprise at the time.

17:29I believe in my reporting, I noted that the row was owed more money from Barney's than even one of Barney's own landlords at the time. So you can imagine that was an immense, immense amount of money. And with retail all but shut down, I think they had no choice but to trim at that time. But it does seem like things have changed considerably since then. Yes. Yeah. I heard at the same time that you were doing this reporting that they considered shutting down their men's business, which was extremely small, at the time and also pulling back to accessories only. And so it was, they laid off a lot of people.

18:16And I remember talking to someone who was connected to the brand based in Europe and they, they said they hadn't heard anything like that. So I think these were really internal conversations. It's interesting business to cover because it's not a business that employees, they, they will talk, but it's not, people are very loyal to the Olsons. They, especially if you are in their orbit, because it's one of those companies that there are so few businesses in America that feel prestigious that they don't, there are companies that everyone wants to shit talk constantly. I mean, LVMH is very large, so it makes it easy.

19:01But I think that a lot of people who worked at the Rowe wanted it to succeed and didn't want to see it fail. And so it's interesting, even after many of them got laid off. It's an interesting business to cover, that's for sure, especially because they are also so private. And I think people want to respect the reasons that they are private. One of them being that they have been famous their entire lives and, and they don't want people in their business, which I actually really understand. And it's our job to be in their business. So, um, so, so I say it with love.

19:53So, they were having challenges during the pandemic. I remember being in my first house in LA and talking to people from there, and your story coming out, and just thinking, and this would have been, was that like summer, August, July, August 2020? Yeah, it was a deep lockdown. Yes. and then fast forward a year and a half or two and something changed. I would say one thing is that in lockdown people, prior to lockdown, nobody remembers this, but the 2010s were all about sneakers. And I'm at Paris Fashion Week right now. I wore sneakers today. I was the only person wearing sneakers. The only woman, my foot hurt, I had to wear them.

20:50It's crazy. I felt like so underdressed. Whereas prior to the pandemic, and I remember being here in February 2020 and talking to, actually talking to Gary Wassner, the famous Hilden factor. And I'm sure you're very familiar with Gary also. And him saying, no one's wearing sneakers. And something had shifted in people were kind of moving out of the casual wear and they were dressing up a little more. And then the pandemic happened, boomed, and everybody regressed and everybody was in sweat pants and entire world blew up and then actually blew up. And people were just wearing relaxed clothes again.

21:34And at the same time, the row sort of came into its own for what it's really good at. and I think part of that was Phoebe Philo left Celine I believe at the end of 2018 so it had been a few years and and the brands that had been deeply influenced from her were breaking away from that and then also to me and then I would love your take on this to me the thing that they are the best at and it comes back to this idea of taste is that they find the item that everybody needs and they are able to distill it to the perfect thing. So a pair of Teva sandals, everyone needs those. They made them leather.

22:21They kind of smooth the edges and they made the best pair of Teva sandals in the world. And I bought, I tried to buy a pair of like dupes, if you want to call them of, of the road Teva sandals and they weren't good enough. And I, I never bought, I'd never bought the actual ones either, but I was advised not to by a good friend, but, um, but the point being that they make the perfect version of the thing, whether that's a shirt or a pair of sandals or a bag. And that kind of became their calling card. And it just, I feel like it just blew up. What was your experience of it? Yeah. So one thing to pull out is right before COVID, their spring 2020 collection.

23:07And now we, of course, know what happened during that season when that would have hit retailers. It was that season when they had on the runway a lilac, crisp button down shirt with khakis. And I remember seeing just the fashion crowd go wild. there were a lot of ostentatious clothing in the market at the time, a lot of heavily embellished products, and this felt really fresh. And so they were sort of set up coming out of COVID to sort of bring this out again. And that is sort of what they've stuck to and really succeeded with. Their products are, though, I will say very expensive. And they've been so successful that there are many brands now, obviously, that have issued things to look like them at a much lower price point.

23:55So it's an interesting time to sort of be observing them now and their success, how that sort of carried through the rest of fashion. Let's talk about the sort of proto or prime example of that, which is the Margo bag, which is a bag that looks a lot like an Hermes bag. so it's it's not an original and I think I've said this on the podcast before but someone said to one of my old colleagues once all bags are copies of Hermes bags so I think like the puzzle bag from Loewe is the only one that really isn't and when you think about it it's true it's um every bag if you look through the Hermes archive they all sort of come from every bag sort of comes from an Hermes bag.

24:41And it's just depends on whether the designer who, who plucks from it can kind of shape it differently. But the Margot became the it bag of, of that era. And, and I think today still is, what do you think it is about that style in particular? And can you describe it for people? I don't, again, I don't know who would listen to this and doesn't know what the Margot bag is, but how would you describe it and how women use it and wear it? Yeah, it's a bag that comes in various sizes from a bag that you can throw everything that you need for three days, maybe even a weekend in, you know, a weekend or tote to a really mini size.

25:23Now they've expanded the run, but it's, I think meant to look like, you know, a bag that you wear to look like you have a lot of money. Um, so I would describe it. I mean, it's, it comes in these very luxurious materials. It looks like it's very heavy. Um, it has a presence to it and, um, you know, it's caught on with a certain group of people who can afford it. Yeah. It really reminds me of the bolide bag from, from Hermes, which I have, I own one of those. Oh, and it costs far less than the Margot, let me tell you, I, I got it secondhand and it's very nice, but, um, yeah, I think like top handle bags at some point, right after the lockdowns, like, as we were really exiting the, the hardest part of the pandemic, um, became the thing to have.

26:19There was just something about them. And, and that's when we saw people sort of returning to dressing up. I think the other thing that they got really good at with, with the look books in particular was the styling and their collaboration with Brian Malloy, who styles a lot of great shows. He also does Todd's in Milan. He does Issey Miyake here in Paris. He also does Tory Burch. Uh, he's been doing that for a few years too, but he is very good at, it's almost like he should have been the editor in chief of Lucky Magazine in that he can really, he knows how to put things together. And it's very instructive.

27:01I wrote a little thing in line sheet about this, this week, but the way he styles things, there's so much like their use of red tights or, um, the way that they, he's he'll drape a sweater over the shoulders, things like that, I feel like have really influenced a lot of other brands as well. Absolutely. I mean, I could name 10 of them right now. Well, do you want to name some of them? I'm okay. I don't need to, but I'm sure many people listening know what, yeah, what those brands are. I can, I'm happy to. So I think like, Like obviously Totem, which is a good example of one of these brands that was deeply influenced by the road that I think has found its own niche.

27:50And we should talk about the pricing thing because it's connected to Totem, which was founded in, I believe, 2014 by Ellen Kling and her partner and is of a very similar. The customer, they definitely want the same kind of person who buys the road. I would say that Totem feels like even more directly referencing Carolyn Bissett Kennedy and that sort of 1990s, like super minimalist, rich way of looking. But there are, you know, dozens of them that need the row to in the same way the row needed Celine to sort of inform what they do each season. And you mentioned, and going back to price, so what I think Totem has done really successfully is A, found their own silhouettes and ideas that don't have anything to do with the row or only feel adjacent to the row.

28:55And then they also have incredible prices. So the price is now compared to something, Totem's sort of in what we used to call contemporary market. So you can buy a pair of jeans for under$500. You can buy a coat for under$1 ,500. These things aren't cheap, but there's a perceived quality and a perceived accessibility in an era when buying a pair of pants for$1 ,000 seems like a steal if you're a luxury customer. But the thing about the road that has happened, like many luxury brands, is that their prices have just skyrocketed. There is a pair of over-the-knee boots that I'm very interested in that cost$4 ,200.

29:42And if you get them in suede, it's$2 ,600. But, you know, that's a lot of money. It is. I looked yesterday. Yeah, so what did you see? Yeah, I saw a pair of elastic waist shorts, black shorts, and they were about$900. Wow, under a thousand. Under a thousand, but these are Pilon shorts. I believe they were made in Europe.

30:34Do you think that the secondhand market has benefited the role because younger people who don't have that kind of money can buy something on the real real for relatively cheap and still feel like they're part of that world? and then they trade up when they do have a little more money? I don't think that, I mean, from my observations, I don't think the row is thinking about the secondhand market when it's strategizing its product assortment. I also, I don't know. I'm not saying they're thinking about it, but do you think it's benefited them? I do. I don't know. I don't know anyone actually who has bought the row repeatedly secondhand.

31:16I feel like a lot of people like to go to their stores. is they like to experience, you know, that environment that the row has set up and been so deliberate about, um, whether it's in Los Angeles or the townhouse in here in New York. Um, I think younger people buy it secondhand. Okay. Well, maybe they're not, not saying that they do. I don't know. I feel like a lot of the young youngins that I know are, don't you feel like your friends are really into buying secondhand generally and scouring the real real and making that sort of part of their customer journey when they're looking for stuff? Yeah, but I don't know that the row is part of that journey from what I've heard.