Vanity Fair Goes Boy Crazy and Harper’s Bazaar Goes Meghan

0:03Hello and welcome to Fashion People. I'm Lauren Sherman, writer of Pucks Fashion and Beauty Memo Line Sheet. And today with me on the show is L52 founder Adam Shapiro to discuss luxury's big opportunity in India. Up top, the ringer's Amanda Dobbins joins me for a session on the big cover reveals of the week, Vanity Fair's Boy Issue and Harper's Bazaar's Megan Markle take. 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.

0:45Line 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. Just go to puck.news slash fashion people to join puck or start a free trial. Happy Friday, everyone. And Amanda Dobbins, welcome back to Fashion People. It's my honor to be here. As soon as you said happy Friday, I realized that I didn't have breakfast this morning.

1:24I don't know if you're going to ask me. I wasn't because this is technically the top of the show instead of doing an intro. Everybody read all my stories, read the article about Missoni, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, what I usually do. We're going to get right into it because sometimes stuff can't wait till next Tuesday. And I was like, I don't think this Vanity Fair stuff is going to hold till next Tuesday. And then this morning, the Meghan Markle cover dropped. Yes, it did. We are here to discuss. Everyone should listen to Amanda and her partner, Juliette Littman on Jam Session discuss not only Vanity Fair covers, but their take on Olivia unnazzy I found really compelling.

2:02Let's talk Vanity Fair immediately and what you thought of this cover. And we can get into the like Jonathan Anderson of it all because I feel like you'll get to discuss this in a way that maybe more in depth than the jam session listener would want. The Dior of it all for sure. Yes. Yes. Tell me what you thought. Well I woke up to this cover. I woke up to a text message from you to myself and Juliette Lemon. Thank you so much for breaking the news, the personal services you offer. Because now I get up at 5 a.m. every single day. Today I got up at 4. So you sent me one of the three covers. And I guess that's my first question.

2:44So these are split covers this year? Split covers, not a pullout like it normally is. I had a really nice dinner last night with some people and they were like, we missed the pullout cover. Right. So, I mean, the Hollywood issue is for a specific type of magazine and movie nerd, which is essentially me, like a hallowed Vanity Fair tradition. Right. And you spend some of the year trying to guess who is going to be included in what is a traditionally like a large portfolio of movie stars. Most years it's intergenerational, right? Or it has been. And so you get like, you know, you get Nicole Kidman along with Zendaya, which I think was the main, the front cover last year.

3:30But then it's kind of 10 to 12 people. And so, and it's the big collage historically that has been. And how do they get everyone together and or Photoshop everyone together? because it's hard to get 12 people in the same room. So I was surprised. And at first you only sent me one cover. So I was like, okay, so are these the only people that they got? And I love, let me say that I love every single one of the boys who is on these photos. And they all look adorable. They look so cute. They look very cute. But I was a little confused wattage-wise because I thought I was looking at the main photo.

4:12I guess as a split cover, I don't know, they're cute. I personally like it. I have found that in general, when something is so tailor-made to me, that that means it's bad for the marketplace. Yes, I feel similarly. So, you know, I think that it is a statement. I know there's already been a lot of, I don't know whether you want to call it backlash, but for example, on Jam Session, my co-host and friend Juliette Lippman, I wouldn't characterize it as taking issue, but the tagline, let's hear it for the boys, which is cute. Just like, I don't really care about, I'm not in a mood to be hearing about boys or men.

4:53I do find that there is a distinction between the boys and men. And I was in on the joke, but many people aren't. And that's fine. That is their right. The flip side of that is like, it's good magazine making, right? Because it gets people talking. Agreed. Look, so when I first found out about this, my subhead was men are back. Right. Which is like, I'm being ironic, but it's true. Like men are back in the same way, like the anti-woke culture swinging. It's basically like what's happening to the American man. Right. He's in crisis. Every single magazine talks about this. It's an issue that has been, is like in the middle of everything.

5:39So when I found out that it was actually going to be more about internet boyfriends and it was like sort of tongue in cheek, I liked it. I also think that and I said this to Peter Hamby on Friday's Powers That Be. I think like the world is a little boy crazy right now. Yeah, sure. Like maybe you and I are a little more boy crazy than Juliet in some ways. Maybe, but I also, and, you know, not to be reductive or essentialist about the Vanity Fair audience, but I do think the Hollywood cover has traditionally been for straight women and gay men, you know? Exactly. It's knowing its audience. And again, they look adorable.

6:19The video content is them watching YouTube videos. It's cute. That understands what I want it to be. And I guess has also generated headlines outside of its own echo chamber. Yes. And so I have a question, a Hollywood bit, but let's talk a little bit about the details and what I think Mark was trying to do. Or maybe not consciously, but look. He used Theo Wenner, who shot the Dior menswear campaign. That's very Bruce Weber coded. and he had Tom Guinness styled it. He was like this cool, he'd styled the cover of Jeremy Allen White, interview cover. Right. He's like a British stylist. He's married to Tish Weinstock, who is a writer and personality and they're like a very hot British couple.

7:14He used, like the set decorator was this cool woman. Like it it all was very coded towards as I wrote, like I'm an upper middle class white woman who spends too much money on clothes. Like I'm interested in all these things. And also I'd say that main cover. Those are five people who I am interested in, like all of them, maybe. Well, is that the main cover is something that we should discuss? But in my mind, it is. Yeah. So I guess a year or two years ago, years ago, I texted you and I said, I'm really into the Loewe boys. And there was just a whole core of like up and coming actors who were regularly at the Jonathan Anderson shows.

8:01you know Josh O 'Connor being like first and foremost I think Joe Allen is there a lot who else am I forgetting and he was always curating they weren't the main franchise like biggest most recognizable Hollywood stars they were people young men who were in younger movies I guess you know I mean Daniel Craig was James Bond and he was like a he was an honorary Loewe boy but that was sort of um added in as like as like part of the joke uh but it was a group of young up and coming very talented actors with what i deem to be like good movie taste uh who would show up in jonathan anderson clothes and look cute and then many of them have moved on to dior and this does it is the Loewe boys effect gone mainstream which again I really enjoy but I it is how many people do you think like if you went out on the street with these covers all three of them and asked just a random person like how many of these men can you name I don't know but but this is the thing can you if you saw a photo of um who's that guy with the burgers the YouTube star I honestly I have no idea like is that is it Mr.

9:17Beast? Mr. Beast. He has burgers? Yeah they're just it's disgusting Google Mr. Beast disgusting burgers. I will not I will not but the point being like I think we live in a very fragmented culture what Mark needs to do is sell advertising and from my sourcing the fashion magazine the fashion pages were up i think 50 in this issue and the overall now look like how much are they selling them for versus what they used to i can't tell you that but then and the overall um advertising was up 22 so if he is trying to get fashion brands to if he's trying to get terry who works at loeve to buy advertising in Vanity Fair, I think that it was effective in that way.

10:06But it is interesting because it is such, he's picking very like for the cover he did, like having like Issy Wood do a digital cover. Like these are things that only a very select group of people who work at media have any, like Chris Black is into it. Great. I mean, all the How Long Gone people. I was into it. I felt the Issy Wood cover was much more flattering than the main cover that they went with. And I ride for Charlie XCX for life. So I want her to have the best cover that she can get. But I see your point. Yeah. So I think it's an interesting way to approach all of this. And also, I think, like, in the end, we are all talking about it.

10:48I've talked about it at every meal I've had. Everybody has an opinion. Some people, most of the women and gays love it. And I guess that's what he's trying to do. Let's see when his creative director, Jennifer Pastore, she's like really involved and see all his new writers. Let's see what happens in Jan Feb and all of that. And for the Vanity Fair party, which let's be honest, that's what he really needs to nail. If he nails that, he'll be OK. Do you know whether appearance in the Hollywood issue, whether that translates to a mandatory appearance at the Vanity Fair party? you know probably not but what i do know because i did do a bunch of reporting on this prior to his arrival because they moved back the issue to november it used to be february um to align with the party um people love going to this party even when it sucks like there have been several years in the past few years where people are like the party blew but like everyone in hollywood just wants to go they don't care well i think i think they want that photo that carpet photo has become the hollywood version of the met gala um and yeah and they've really amped it up and so everybody has a everyone who goes to the ceremony has a second outfit the who's who of like of who got to walk the vanity fair red carpet does have power um yeah i listen if all of these all of these young men are going to be at the vanity fair party i would love to attend too we will we would both like invites.

12:18I don't think I'll be getting one based on my Olivia Nuzzi opinions, but that's fine. I don't want to talk about Olivia Nuzzi. All I want to say is someone in my Slack channel was like, what do you think? How do you think Mark feels about Olivia Nuzzi now that this Mark Sanford stuff came out? I'm like, I'm sure Mark is thrilled. Like, this is the point. That's why he hired her. Yeah, exactly. Exactly. Okay. So really quickly on this, final thing. If you could have put this cover together and you were going with all male, who do you think, like, obviously, Timothy Chalamet is not on there and our favorite, Josh O 'Connor.

12:58Right. And I had forgotten, Lauren, that Josh O 'Connor was on last year's. He was like the middle panel. You had to fold out for him. But he was there. My buddy, like, I don't know Glenn Powell. I'm a huge fan of Glenn Powell. He was on both last year's and this year's he's on every cover he's like well you listen he works hard he's trying to be a movie star uh let's see so i callum turner uh who is possibly best known as duolipa's fiance uh but who's also he's adorable he's in a romantic comedy that's coming out in a couple weeks uh with miles teller and i noted that so callum and it's a love triangle elizabeth olsen has to pick between her...

13:41I know who I would pick. I don't need to see the movie. Her husband's in the afterlife. And her husband, her first husband's Callum Turner and her second husband is Miles Teller. Miles Teller is not on the cover, but he's pretty great. And he instead is doing the press tour where Callum Turner got the Vanity Fair cover and Miles Teller and his co-stars Elizabeth Olsen and Divine Joy Randolph were in the New York Times cooking, feeding the sourdough starter, which is like another thing that is happening. Uh-oh. What do you think of the sour? So in these videos, people, there's like a video where they're having celebrities in the New York Times now and they are always in the cooking kitchen.

14:24And like part of the gimmick is that they feed the sourdough starter. And I find it very weird, but I'm curious what you think. And they say encouraging things. Well, you know, strategy content wise, and I really hate myself for using the word content, but it's like a little franchise that they have. Right. And so now I'm like, oh, I see these people are in the kitchen. And like, what did they say to the starter? I prefer the other videos. You know, Emma Stone was in there and it was the first time she'd ever microplained garlic. She prefers like a garlic press. so now that's something that I know about Emma Stone I I like to cook I find it you know it's fascinating that that is like a burgeoning press tour stop of you know people doing relatable things and that that you know it's that versus the old school Hollywood issues but my reaction to the the Hollywood issue and to casting it was like I I loved it I can't believe some of the people said yes um i can't believe michael b jordan said yes he is going to be nominated for most likely for best actor for sinners which is one of the most successful movies of the year he's like in london i believe directing a thomas crown affair like he is a big big star and doing a shared cover even if he gets paul meskel and austin butler which i think is what you would call like the quote a cover um sure but still not in my mind but you're right yes well but you know just from like a career perspective.

15:50I agree. Yes. He is so far and way ahead financially with them. I'm like, shouldn't you be cover only, sir? Like, shouldn't you? I'm sure Timothy Chalamet was approached, you know, of course, but, and, and that's a hard no. So I, I'm, I'm happy for most of these people. And, and also kind of like, I don't know what the strategy is. And I don't know whether sharing a cover is, is what I want for them. Yeah. So maybe next year they'll do a single. It would be, I think it would be a powerful statement to just do one person next year. Yeah. Given that, you know. But then it's kind of like if that person's movie flames out, if they don't get the Oscar nomination, you know, you're kind of, it's unpredictable these days, especially in terms of box office.

16:37Yeah. Okay. So great point. So on to a single cover. Yeah. This morning, the Meghan Markle Harper's Bazaar cover dropped. We knew it was coming. Yeah, you're, you know, you're, you're tapped in. I'm tapped in. So what did you think? Well, as I said to you before, I didn't actually read the piece. I yet I scanned through the photos and the fashion credits. And as always, I think she looks incredibly beautiful. It's not hard to make her look beautiful. I appreciated the relative lack of retouching. I agree. Hers is hers is a face that doesn't need it. And she like she really is incredibly beautiful, usually photographs very well.

17:22And I think these photographs did pay off the clothes. Like I found the credits hilarious, you know, like, yeah, you know, from like Ms. Shotmai just in like in full the row or I was tickled by the Balenciaga credit. You know, her quote unquote best friend sent that along. um but i i i follow a substack that is um like a royal reporter who just spends all his time and they is this is this the sykes yes tom sykes brother tom sykes i've heard i've only heard good things i really enjoy it um i would say that substack serves me too much of what his commenters have to say and I'm really only there for Tom.

18:07Understood. I read a summary of what he had to say and he identified that Meghan was like announced to an empty townhouse as Meghan, Duchess of Sussex. Again, that's like cherry picking. That's the only quote I read, which I and otherwise it seems like it's, you know, very charitable. I saw some pull quotes about how she's not trying to be perfect. Okay. I don't know. I, I guess it's a good look for her. It's not a bad look for her. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, my feeling about it, I agree that she looks beautiful because she is. I like that they didn't put a lot of makeup on her either. I think the styling was like, it's like how we wish she actually dressed, but doesn't.

18:49Um, I thought she looked like the, the pieces were really nice and she looked beautiful. I personally just think it's sort of like flat and I think that speaks to her not to the production the the piece is fine like I think the issue with her to me is that she what I wrote and maybe this will get edited out who knows I just wrote it like 10 minutes ago but if she was not a princess she would not be Kim Kardashian and and there is a thing about presence and she obviously has had influence on people but I think that was wrapped up in the fact that she was a princess and represented something new in this old culture that needs to be go away anyway.

19:34So I think the anecdote I used is at the Balenciaga show, and I'm sure I said this to you. I don't know if I've said this on the podcast, but at the Balenciaga show, I'm sitting there in the front row. There were only two rows. I'm not trying to brag talking to a couple other writers and we were just chatting we all got there very early and all of a sudden I feel someone walk by me and it's Lauren Sanchez and I was like oh my god Meghan Markle walked by me I did not feel it and and it another writer was like oh my god it's Meghan Markle and she was already like way past us I think to me and look like my feelings are my feelings and the way but I don't think I've seen her interact with people I see the way she we all have if you've watched that show I was gonna say yeah I I don't think she has the presence or so whatever they're gonna do business wise I just don't think she's not Kim Kardashian she's not Diana she's not someone who she's not Oprah like she's not someone who's gonna make you feel and I think that eventually that is going to become a bigger and bigger issue for her especially given there was like a report her publicist once again she once again removed a publicist or the publicist left or whatever right you i assume it's because they didn't keep the chris jenner birthday photos from being published oh man i mean yeah and then got them taken down and had that reported yeah I mean, that whole question that the whole the Meghan Markle stuff and I have followed as ever and with Love, Meghan, her Netflix show more closely than I personally have wanted to.

21:25And and sort of by extension, the whole Montecito world is like, can you sell blandness? Can you make something like it? Can something be inoffensive and still grab attention? because they are just sanding the edges off of absolutely everything and then hoping that people buy it. And I don't really know whether that works. And it's interesting because it's kind of what the Vanity Fair cover is too. I'd say less so. There's more intricacy, but there is still like blandness is like our whole culture now. And so they both are reflective of that in different ways. Yeah. And interesting how we react.

22:07it's very hard for me to write about her because I feel mean doing it. Yeah. I know. I always try to say one nice thing and, and my one nice thing usually ends up being that she is incredibly beautiful. Incredibly. And so, but even that feels sort of reductive and dismissive, right? I'm like writing about someone according to her appearance instead of her accomplishments. You can't really appoint to any impressive accomplishments. This sad thing about them. Well, there are many sad things, but I think, you know, The royal family is an insane institution, but I think if if they had been better treated, they would have been really good at their jobs.

22:46And I understand why they left. But that kind of was the perfect job for them. If you put away the institutional racism, which obviously you can. Yes. So it's tough. Like she kind of did find her perfect job, except it it just it was too much. so I don't know but you can't really be a princess without uh without a castle agreed and with that um as as you always say we wish them well and um I wish you well Amanda thank you for joining and we will get going with Adam now Adam Shapiro welcome to Fashion People thank you I'm so excited to be here you know that it's a real issue when I have PR people on because they get jealous so I've wanted to have you on for a while, but we needed a peg.

23:35Yeah, I'm sure you're going to get harassed by about 40 others after this goes live. Yes, yes. I mean, I love, you know, I love my PR people, so I'm happy to have the conversation, but we have good reason to speak today. Before we get started, what did you have for breakfast this morning? Oh, well, I had some yogurt with some muesli and some blueberries. So, so pretty and nice. Well, let me tell you, after like a month of like binge eating baguettes and pasta, it's time to really like pull the cord. My body feels completely insane. We are recording this about a month or a month and a half actually before it's going to run several weeks.

24:13And we are both just getting back from Paris. And I don't know how to live anymore. I am a baguette and I need to sort of just really assess my choices for the next few weeks. That's for sure. So when are you going to be going to India in the next, will you get on a plane soon? Because you're based in London normally. I'm based in London. We have offices in New York and most recently in Mumbai. I am actually going to be heading over there at the end of October and then through the first week of November. So I'll be there for a week and a half. so really soon okay so the reason I decided to have you on the podcast today was not to talk about the business of PR even though you're very good at it but more specifically the business of luxury fashion in India because you as you mentioned you open an office there you have a lot of big projects happening there and India's when I first started covering the luxury industry and this is in the mid 2000s, everyone talked about the BRIC countries.

25:24So Brazil, Russia, India, China. And then five years later, the only thing we were ever talking about was China. And Brazil has its own set of problems. Russia obviously has many problems. But the India opportunity for luxury, I worked for a company run by an Indian person for a long time. And And we covered India quite a bit. I've always just been interested in the way wealthy people there spend their money and their engagement with Western brands, things like that. And so have you. So why don't you kind of give me a little bit of background on yourself and how you ended up having this deep connection to India and doing so much work there?

26:15Sure. Well, I am American, although I've been in London for 15 years. But in London, having started my career in the States and going to university in New York, I then moved to London and eventually started my own PR agency after a long time at KCD and a stint at Burberry for a few years. And then as it happened - God, I forgot you were at Burberry. I know. Best time, 2010 to 2012, Aviators. Wow, amazing. And yeah, it was great. And that whole generation of Burberry kids has all gone on to do really interesting things. So it's what brought me to London in the first place, you know. And so, yeah, so I then opened the London office of KCD, eventually launched L52, which is eight years in now.

26:58and India, you know, sort of became an opportunity. Well, first of all, I married a man from Mumbai. So I actually have a deep personal connection to the country and I've spent a lot of time there, both in a personal capacity and then also during COVID, we launched sort of Side Hustle, which is a men's fashion brand called SMR Days, which is really kind of resort beach kind of vacation wear. And because of that, I got really educated about the supply chain in India and artisanship and just sort of the culture of producing clothes and how that's done there. And so through my knowledge of SMR, India started becoming a much more prominent sort of fashion region in my mind.

27:48And, you know, then I guess in the past year and a half or so, I just started hearing bublings from so many of my clients and from other people about major investment pouring into the country, big opportunities, not to mention what we all read in terms of the quickly growing consumer class and, you know, the spending power of the market. and so I sort of pulled the trigger and it just sort of worked out really nicely in terms of some major kind of launches that's happening in the country not least and as you said we're recording a bit in advance of this but not least the opening of Gallery Lafayette in Mumbai and then you know also you know common knowledge is that Saks will be opening next year as will Corso Como and so all of a sudden you know when you didn't have sort of major international retailers present you now have really big ones that are entering.

28:40And that means a lot of international brands are following them into the market for the first time. So what did you, as a person who runs this multinational media agency, what did you feel like a Western company like yours could do to support in Mumbai? And what are kind of the services that you're offering these brands or media or however you are working with them? Well, it's interesting because I think the flow of business really is going to go both ways, already is going both ways. So on the one hand, of course, we're working with a lot of brands that we currently have in our roster that are going into the market, working with international brands that already exist in India.

29:24But also, because obviously I'm not from India, we have a team there. We have a wonderful vice president there who was introduced to me by Sudhata Asamal, who's the kind of great, well-known Indian journalist, launch editor of Harper's Bazaar India, and is sort of our L52 Mumbai fairy godmother. She introduced me to my team there. And so we've got local experts. They're the ones who really know the Indian market. They're the ones who really will help navigate brands coming in for the first time, helping people understand. Not dissimilar, although a little bit more varied than the U.S. The regional markets are very important.

30:02You have, of course, Mumbai and Delhi being the major cities, but Bangalore, Hyderabad, there's all sorts of cities with great spending power. And so navigating that is crucial. And then the other flow, and this is where I'm a little bit more of an expert, is Indian brands, because of the scale of the market and how quickly it's been growing, have the power financially to start exploring moving into Europe and the US. and so helping them navigate how you enter those markets, being educated about the budget requirements to go into those markets, how media may perceive them. People that are super well known in India may come and find themselves like really having to almost start from scratch in terms of awareness in some of these markets.

30:47So that flow has ended up being something that I think is going to be really unique about how L52 is positioned because there of course are great agencies in India, there's great agencies outside, but to my knowledge, we're sort of the first luxury fashion-focused agency that now has offices both in Europe, the US, and in India.

31:40Can you sort of break down? Because I've been thinking about this a lot because of the way the China luxury market is changing. And for decades, they were just obsessed with Western brands. but now Chinese brands are kind of popping up. I wrote in Line Sheet a few days ago about the fact that I think of the top 10 grossing films in 2025 or in the past year, two of them were in China and were only distributed in China. So globally, so there's a lot more happening, but that was not the case for a long time. Whereas India does have its own luxury market, luxury brands. Can you explain why India set up like that and how it's different from a China or Korea or what have you in terms of how they interact with Western brands?

32:25It's a really good point because I think, first of all, people want to just draw this parallel between India being China 20 years ago and the next big place to invest your money and the savior of the fashion industry. And you're right, there's a lot of nuance because the markets are incredibly different, even if India is a major focus right now for people. First, the fashion ecosystem in India is robust. The manufacturing, the artisanship, there's different communities all over the country that specialize in even just a particular stitch from this one town. And that is because fashion is so integrated into the calendar of one's life in India.