00:00This is my first fashion week in New York.
00:02Is it really?
00:02Really.
00:03It is an experience.
00:04My goal is to get down the street without being body blocked by an aspiring influencer
00:09filming his or herself on the sidewalk.
00:12Yes.
00:12That aside, it's coming at an interesting time when luxury houses are really kind of
00:16having to reevaluate who their customer is, what their customer wants, what does the luxury
00:21customer want?
00:22Do they know that and how is the industry changing?
00:24Do the brands know that or do the consumers know that?
00:27Either, both.
00:27I don't know if the brands totally know it.
00:30I mean, we've had this game of musical chairs at all the major fashion houses because there's
00:35They're about creative directors.
00:36Creative directors, yeah.
00:37Just this desperation to try to find something new.
00:40And then, of course, all these creative directors go back into the archives and dig out stuff
00:44from like historical versions of the house.
00:47And then you're kind of just recycling all the same stuff.
00:51It's a tricky time for luxury.
00:52Like handbags are going down.
00:54Luxury ready to wear has not been doing super well.
00:57Watches and jewelry is doing well.
01:00So people are really trying to find what works.
01:03And the interesting thing is that this very small middle tier of fashion, which is like
01:09not super expensive, not high luxury, but also not cheap, not Zara or Shan.
01:14And like it's like Ralph Lauren is doing very well because people want to be able to go and
01:22just buy a bunch of stuff.
01:23They don't want it to be.
01:24They want to spend like $2,000 on every cashmere sweater.
01:27They just want to be able to buy six cashmere sweaters and just have stuff in their closet.
01:31Like good enough.
01:32We'll last.
01:33Yeah.
01:33Nice, tasteful, good enough.
01:35We'll last.
01:36Our friends at Vogue informed me 63 runway shows, seven presentations, 43 by appointment
01:42or extended presentations, six digital shows, and eight New York menswear day shows taking
01:46place.
01:47How do you synthesize all of this?
01:50I don't want to say you're a passive viewer of all this.
01:53You're engaged with it, but what do you, how do you take away something from all of that?
01:56It's funny.
01:56That sounds like a lot more than it is.
01:58New York Fashion Week in recent years has been a little like.
02:02Tumbleweed.
02:04Sometimes it feels like there's nothing there.
02:06Yeah.
02:06But there is a lot this year.
02:09And I will say there is a moment of like American fashion being fun.
02:14Diane von Furstenberg has a new designer, Henry Zankoff.
02:17Uh, coach is, has its 85th anniversary.
02:19They had a fun show.
02:21Ralph Lauren's, uh, menswear show in Milan was really fun, um, last season.
02:25And I don't know, there's, uh, Brooks Brothers is kind of back.
02:28Jay Press had a big colorful show.
02:30So I feel like Proenza was very full of color and fun.
02:33I feel like there's a moment where we're like, okay, we can be bright.
02:37We can be colorful.
02:38Uh, we can be American and that's okay.
02:41I was going to ask you about coach because coach to me seems like exactly what you were
02:44talking about.
02:45Middle to high middle.
02:46Where you can go and buy a bag, but it's not going to cost you $15,000.
02:51And it's like luxury enough.
02:53They've, cause you know, coach a couple of years ago was nothing.
02:55They've had a huge resurgence.
02:57They have.
02:57Is there something to be learned from coach, from Ralph Lauren and the way they are appealing
03:01to customers that the luxury houses could listen to?
03:04I mean, I honestly, price is a huge part of it.
03:07Like for when we were so obsessed with labels, once a label started meaning something cheap,
03:12it was dead.
03:13Like when coach was suddenly like, oh, this is a cheap coach bag or inexpensive coach bag
03:17bargain people that became not cool.
03:19But as we're moving away from the label, meaning everything, the design is back and people want
03:25to be able to buy stuff that they want to be able to afford stuff.
03:29They don't want to feel like it's ripping out.
03:30I mean, Prada is making $4,000 boxer briefs.
03:33I have not bought.
03:35Neither have I.
03:37But that seems crazy.
03:38I'm proud of both of you.
03:39Even to rich people, that seems crazy, you know?
03:41And we're at a time when...
03:43And the quality doesn't back it up for some of these items either.
03:45I just want to say, that is crazy.
03:47They could be amazing quality.
03:49$4,000 boxer briefs, it's crazy.
03:51No, and if you turn it, I'm not going to name names, but like I will go in and turn
03:54them
03:54inside out and they are surged cheaply.
03:56The seams are not good.
03:57They're like made the same...
03:58The boxer briefs.
03:59No, but a lot of stuff.
04:00David, girl, I'm not examining the boxer briefs specifically.
04:03Thank you for that.
04:04But no, but like the quality doesn't back up the price and customers are starting to get
04:07wise to that.
04:07And like we grew up at a time when like you bought stuff, you wore it, and then maybe
04:12you gave it to Goodwill or you wore it out.
04:16Like Gen Z very much has grown up believing that you should buy stuff that should have a future
04:21life in the future.
04:22So like 30 to, according to the RealReal, like 30 to 40% of Gen Z buyers look up what
04:27something's going to be worth at resale before they buy it at retail because they think that
04:32things should have a future life.
04:34And so that means that stuff has to be well-made and people and survive and look good.
04:40And people are tired of stuff that is not well-made.
04:43Can I ask a basic question, which is what is the role of a creative director?
04:48Is there a lot of sophistry there?
04:50What is he or she actually doing for these brands?
04:52They're designers.
04:53Yeah?
04:53Yeah.
04:54They create the look of the brand.
04:55So like a DVF, this person has the chance to really revolutionize that brand.
04:59Is it kind of an evolutionary transition?
05:01So like DVF kind of faded away.
05:04She bought back the brand.
05:06And this is an opportunity to take the history of DVF, make it into something new, breathe
05:13fresh life into it, introduce it to a new audience.
05:15And if you looked at the designs, it was a lot of like 70s inspired, very like old school
05:20DVF, bright colors, but modern, like very cool and chic.
05:25And in an era of, I think, AI sameness, I think a lot of these brands are trying to find
05:30somebody that will make their product distinct, right?
05:32Or different or memorable, at least.
05:34Yeah, absolutely.
05:36Yeah.
05:36Chris, thank you very much.
05:37Of course.
05:38Thank you very much.
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