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- [00:00]
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Lauren Sherman
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- [01:30]
Lauren Sherman
Foreign hello and welcome to Fashion People. I'm Lauren Sherman, writer of Bucks Fashion and Beauty Memo Line Sheet and today with me on the show is New York Times reporter Sapna Maheshwari. We're talking TikTok, Inauguration fashion, the Business of Yori and so much more. Happy Tuesday everyone. Already a busy week in the fashion world and obviously the real world. In Mondays we covered everything from inauguration fashion. In particular, who is styling the major players now, the Vances, the Trumps, et cetera. We also dug into some big changes at Chanel. There were layoffs there last week, which honestly in the grand scheme of things is not that much. But it does nod to a larger restructuring that has been underway for years. And I'd say the more interesting thing are the new additions to the board of directors and what that may say about the future of the company. So check that out. We have a lot to cover with Sapna big fan over here of hers. So let's get going. Sapna Maheshwari, welcome to Fashion People. Hi.
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Sapna Maheshwari
Thanks for having me.
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Lauren Sherman
I'm so happy to have you. So you and I have known each other for a long time and you were a longtime retail reporter. And so I've been following your report. Big fan of yours since your buzzfeed days. We've covered a lot of the same. Yeah, we've covered a lot of the same stories. So I'm so happy to have you on. And now at the Times, you mostly cover TikTok and have been on the developments of this TikTok story. Been watching it very, very closely. And we're recording this on Monday morning. So I don't know if you think there's going to be even more changes by Tuesday when this publishes, but can you walk me through the last couple of days of what has happened and what you think is going to happen, especially as it pertains to our audience, which is consumers of fashion, people who work in the industry that use TikTok to sell stuff, all of that.
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Sapna Maheshwari
Yeah. So it all started with the Supreme Court ruling on Friday. So basically there's this law that says TikTok has to be sold or banned. And the company has been betting that it could fight it in courts and it made it all the way to the Supreme Court. And the Supreme Court sided with the law and the government and said, you know, this can go forward. So this is where the chaos unfolds. And TikTok says, you know, this means we will stop working. And, and like, we need a way out of this. They pleaded with the Biden administration, they pleaded with the incoming Trump administration, but it wasn't enough. And so Saturday night the app went dark. From what I hear, like, even like buses in New York City were erupting in chatter as people tried to go to TikTok and it wasn't working. And even though this has been a possibility for a very long time, this law was passed last April or signed by the president last April. It took people by surprise to really see an app that's so widely used to your point, with retail and, you know, trend seeking, whatever the case may be, creators, it just, it went dark. And then on Saturday morning it came back. And so the company has put up a bunch of messaging. So before it went dark, and while it was dark, it was saying, you know, we, we hope to be back President Trump, not President Elect Trump, but President Trump will help save us. And then when it did come back, it thanked Trump for helping them come back. And now we are in this weird situation where the app is still working, but a lot of users are feeling very uncertain about what's going to happen going forward. And it's also really unclear if Trump can actually keep this app running because the law still stands, and a president can't necessarily unilaterally come in and say, you know, hey, like, I'm going to undo this law that the Supreme Court upheld that was signed by the president and passed by Congress. So, bizarrely, TikTok, this app we know for fun, is probably going to be one of the first stress tests of the government in the Trump administration.
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Lauren Sherman
So I don't know if you can say what you think is going to happen, but from all the reporting you've done, what do people generally think is going to happen?
- [06:20]
Sapna Maheshwari
So I think people are expecting that Trump is going to come up with some sort of a deal. He tried to do this in 2020. Even though people have said they want the app to be saved or to continue in the US they're all couching it in this idea of, like, actually, though, we are concerned that it's owned by a Chinese company. So I think even Trump agrees that, you know, the Chinese ownership of TikTok by this company, ByteDance, is a problem. So I think there might be some sort of a sale that will change TikTok as we know it. I also think there's a chance that the app goes dark again, but I'm really not sure. I mean, I feel like I did so much reporting to this exact point, and now it's truly unpredictable.
- [07:09]
Lauren Sherman
Do you think? I remember when this happened in 2020, and for some reason I was on this story. I think everyone else was, like, on vacation or something, and I had to cover this.
- [07:20]
Sapna Maheshwari
It was definitely the summer of 2020.
- [07:22]
Lauren Sherman
Yeah. Yeah. I wonder what it was. I guess it was Panda. I don't know. But I covered this. Mark Bain at Business of Fashion. Who. Who is our. Who was the tech reporter there? Was not there, so I had to cover it for some reason. And I remember the reporting I did. Like, I was thinking a lot about, like, where would. Where would the. The consumer go? Where would the marketers go? And this was before TikTok shop. This was before, like, fashion brands were really on there. So it was more about where the consumers. What do you think the pattern will be? My analysis of it is that it will be resolved in some way and we will have it. But you're right, it will never be the same again. And There will be changes. Whatever happens next, it's not gonna be exactly what it was or probably not. So do you see in terms of like, consumer behavior pattern, do people expect them to go back to Instagram? Do they expect them to move to different platforms? Like, this isn't like an X blue sky or X thread type situation. This is very, very different. And what do people predict the patterns will be of? Are there any emerging platforms in 2020? Snapchat was still, like, bigger in our brains. Now it's not. I don't even know if I still have the Snapchat app on my phone. Where do people. You see people migrating once this is resolved?
- [08:49]
Sapna Maheshwari
I think mostly Instagram for now. I mean, definitely in the fashion world. I talked to the chief marketing officer of Marc Jacobs and she was telling me that, you know, we already have this huge presence on Instagram. We'll probably double down there. She mentioned that maybe they would go also to Pinterest, you know, not an app people talk about a whole lot, but I think is trying to have a little bit of a moment. I think to a lesser extent, Snap, because that remains just so much more of a messaging platform. Not really the sort of product side that a lot of advertisers are looking for. And then probably YouTube shorts. But yeah, I haven't heard of any new really compelling alternative. I know there's been this craze around RedNote, but it's kind of hard to see that lasting longer term. Though it is an interesting kind of F you from users to the US Government.
- [09:48]
Lauren Sherman
I don't even. I barely know what that is, I've got to be honest. But that's why you're here, Sabna, of course.
- [09:59]
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Adam Scott
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Adam Scott
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Ben Stiller
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Adam Scott
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- [10:56]
Lauren Sherman
So what will your week look like in terms of reporting? Like, what are you tackling today, tomorrow and beyond?
- [11:05]
Sapna Maheshwari
I think really trying to figure out what the Trump administration is trying to do, what promises they're making to technology companies. So basically, I mean, this law relies on app stores and big tech companies to enforce it. So Apple and Google are supposed to stop carrying the app in their stores, which, as I checked this morning, Apple still isn't carrying TikTok in its stores. And there's companies like Oracle that power sort of the servers and back end stuff. And they did restart working with TikTok. And so I think the question is, you know, will those companies get the assurances they need to keep TikTok operating and then the buyer side of things, I think that's going to be really the determining factor for TikTok's future. And I think what strikes me there is, you know, we've seen that with Elon Musk and Twitter that you don't have to ban an app to irreversibly change it and change people's relationships with it. So I am curious if there's some sort of sale that's going to change TikTok the way people know it and experience it. Because when I've talked to creators about this sense of loss they've felt around losing TikTok, the lists they've curated, the way they use it day to day, it did remind me of how I used Twitter five years ago and how it's really not a part of my day to day life anymore.
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Lauren Sherman
Yeah, I still mourn it. I'll go on there and be like, nobody's on here. None of my friends are here.
- [12:32]
Sapna Maheshwari
It was so fun back when we were reporting and competing at times.
- [12:35]
Lauren Sherman
Yeah, it was really fun. That's how we kind of became buddies.
- [12:39]
Sapna Maheshwari
Yeah, definitely.
- [12:41]
Lauren Sherman
And now I go on and it's just the only person I ever see is the menswear guy. Somehow he has survived this and I'm happy for him. You know, I did know about this red note thing. So this is an app in China, right, that people are moving on to. My husband was trying to explain it to me this weekend, but it does feel a little fleeting. Right? Like it's not. It doesn't feel. It feels too much like too much work to. To engage on there, I think.
- [13:09]
Sapna Maheshwari
So it's been interesting. There's. I've gotten some texts from people who manage creators who are like, oh, this guy I represent already has 150,000 followers on RedNote and maybe they have many million on TikTok and so they're trying to build an audience. But you know, it is, it is a really different app. I mean, who knows, maybe there's, maybe there's some good that comes out of this. Maybe someone out there who's like a teen or 20 something is going to learn Mandarin going forward. That's great for their lives and the economy and general intelligence maybe. But I don't know, I don't see it being this really long lasting thing. And I think part of that is the advertising dollars, right? I mean, TikTok is a business. It's built a huge business in the US partly around advertising and largely around shopping. And I don't know if, you know, American Eagle and Marc Jacobs and all of these retailers are looking to throw dollars at RedNote and what their boards think of that. But that is, you know, where you go from interesting app to must have technology product.
- [14:16]
Lauren Sherman
One more thing on TikTok and then we have other subjects to discuss. But my whole thing has been, do you think there's a chance that there are people so desperate that are so addicted to this app that they're going to use like a VPN to log on and act like they're in the uk? Because I just feel like there are people who, it has become such a big part of their life. I could see there being like a VPN particularly to make it easy to get on in a different country or something like that. Have you heard of anybody doing that?
- [14:50]
Sapna Maheshwari
So I don't think the VPNs are actually working and strangely so. There's a professor I've talked to throughout this who's super smart. He was in Europe when we were talking in the past few days. And because he was coded as a US user, TikTok wasn't working on his phone overseas, which was interesting. But you know, I experienced the same thing actually when I went to India with my family a couple of years ago. So TikTok has been banned there since 2020 and it was just kind of frozen on the last video I had watched. So I think if it really does get banned, the workarounds are tough. It messes with the sort of ease of using the app, the kind of flywheel effect of lots of people posting and lots of content being made and that informing what you see next. So, I mean, I think it's no surprise to see the company doing all this messaging around Trump because every 12 hours, one day that they're down, any friction that's introduced is just a terrible thing for a technology company.
- [15:52]
Lauren Sherman
Yeah, we will see. I'll be reading your reporting very closely on that. So I also wanted to chat with you. Have you put your retail reporter hat on for a minute? And there was a great story by my buddy Max Berlinger in the New York Times business section this weekend on Vuori. And it's funny because Vuore has come up in my reporting and line sheet many times. And also I got some reader feedback last week about Vuorre in particular and ran it on Friday. And then Max's story ran and I had been given a heads up by some people in your world that there was a Vuorre Time story coming. But yeah, I thought it was really interesting. The funny thing is I get a lot of feedback because I will tease about Biore, which is for anyone who doesn't live in America, who is like a designer in Stoke Newington in London or something. It's just an activewear brand that is extremely, to me, extremely basic. And so what they have done is made generalized activewear that men feel very comfortable in, in very, very plain, dark, not striking colors that make it feel accessible. And the other thing is they have. Everything is very comfortable. So it's become this phenomenon in the US not just in the center of the country, on the coast as well. It's. A lot of women wear it, but a lot of men, A lot, A lot of men wear it. And it's sort of like you wear your on running sneakers and you're Vuori runners or what have you. But I still, there's something about it that I haven't been able to pinpoint. I understand why it's so popular. I don't know where it goes from here. And I'm curious from your perspective as a reporter, as a consumer in the US why you think it's hit so hard, what makes it special and maximum. I'm definitely going to have you on soon to talk about this.
- [17:58]
Sapna Maheshwari
Yeah, I went and I definitely read that story because I've been fascinated by the brand, mostly by its valuation and because it's a softbank investment. And I wondered, 100%, how can it be worth so many billions of dollars?
- [18:10]
Unknown Speaker 4
Yeah.
- [18:11]
Sapna Maheshwari
But I tried to ask my husband and he got really shy this morning, but I have bought it for him and he says it feels great. And the thing that it's replaced in his closet is Lululemon. And it hasn't been like an expansion into this category. So I've kind of wondered if they're just taking market share from Lululemon, if it's doing something different with the ABC pants or. Or if there is. I've always wondered with Lululemon too if there's a little bit of a barrier to have started as a women's brand and then branched into men's versus kind of how Biore has gotten its start.
- [18:48]
Lauren Sherman
Yeah, I think those are all great points. The softbank thing is always, especially in fashion raises a red flag for me. And it was interesting because they. Stripes was the investor, which is a much more. That's a VC and private equity that invests in a lot of like high bra lifestyle. So their investors in the fashion brand Kate and Lavan Cookies and you can essentially like walk down a street and every store that you go to is a Stripes investment. And they're. They have really good taste like most VC firms. Their pattern isn't based on their taste. Stripes. I would say they are. They are investing in things that all kind of fit together. So it was interesting that the Stripes investor was the one who went on the record for that piece. But I agree. I reached out to a friend who is an actuary who doesn't have anything. I don't. I've never spoken to her about fashion ever. And her and her husband wear it a lot. And the feedback was it's really comfortable. And I think you hit the nail on the head with the Lululemon thing because there are a lot of guys who wear Lululemon. But the name is definitely gonna be a turnoff for people. And also the fact that it's sort of. A lot of men do yoga now. But again it like it started as a women's brand and. And I find in the fashion industry if you're a menswear brand and you start doing women's. The adoption rate is much. It's much easier to sort of go that route. Whereas. And you can look at like Christian Dior is. Was womenswear and has a giant menswear business now. But that took 50 some years, that sort of thing. So I think it's a really good point. It's. It's an alternative. And also they've sort of used. It's performance driven. The materials are really comfortable. It's inoffensive for people who don't really want to think about fashion. They just want to look like appropriate. And then also it isn't. It's performance driven. But it's not as specific as a Lululemon or even a Nike. And also we're seeing so many people the same way on and Hoka or Hoka or whatever it's called. You see those on the feet of people instead of Nike. Clothing wise too. So it's interesting. Do you think the question I was asking Sarah Shapiro, our retail reporter, is is this the next Levi's or the next Hanes or is it the next. I mean it's definitely not the next Outdoor Voices, which you and I both know very intimately. But. But can they break into women's in the same way they have men's? I know a lot of women wear it, but. But it's different. It's definitely not. It's definitely leading with the male audience, I would say from a marketing perspective.
- [21:56]
Sapna Maheshwari
Yeah, I mean, I'm curious like how big it could be. I mean Hanes like something that's such a staple or Levi's, that's this whole category. I don't know about that. But I mean looking at their plans to go to a hundred stores, like, it seems like a good, decent high margin specialty retail business. I don't know where those exist now that malls are, you know, no longer what they used to be. But it seems like there's probably a market for it though. 100 stores is a lot. So I'm curious to see where they go. If they can kind of crack all the markets around the country. I'm sure they got great data from being in Nordstrom. That's where I've usually bought them actually.
- [22:37]
Lauren Sherman
Yeah. Yeah. Nordstrom is, is sneaky. One of the biggest distributors of all these DTC brands. It's a huge business for skims. It's. It is. It's where they're getting a lot of their recognition, I think.
- [22:52]
Sapna Maheshwari
Yeah, I love it because if I'm going to try a DTC bra company, I'd rather do it in store there if I can and not have to deal with returns.
- [23:01]
Lauren Sherman
Totally. Totally.
- [23:05]
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- [24:03]
Lauren Sherman
So moving on to today's. As I said, we're recording Monday morning or Monday afternoon on the East Coast. Today's topic at hand, the inauguration. I have a little item in line sheet about the stylus behind some of the new players, the Vances. Usha Vance, I think, has looked incredible, and she's apparently working with a person who I'd never heard of, who's. My guess is it's a family friend situation. Her name's Isabella Nardone. And then obviously, Ivanka works with a woman named Donya Ortiz who works at Town and Country and has a great reputation, has been working with her for a long time. But so far, I mean, the big news has not been Melania's Adam Lippis or Ivanka in Oscar or Oscar de la Renta or I haven't seen Usha Vance's. I believe she also wore Oscar. I'm not sure. I haven't seen her inauguration look. She wore a gorgeous Oscar de la Renta dress that I would love to have on Saturday night to the vice president's dinner. But the big thing has been the Lauren Sanchez suit where she's essentially wearing a bra top. But what do you make of all this? Like, what did you notice this morning from your perch, looking at the photos and the videos and things?
- [25:37]
Sapna Maheshwari
I mean, the hat, the hat, Melania hat was striking. Definitely interesting. I mean, I think people are going to be paying a lot of attention this time around to what these women are wearing and what they might be trying to convey. I think that the sort of bra top under the white blazer felt very like maybe 20 years ago. Super cool. Probably some stuff that you saw in your Victoria's Secret book reporting kind of a maybe a bygone sort of look. But I was reading some comments somewhere on Instagram of what people were thinking, and it's kind of interesting. There's a lot of people who, of course, said she looked great. I mean, I think physically she looks, she looked terrific. But there's I think a lot of people who are like, is this really what you wear to such a proper event? You know, whatever your politics, it's an important and ceremonial event. So it was kind of surprising, I think, in that regard.
- [26:37]
Lauren Sherman
Yeah. And it's interesting. I've been following her fashion choices really closely in the last nine months or so, and she has chosen a lot of vintage tharim Mugler and also Alaia in, in some cases. And look, is it how I would wear it or how, you know, most stylists would suggest to wear it? No, but I, I've enjoyed her. She has an interest in fashion and that is always anyone who cares and isn't just like Vuori all the way. I'm. I, you know, applaud. I agree. I think it's interesting, the administration and in particular the women, because of course, everyone looks at what women are wearing more closely than men, but I think they all look good. And it's also compared to eight years ago, where people were really worried about, I know Ralph Lauren did some pieces, but Melania Trump often wears Dior that she buys off the rack. So a lot like the fact that there are custom pieces being made for these people. It also kind of shows the change in the tenor of this administration versus eight years ago. And I had many people text me. Bernard Arnault was there with Antoine Delphine, the CEO of Dior, and Alexandre, the co CEO of Moet Hennessy. So they were there, the owners of most of the fashion brands that I write about. And they have sort of outwardly shown that they're going to work with whatever administration is there. But the fact that Arnaud has known Trump since the 80s, they are in particular, like, been pretty, I'd say, tactical about how they manage that relationship, but all of it together for me is just saying, like, the fashion industry is going to play ball this time, and that is just a matter of tariffs. It's a matter of business. It's a matter of all these things that even though Trump has shown he's quite unpredictable in the decisions he makes, I think they feel like they have no choice but to respect the position and do as much as they can to manage it, which is just a very different attitude than eight years ago when it was like basically a leper colony.
- [29:08]
Sapna Maheshwari
I mean, you could say the same for the tech industry, right? Yeah, I guess that's two huge and influential industries that seem to be kissing the ring today.
- [29:18]
Lauren Sherman
Yes. Yes. Sapna, thank you for being here. It was so fun.
- [29:23]
Sapna Maheshwari
Thanks for having me.
- [29:24]
Lauren Sherman
You should come on again, keep us updated on everything TikTok. And miss you on the retail beat, though.
- [29:31]
Sapna Maheshwari
Yeah. Well, we'll see how this goes. I might have to come back to it. Come back.
- [29:36]
Lauren Sherman
We love Jordan.
- [29:37]
Sapna Maheshwari
I miss it too.
- [29:38]
Lauren Sherman
No, you're really good. We'll talk soon. Thank you again. Hey, my fashion people, before I let you go, I wanted to recommend another Puck podcast called the Grill Room. It's hosted by our media guy Dylan Byers, and the Grill Room is for Media Junkies, starring media junkies, and it's made by a media junkie. I know many of you love following Dylan's work on everything from CNN to the Washington Post, so be sure to check out the Grow Room wherever you get your podcasts. Fashion People is a presentation of Odyssey in partnership with Puck. This show was produced and edited by Molly Nugent. Special thanks to our executive producers, Puck Co Founder John Kelly, Executive Editor Ben Landy, and Director of Editorial Operations Gabby Grossman. An additional thanks to the team at Odyssey, JD Crowley, Jenna Weiss Berman and Bob Tabador.