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The Glossy Podcast
Week in Review: NRF report, Proenza Schouler designers depart, the TikTok ban looms
00:29:13
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- [00:05]
A
Hello, and welcome back to the Glossy Week in Review podcast. I'm your host, senior fashion reporter Danny Parisi, and I'm here with our editor in chief, Jill Manoff. Hello, Jill. How's it going?
- [00:14]
B
Hi. Good. It's been an exciting week. So much news.
- [00:18]
A
It is. There's been a lot going on. You and I were both at nrf, the National Retail Federation's big show at the Javits center in Manhattan this week, and we talked to a lot of brands and saw a lot of interesting things. So we'll talk a little bit about what we observed there, and then we will talk about this situation at Proenza Schuler, which is changing very quickly. And we're recording this Thursday and by the time it comes out Friday, it may have changed again. So who knows? I was going to say that, too.
- [00:42]
B
I was going to say that, too. Things are moving so quickly, like and the TikTok ban. And then this morning we have news that there's Land Von Group new CEO, which congrats Andy Liu, who's a friend of Glossy. But yeah, it's. It's an exciting. Wow. Anyway, you can't keep up, so we're.
- [00:58]
A
Going to talk about things as they are Thursday morning, and they might be different by the time you're listening to this on Friday. But you mentioned TikTok. That'll be our third topic. We're going to talk about the TikTok ban, which is extremely imminent. It's like happening Sunday. It does not seem like any intervention is coming. It's actually happening. So we've talked about it on the podcast before, but we'll go a little bit more in depth now that it's literally here. And then we'll also talk about some of the alternatives and how it's affecting the social media landscape, all that kind of stuff. But let's start with nrf. So, like I mentioned, you and I just both got back. It's so huge. The Javits center is a giant building and there were so many people and so many booths and everything. And you and I were both there and did not run into each other at all, even though you were in town, tried to make it happen.
- [01:43]
B
It's a big show, Danny. It is big.
- [01:45]
A
And they're right. It is big. But it was cool. I mean, I always like going. It's great for us because a lot of the brands that we talk about and write about are there, so it's a great opportunity to meet people. You and I talked a little bit off recording about Some of the themes, the common themes that we heard from interviews and from panels and stuff that came up. I've got a few that I wrote down. But what were some big themes for you?
- [02:08]
B
Yes. And P.S. it was so big that I was meeting somebody from our office or from our work and to get to the other side of the Javits to meet them, I kept running into people I know and it took me 30 minutes to get to them. They're like, where are you anyway? But yeah, I'll. I'll do highlights because I don't think that you also made the rounds as much in the booths and the Innovators showcase.
- [02:30]
A
Yeah, I didn't check out the booths as much.
- [02:33]
B
Totally. So some things that were happening there and trends that were sticking out a buzzword last year, if last year was AI, everybody this year was talking about AI agents. But three, three things that I picked up on other than that is conquering sizing to decrease returns. So in terms of like online purchases and getting that right there company called Mesmerize that was basically based on a questionnaire like you've seen before, but it was like a little bit more innovative than what you've seen in the past where it's like what size do you wear in this brand? And anyway, but it leverages AI. A lot of these things do. And there was also one that scanned your body for a digital twin and it had wellness benefits. More accurate search results. Companies promising that there's Lily AI, which Fossil told me was the company that they like saw the most potential in for their company. McKinsey on a call tied to their around NRF also mentioned that and we know Revolve has seen great success with elevating their. Their search themselves. There's just a lot of potential there in terms of like the. The average customer doesn't know how you're labeling your products. They're searching for. Maybe they're searching for periwinkle and you're calling it Navy. And there's just a lot of innovation there. And then last but not least in terms of that kind of trends in the booths that I wanted to call out was just companies that were helping you to multiply your content. Basically we know how much content the demand for social content marketing content there is. There was one called Suna that is just yeah create more content for less money and they do different things with AI backdrops. Again, another AI thing and there was one called Vanish Standard. It was an opportunity to empower your employees to create content. Very cool things. So a lot of movement. I wasn't like. Nothing really, like, slapped me in the face. Like, I've never seen that before. But I feel like there were more kind of tactile uses for AI that were being discussed where I saw more potential than just like throwing the name around. Because if you're not doing AI, then you're behind the times basically, right?
- [04:39]
A
Like, more specific uses than vague kind of. Which is definitely the vibe I've gotten from AI pitches kind of over the last year. Um, but I. You're right. I mean, you did a lot more circulating the booths than I did. But I did see AI agents as a term being bandied about quite a bit. I also think the search element is interesting because I think that problem you mentioned of if the customer is not searching the exact right term, it's an interesting problem because on the one hand you've got. If your search is super specific, only like specific terms only if you know exactly what you're looking for. I think that's more useful as a customer because you're. You're not like, you search one thing and it's giving you all sorts of other stuff that's not what you're looking for. But then on the flip side, like you said, if you're not sure exactly what you're looking for and you search this term and that there's not a specific product with that specific name, you get nothing. So. But I often find the opposite more frustrating when I search for something and the thing I'm searching for I know is right. Like I'm using the right word, but it's mixed. They're giving me lots of other stuff that I didn't actually search for. So I'm sure that's like a huge kind of balancing act for the brands.
- [05:43]
B
That's a good point. I did not think of that.
- [05:46]
A
One thing that I heard from a lot of people, and I wrote about this a little bit, but it seemed like a very common theme, was the challenge of aligning your inventory management across lots of different channels. A bunch of different people talked to me about this in person and then also heard about it on stage from a couple different people. But basically there's so many more channels now than there used to be, because there's obviously direct to consumer and wholesale, but there's also fulfilled by Amazon. There's also social commerce. There's like a million different places that are all pulling from the same stock of inventory. And a lot of brands told me how annoying it is when you sell something through one Channel, but your inventory management was like a little bit slow. And actually that thing doesn't exist because it was already sold elsewhere. And how much of a pain in the ass, honestly, to fix that. And the bigger you get, I mean, a couple of different brands told me this, the bigger you get, the harder it is to make those big changes. So I mean, I had a good conversation with Psycho Bunny about like trying to make those changes now while they're growing so that they don't have to try to make them down the road when it's going to be way harder.
- [06:50]
B
You're right. I heard the same thing. Definitely good call out. And the only other trends that I would call out is brands are discussing challenges that they're dealing with now. A lot of them were talking about conquering returns, the threat of upcoming tariffs. There's a lot of talk about the return to physical and maybe even with retail media networks doing more physical activations in stores and events and such, a lot of just talk about opportunity in India, the Middle East. And on the same note that I talked about earlier about like employees talk about like empowering associates, whether that's in store and getting them away from the register. And it even like creates a sleeker look to have not just the tablets, but other kind of technologies for the associate without training, where everything's very turnkey and I don't know, like using a phone.
- [07:44]
A
So yeah, no, I definitely heard a lot about that too. I mean, arc'teryx talked a little bit about not wanting their store associates to leave a customer on the floor. Like, if they're helping somebody and they need something, they don't want their employees to go disappear into the back of the store for whoever knows how long. So they invested a lot in a system where the person on the floor can like tap one to two buttons if it's like no more than that, and get whatever this thing the customer wants sent up without having to walk away from them and talking to them a little bit about it. It seems like it would be a simple feature, but it sounds like it was much more complicated to build than it sounds. Again, especially the bigger your scale, the harder it is to kind of make tools like that. And then the other thing that I heard from a couple different people is just the eternal debate between on that topic, do we buy a tool or do we build a tool? Do we work with one of these tech platforms or tech vendors that are on the floor that are all showing off different kind of solutions, or do we try to make our own thing and making your own is. Obviously, nothing could be more perfectly tailored to you than something you make yourself. But not only do you have to invest in building it, you have to also maintain those tools too. You can't just build it once and then it's good forever. You need dedicated people making sure. Fixing bugs and all that kind of stuff. So I think that's definitely a complicated debate that probably every brand of a certain size, once you get big enough and you can maybe start thinking about building your own tools, you're like, should we, though?
- [09:13]
B
I mean, I would not, but I would be shopping around the NRF floor and finding the cheapest one I can hire.
- [09:24]
A
I mean, it does feel like any problem you could possibly have, there's somebody on that show floor who has like, a company that will do it for you. Speaking of which, I saw a company, I saw a booth that said Citizen, and it had like a big, like, serif logo. And I was like, is that like Citizen the watch brand? But it wasn't. I don't think it was just like a tech vendor, but they were called Citizen and the logo looked very similar.
- [09:46]
B
To Citizen the watch brand. They got your attention.
- [09:49]
A
It worked. Yeah, Got me interested. I walked over, realized it was not Citizen Watch brand, and then walked away. So let's move on and talk about our second topic. So, as we mentioned at the top, Proenza Schueller. So what is officially announced is that Lazaro Hernandez and Jack McCullough, who are the two designers and founders of Perenza Schuler, have left the company. That's what's official as of Thursday morning. But there were rumors beforehand and like I said, by the time this comes out Friday, maybe more stuff will be confirmed. But as of recording, that's what is official. I reached out to them for comment and I saw some other publications had as well. And I don't think they're really talking much about why they're leaving other than just saying the time is right now. The unofficial but very widely rumored reason is that the two of them might be heading to Loewe to replace Jonathan Anderson, and Jonathan Anderson might be leaving to replace Maria Grazia Chiuri at Dior. There's a whole train of like, this person replaces this person who replaces that person. So that's like the widely held rumor is that's where they're going. But as of Thursday, that has not been officially announced. We know how the fashion creative director rumor mill works, and a lot of times rumors get widely circulated and turn out to be completely untrue So I would not officially say that they're definitely going, especially announcing their departure without having that other announcement of where they're going happen kind of simultaneously is a little unusual. So I would not say that this rumor is 100% or even. I don't know. It could be totally. They could go somewhere else or they could be doing nothing. I don't know.
- [11:26]
B
Yeah, I would say all signs support the rumor. It's interesting. With some timing, even looking back at Q4 of last year or late last year, Proenza brought on a new CEO, Shira Suvaki Snyder, formerly of Shopbop and Yuke's Net, A Porter and J. Crew, and reportedly brought in to manage this transition. At the same time. Uh, we know that in September, I believe September, October, when Louisville had their fashion show in Paris, everybody. The. The rumor was. And Kathy Horan from the Cut called this out that, you know, there was a lot of emotion involved. He was celebrating tenure, 10 years at the company. It was filled with all of these, you know, influential folks across LVMH and beyond who were there to kind of support him. And talking about Jonathan Anderson. But yeah, so it felt like a finale show. So. And at the time the rumor was circulating that he would. He would be going to Dior at the time, so I could see it happening. I. No surprise there. Although it's interesting. Like, if he does go to Dior, Kim Jones is still overseeing the Dior men's, so will he be just focusing on women's? And then the question is, what happens to J.W. anderson? Because we know, you know, the houses don't love when the designer kind of has their hands in multiple pots. So we'll see.
- [12:49]
A
Yeah, and I think that's increasingly so. I think more designers are leaving their personal label behind when they. When they take a big job at a. At a big house. I think you're right that the brands would. The. The big houses would prefer that their designers focus entirely on them and not running three different fashion labels at once.
- [13:08]
B
Yes. And who's going to step in at Proenza? Oh, my gosh. It's such a. It's so iconic. There's a lot of reports. And I would agree with this. Like, they definitely, you know, came up as this. The traditional route, like went to the two designers. Jack and Lazaro met at Parsons. They were picked up the full line, picked up by Barney's, celebrated by the CFDA, multiple awards. And it seems like they had an it bag, the PS1. It seems like they never like, reached their full potential. Like, it never became this big brand. And I'm sure they've got limitations in not being under a large conglomerate they were majority owned by. I will tell you this, Mudrick Capital. But, yeah, no doubt some. Some revenue issues or money issues there, I would assume, because, yeah, they never really scaled to all its glory. It's beautiful. I'm such a fan.
- [14:06]
A
Yeah, I. So I have the same feeling. I'm a. I'm a big fan and I've seen the takes that. It's kind of like, despite all the acclaim, like you said, I think they've won five CFDA awards. Maybe never quite broke out the way a brand like Kate or something may have done. But, yeah, I think I was in the same boat. I was going to ask if you thought that was true, and I think so. But I do think they're great designers. And actually, I think going to a big brand that already has, like, kind of the revenue stream and infrastructure in place, maybe that's good for them because I think their designs are great regardless. And maybe whatever they were missing at Proenza, they will have at Loewe.
- [14:42]
B
Yeah. And similar vibes. It doesn't seem a far departure in terms of their design aesthetic, for sure.
- [14:48]
A
Yeah. And the other thing is that the last year has been insane for the amount of creative directors leaving and going elsewhere. We had Mathieu Blasey left Bottega and was replaced by Luis Trotter. He went to go to Chanel. We have Peter Copping at Lanvin. There's been so, so many. I mean, I wrote an article a couple of months ago that listed out, like, you know, an entire paragraph of, like, 12 different names or something. And I think I saw at New York Fashion Week this February, there's going to be like, six or seven, like, designers debuting or something. I'm not sure the exact number. A huge number of meaning, like, debuting at new houses or at new. At new brands. It's wild. I think we've talked about this plenty on the podcast, but certainly seems like the brands are constantly, like, wanting new blood to come in. And if it's not, it seems like the 10 years are getting shorter. Like, if you're not killing it in the two or three years, we'll replace you or you'll get a better offer or something. I don't know. It really feels like it's much more fluid than it used to be.
- [15:48]
B
Yeah. And like, luxury's rapid growth between, like, 2019 and 2023, and then now the slowdown the slowdown. Every brand is probably trying to return to that crazy growth. Whereas talking to McKinsey in depth this week, they're basically, like, predicting 1 to 2% growth over the next year, I believe. But just, like, slow growth and like, kind of a normalization. But, yeah, it seems like every brand is trying to shake things up after the slowdown, and there's been a lot of negative talk around that, but, yeah, it seemed to me, and, you know, we'll see who steps in at Proenza. But the designers that are leaving talked about, like, really trusting their team. And some people have been there since day one when they launched in, I think, 2002. So I was like, maybe they're going to be promoting someone internally, which would be interesting. Like, somebody. No name. So we'll see.
- [16:38]
A
I was going to say, so like you said there, it's not like Proenza shutting down or anything. They will continue on and they will have a new designer. And I was going to. You know, I agree. I think it's a great opportunity for somebody. And then maybe it's like. I mean, in an ideal world, it would be like, the brands at the Proenza level get, like, hot new designers who are young and maybe like, up and coming, and then they graduate up to, like, a Louisville or Dior or something. And then, you know, there's a sort of established path instead of just like the same five guys getting passed around.
- [17:12]
B
Yes. And it seems like, yeah, balls are rolling that they're opening a second New York City store. I saw that in February, so things are still moving. And, yeah, great talent at that brand. We know Elizabeth Giardina from Another Tomorrow is a. From the school of Proenza, so such a fan of hers. So we'll see.
- [17:29]
A
Cool. Let's move on to our last topic, the TikTok ban. It is set for Sunday. Again, it's Thursday. We're recording this. It is looks like it is for sure happening. Like, the Supreme Court was not very sympathetic, I think, to TikTok's defenses. Trump is reportedly mulling an executive order to delay the ban, but this, again, the ban goes into effect before he's inaugurated, so I don't know how that's gonna work. And TikTok seems to be gearing up like it is ready to just shut down or not shut down, but it's not gonna be available in the app stores or anything. It is for sure happening. One thing that I have noticed that I think is very interesting is a flood of people moving to all sorts of Other social platforms, a lot of them are other Chinese social platforms. So there's Xiaohongshu, which is also known as RedNote. A lot of people have flocked to that. It's like a Chinese Instagram Pinterest sort of platform. I saw that it's tripled its US Downloads in the last week. And then another one is called Lemonade, which is another Chinese company and also owned by ByteDance, which owns TikTok. So that's kind of funny too that it's like they ban one and then people just flock to another from the same company. Have you toyed with any of these platforms or downloaded them or anything, Joe?
- [18:41]
B
Unfortunately no. I believe I, I jumped over to Lemon 8 for a bit when TikTok was first gonna be banned, just to see what was up. We did a couple of stories around that, but yeah, it's blowing. I'm like, are people, people are shooting themselves in the foot in my eyes, if they're like, I don't know if they're spending their time building another community on another Chinese platform that could be subject to the same law prohibiting the. There's something about like foreign owned apps, I don't know, things that. Anyway, this can also.
- [19:12]
A
It's like Protecting Data from Foreign Adversaries act or something like that.
- [19:17]
B
Thank you. It just seems silly. And there's, there's talk about it across TikTok where it's like kind of despite the US government. Take that. I'm going, I'm going to rednote. It's just interesting. So anyway, I am seeing a lot of movement. You're right. These apps are blowing up. And at the same time, like, we're not seeing a lot of explosion in downloads of the usual suspects. Like probably everyone already has them, but we're not seeing a lot of boosts in like Instagram downloads and YouTube downloads and some of these other alternatives that are in my eyes more likely because your, your audience is there, you kind of just switch to another. I think some of them are very focused on TikTok and probably don't have nearly as large of an audience. However, a large audience is on the platform. I don't know. What do you think?
- [20:10]
A
Yeah, no, I, I mean, I think you're right from, from a, I was thinking about it from two perspectives, like from a brand perspective and from a user perspective. So from a brand perspective, I think you're right that like, I mean, Instagram and YouTube are already on everybody's phones. Instagram Reels and TikTok is already like identical in terms of content. So like, I don't think it's like going to be that difficult to just move all your stuff over there. That's already a huge user base there. And I mean, I've talked to some brands about this and you know, one brand told me that like the brands most affected by a TikTok ban would be the ones that are really small because like that TikTok viral boost can like make your brand overnight, but if you're already an established brand, it's like it's still cool to go viral on TikTok, but it's not as big of a, of a deal. Yeah, from a user perspective though, I mean, I think like the data hoarding and like privacy issues and this overload of like spam and like bad content is kind of common on all of the big platforms. That's how they like, that's how they make money. I have been looking at some alternatives. I've been using Blue sky for a little while, which is like sort of a Twitter alternative, but the same company is going to launch, I think something called Flashes, which is like Blue sky version of Instagram. So that's a possibility. And Blue sky has a pretty solid user base, I think. There's two much smaller ones that I like that I want to shout out, which is one, I use an app called Retro, which is sort of like old school Instagram. It's just posts and it's just people you follow, like no sponsored posts or anything. And it's organized by weeks, so it's like you can see every photo from everyone you follow from this week all in like a nice little scroll. Again, there's like no kind of monetization on it. So I don't know if it's super appealing for brands at the moment, but I'm sure they will turn on the ads and sponsored stuff in the future once it's grows, if it grows. And then the other one is really new, but it's called pixelfed, which is sort of like an open source Instagram, which means there's like no corporate ownership at all. So that means there's no possibility of like sponsored posts, no algorithms. Again, from a brand perspective, it's like probably not that useful because it doesn't have any like business kind of applications. But from a user I'm like, oh my God, that sounds amazing. Instagram is so overloaded with junk and like ads and people you don't follow. It's so. And like, I feel like as much as people are addicted to those platforms, I Do feel like there's sometimes an exhaustion with them. And with TikTok getting banned, I feel like it's a good opportunity for people to like what else is out there. Let me try other stuff. So, yeah, I think it's gonna disrupt the landscape a lot.
- [22:47]
B
You're so, you're so forward, Danny. I'm not on those platforms, but I, I would. I think that it's probably so hard because there's not a, a platform that's standing out as the obvious alternative. It's not apples to apples. There's no platform that has all the same things and the algorithm and, and so, you know, we know the power of first mover advantage and getting to the platform and maybe having the first hot post that takes off and, and the following that, that gets you and the name recognition that earns you because you'll be talked about in all the stories about the kind of one of the innovators or pioneers on this platform. So there's so much opportunity and yet where we'll land. Question mark, question mark.
- [23:30]
A
I agree that there does not feel like one obvious successor lined up to, to take the throne. Sort of. There's lots of little ones that are possibilities and then there's also, like we said, there's the existing platforms like Instagram and YouTube that obviously have huge user bases, but I still feel like people will want something else to fill that void. And a lot of times when they're, when you're in that kind of situation where there's like, if you feel like there's a public desire for a new social platform and you're like looking at what's out there and you're like, I've never even heard of this platform. You download it and you're like unfamiliar with the UI and you're like, this is so weird looking. I can't imagine like opening this every five minutes the way I do TikTok or whatever that I feel like all it takes is a critical mass of people moving to one and then suddenly it like will be self sustaining. You know, I felt like Tick tick tock was kind of like that at the time that TikTok was getting really popular. I feel like there were a bunch of apps and TikTok was one of them that are like all kind of new and, and interesting and people were intrigued by them. And then now I don't remember any of their names because TikTok was the one that had the success.
- [24:38]
B
And as an old. It will take an oldie. It will take me a minute to to understand what the hoopla is about. Like when everyone was dancing and I'm like, I hate this app. I don't want to go to TikTok. This is so stupid. Who wants to watch people dancing anyway?
- [24:51]
A
Well, and then it. But then it expands because it starts with one thing and you're like, oh, TikTok is the dancing app. But like, I don't think people think of TikTok as the dancing app now because it's so huge that it's not. It's got anything.
- [25:02]
B
It was interesting at nrf, everybody. I was asking folks this question and it came up repeatedly that executives and even people who work on platforms are talking about the potential for Pinterest to move in. And obviously I think Pinterest has great potential and is definitely resonating with Gen Z and younger folks, but it's so far from apples to apples in terms of what TikTok is. I think it'll thrive, but I don't think it'll be a replacement for TikTok. There will be another video focused platform. There's talk of Clapper, there's talk of Flip, which also are different.
- [25:36]
A
They sound so fake, though. Like when they're. Because they're not like, established. I'm like, that sounds made up.
- [25:43]
B
Is that a thing? You're just messing Clapper.
- [25:46]
A
No way. That sounds like. That sounds like what your grandpa calls TikTok because he can't remember it.
- [25:51]
B
Oh, my God, you're right. But no, there are a lot of folks who could come in and save the day. People talking about who. Who are interested in investing and still buying Tik Tok, you know, Mr. Beast could save the day, Danny. And then we also know there's that this billionaire, Frank McCourt who could potentially be. Still be teaming with this Kevin O'Leary who's on Shark Tank. There are a lot of potential buyers. We'll see.
- [26:15]
A
But I wonder what the price tag would be because it's like a many, many billions of dollars company. So I don't even know, like, who could afford it anyway. But this time next week, we will see if this actually goes into effect, which again, seems very likely. And maybe we'll talk again.
- [26:29]
B
I'm sure another platform will have taken hold if it does go into effect and we will sound silly.
- [26:35]
A
Next week we'll all be on Clapper.
- [26:37]
B
Get ready.
- [26:39]
A
Okay. I think that's all the time we have this week, but thank you again for being here, Jill. This was a great conversation.
- [26:44]
B
So fun. Thank you.
- [26:45]
A
For those of you listening, don't forget to give us a rating and a review on Apple Podcasts or Spotify or wherever you listen to this because that helps us out so much. And don't forget to subscribe to the glossy podcast because you'll hear interviews with industry insiders every Wednesday and weekend review episodes with me every Friday. Jill, who's our next guest?
- [27:02]
B
I am so jazzed, especially as we're heading into, like, we're nearing the Super Bowl. But we have Kyle Smith, who is the first fashion editor of the NFL, interviewing him tomorrow for next week. So excited.
- [27:15]
A
That sounds like a great episode. Well, tune in for that. And once again, thanks for listening.