In this send: I went down a Dries Van Noten rabbit hole to see what the data is showing for the label — is this a trend, a blip, or just me excited about scarf skirts? I went to Google Trends, ShopMy data pulls, and resale trends to figure out what is going on. Plus: Lamine Yamal, Hulken bags, Hard Tail and So Low fold-over pants, Thomas Mason, the return of Phillip Lim, vintage inspired denim, Reed Krakoff, a body brosse, Alanis Morisette’s “Ironic”, “Pucci Girl Summer”, Kate Young shops for fakes, and one week until NYFW — is there a runway show or street style star you are excited to see?
Deep Dive
New Collabs — from American Eagle to Hulken Bags
New Launches — dress shirts, denim, and beauty
The Dries Effect — searching for skirts and tracking the data
New Store Openings — from the Upper East Side to London
People in the News — Congrats!
In My Feed — a podcast and wicked good slippers
New Collabs
Lamine Yamal, who helped Spain clench the World Cup trophy, launches his first collaboration with American Eagle today. Prices range from $15.95-$139.95. Yamal was inspired by his own European street style preferences and merged this with American Eagle’s denim heritage. More off the field inspiration versus a soccer/football kit. Think baggy denim, cargos, and oversized pieces. This project has been in the works since pre-World Cup.
Stoney Clover Lane x Hulken I thought there would be some personalization with the patches — and really driving up the retails of the bags — but it seems to be mostly with bag charms and color associations.
Madhappy x Puma — while I like these low profile sneakers, the teens are very into fold-over pants (think Hard Tail and So Low) at the moment.
Thomas Mason heritage fabrics just launched a collab with Alex Mill. Worth noting, I remembered that J.Crew has worked with Thomas Mason too. Alex Mill’s are brighter and have more of a pop, whereas J.Crew’s are more classic and buttoned-up. Alex Mill is priced at $225 versus J.Crew’s at $198. Let’s keep spiraling 🌀 because Brooks Brother’s also has a partnership with Thomas Mason. Brooks Brother’s are $228 (so basically Alex Mill likes retails ending in 5’s and Brooks Brother’s in 8’s). But they do have a bunch marked down to $99.99 and a classic solid style at $198.
New Launches
Phillip Lim launched a new brand, Play Love Win, with a variety of dress shirts for men and women. Oh my gosh, this cake! Lim also discussed it on the Vogue Run-Through podcast.
Denim Launches Continue:
Daily Drills — mostly known for sweatshirts and athleisure, the brand is expanding with denim. Daily Drills is a very Gen Z-Alpha brand. Their denim launch is another example (like La Ligne, Guest in Residence) expanding into denim because it aligns with styling opportunities and makes more sense to have their own brand. The customer is already shopping for this category elsewhere, bring it in to the brand. Increases the average order volume.
New Denim at Dôen. These styles are vintage inspired and Dôen’s own description of “special capsule collection” leads me to believe you should grab them when you can. There will be five denim fits and a denim shirt. Update post publishing: This is another Benjamin Talley Smith project. Smith worked with Dôen on the development of these styles.
Evereve — the multi-brand retailer launched their “Jeans that make me feel _______” campaign. You can shop by style (straight, wide leg, relaxed, bootcut, and petite) or by brand featured. The style guide also includes the pieces to pair back to each silhouette taking the guess work out of what shoes to wear with each. Evereve is known as the spot to help you figure out what to wear so this brings their in-person styling to online shopping and during my research shoppers told me it feels less overwhelming to have a tighter selection when shopping in the Evereve stores versus larger department stores. These wide leg jeans were recently recommended to Private Label by Director of Buying Katheryn LaFin-Petersen. I’ve also been tracking interesting washes and colors and this cobalt pair from Mother is the direction that preppy has been going in. It feels aligned with the runway trends. And LaFin-Petersen also highlighted to me the the vintage washes as a key trend for Evereve this fall.
From denim you wear to denim you carry: Gap’s handbag collection with Reed Krakoff at the helm is launching September 10th. I’ll do a more in depth report when I’ve seen in person. My initial thoughts are:
I love the mention in the NYTimes that the fleece tote brings to mind the Trader Joe’s tote or my favorite Uniqlo sling bag. If the tote or other bags can take off like either of those examples that would be a huge win for Gap and Krakoff.
I have less interest in a $498 denim and leather tote that also looks super heavy. It also reminds me of this Tibi x LL Bean tote with the belt. The price point doesn’t align with the Gap’s clothing retails. But just like I explained in the recent Style Out — this is the Editorial item. Designed to gain interest, get coverage, and not drive revenue. So sure, have fun with that one but show me the money. (Yes, I’m a very focused merchant with my eye on the P&L.)
Gap's New Bag
La Bonne Brosse, the Instagram friendly and very pretty designed hairbrushes from France, launched a body brush.
Vogue launched a Beauty Board and I’m so glad that Ochuko Akpovbovbo brought this to my attention in her As Seen On reporting. I looked at the first post from Vogue’s Beauty Board on Exosomes and then started googling different terms in a new search. What will really drive this home for Vogue, and could be a revenue benefit in the long-term, is if they can get ahead of enough trends so that when you are searching because of strong SEO Vogue’s articles come up first and then hopefully you will purchase via their links. A lot of DTC brands do the opposite of this — start out with products and then build out the blog post to drive traffic. I’ve always thought that Soft Services did a good job with this for their Mass Index blog.
The Dries Effect
I wear (mostly) all black. The only pattern I believe in (for me personally) is a stripe. So for me to be pulled toward a multi-print scarf print skirt (and a mini) is pretty noticeable. And not just one, it feels like it should be a collectable. This sample size of one sent me down a spiral of data research to figure out what exactly is the current pull of Dries Van Noten, scarf dressing (there are great bags too) and if this is a real “thing” or just me curious about an item not currently in my closet1.
