Deep Dive: Week of July 13th 2026 — Hailey Bieber's '90s Denim and Retailer Report Card
Retail school is in session. Time for your favorite class.
Will I be able to buy a pair of Hailey for Gap denim for my teenager? I’ll let you know this weekend if I’m a Cool Mom or in trouble. My daughter only owns one pair of Hollister so I don’t mind buying another pair for back to school. Is it now officially BTS shopping haul season?
In this send: Can Gap make me forget that Hailey Bieber loves to wear Vintage Levi’s 501 denim? Plus: Denim by Orlee, vintage Levi’s 501s, Katseye, Richard Dickson, Parke, Splashberry Dunkin’ Zero, Merit Beauty x The Ritz-Carlton, Nicole Chavez, Quince, Beyond Yoga, Uniqlo, rage clicks, Aritzia, Super Puff, ShopMy, Julia Berolzheimer, Arielle Charnas, LTK, Arket, FoundRae, Chanel Ballet Flats, and that’s just the tip of the iceberg.
New Collabs — including Denim & Hailey Bieber (Gap vs Levi’s)
New Launches — a retailer’s stylist strategy
Retail Report Card — Levi’s, Fast Retailing, and Aritzia get graded
More Business News — more retail items
New Store Openings & Pop-Ups — who is opening where!
People in the News — the newsmakers this week
What Else I Loved — in my feed
New Collabs
Let’s get right to the Hailey Bieber x Gap of it all. I’ll take you on my full thought 🌀 spiral around this one.
First, I mostly identify Hailey Bieber and denim with Levi’s 501s. And vintage Levi’s 501s specifically. She wore them to her 29th birthday party, she shops them at Denim by Orlee, she did a campaign with them in 2021, and even had terms Hailey + ’90s + denim already wrapped up with Levi’s from a previous campaign. In other words, I think of Hailey Bieber and denim and my mind immediately goes to Levi’s. Vintage Levi’s 501s.
Then, I googled. I was reminded that after wearing these 90s Gap low rise loose fit jeans she sold them out. (If I can’t snag a pair online at 12pm ET Thursday July 16th I will just buy these instead. Since my daughter isn’t chronically online like I am hopefully she wouldn’t know the difference.) So yes, there is history of Hailey Bieber plus Gap denim. Fair point.
It’s money in the bank for Hailey, Gap gets another great moment and so much press, editorial, social chatter and a collab with an in-demand tastemaker. And of course she makes the denim look great.
What I think needs to happen for Gap: I hope they bought enough inventory that they can sell and have a meaningful increase for Gap’s denim at the Q2 quarterly earnings in late August. In Q3 2025 when CEO Richard Dickson shared about the Katseye Better in Denim campaign, he cited "significant traffic and double-digit growth in denim". Gap became the number six adult denim brand in the US, up two spots from 2024. Comps that quarter were +5 percent, the strongest since fiscal 2017 holiday. Dickson has continued to share as recently as Q1 2026, last quarter reported at the end of May, that Denim and Active are important categories for the Gap brand. In other words, Gap needs to get a lot of revenue out of this campaign.
Parke x Dunkin collab launches Friday July 17th at 10am ET. In addition to Parke merch like claw clips, Parke branded reusable cups, and sweatshirts, you can also try their Blueberry Vanilla Protein Latte, Splashberry Dunkin’ Zero, and Coconut Cloud Limeade drinks. If you are curious about Parke, it is one of the brands I often refer to as a “sweatshirt brand” for Gen Z-Alpha. Yes, Parke also has denim and launched with denim, but the mock neck sweatshirt has been a major item when they launch new ones. Likely because of how they buy the inventory, they sell out quickly, and often the website breaks from the traffic during launches.
Merit Beauty x The Ritz-Carlton launched The Getaway Kit with minis of their popular products, including the new Clean Volume Mascara that recently launched. The collab is more than just a canvas pouch and the mini items, they took a hospitality approach to creating activations at select Ritz-Carlton properties along with ways to test out the products.
Love Shack Fancy x Hunter (as in rain boots) launches today. Designed especially for the LSF loyal fans.
New Launches
Stylist Nicole Chavez partnered with Quince to highlight the July/Summer Edit. The pattern has been each month a different celebrity stylist. Jamie Mizrahi (April), Erin Walsh (May), Kate Young (June).
Laurel Pantin announced a new e-commerce site, Earl URL to shop her discoveries (I love her cool closet of a shop Earl IRL in Beverly Hills) and a book coming out this fall What To Wear Everyday: A Guide To Timeless Style.**
Retail Report Card
Early in July Levi’s, Fast Retailing (Uniqlo’s Parent Co), and Aritzia all shared their quarterly earnings. A great opportunity to check in on the retailers, review their report card, and share what I’m watching. Note — this is not investment advice. This is Private Label taking a look at retail strategy and how they are taking care of the consumer. Opportunities and challenges.
