Summer vacation (for the kids) has already wrapped for many kids on the West Coast, the South, and all the college students. I can see that summer is dwindling down for everyone else too as the Pop-Ups are pretty quiet this week. September Issues are in my mailbox and while I love a good newsletter (HI!) holding a print magazine is the best.
Join my Substack Live later today: I’m doing a Substack Live with Viv Chen who writes the incredible The Molehill. We will be discussing all things San Francisco style, Vogue World San Francisco, Bay Area retail and fashion. Join us TODAY/Thursday at 8:30pm ET/5:30pm PT. Click here to join us.
Deep Dive
New Collabs — Cou Cou Intimates x Sandy Liang is my winner this week
New Launches — A Cos handbag all over my algorithm
Reading The Resale Tea Leaves — Notes from The RealReal Resale Report, personal investigations and observations, and what I really noticed about The Row.
Earnings Reports TL;DR — Urban Outfitters & Abercrombie
New Store Openings — Knox Street in Dallas is really taking off
People in the News — The Skims of it all
In My Feed — More Vanity Fair thoughts
In this send: After reading The RealReal’s Resale Report and other recent retail insights I had a lot of ideas about the state of designer retail that we need to discuss. Plus: Cou Cou Intimates, days of the week underwear, Cos’s new viral bag, Old Navy beauty, Prada Wish in red, the buckle logo, what brand had a 24 percent increase in New With Tags items at The RealReal (I’ll tell you!), teens it shopping tote bag, UWS sporty row, Knox Street in Dallas, Addison Bay, and in retail the end of summer always means you better have all your holiday Q4 plans and strategies locked and loaded.
New Collabs
The pairing of Cou Cou Intimates x Sandy Liang is the perfect collaboration of nostalgic, sweet, feminine, little girly but all grown up details. I really like these two together for a modern take on the days of the week underwear. The collection has a pajama shirt, pajama pants, a boxer with french lace, a baby tank top and days of the week underwear. Made with 100 percent organic cotton.
Topshop announced their collab with Cara Delevingne. Lots of statement denim like this full skirt and these oversized loose shorts which remind me of the “tailored and structured baggy” style that will be trending for Fall according to the denim experts I interviewed.
Gap x Malbon for their second time on the golf course. I like them teaming up because it makes Malbon very accessible and gives Gap a reason to play in a sport. Plus no drama from this golf brand this week, thank goodness.
Did you see Delia’s x Target? After the Limited Too buzz and the Esprit at Costco, I’m surprised this hasn’t gotten more chatter.
I added the Addison Bay x Philadelphia Eagles collab to the Fandom tracker where I’m following all the fashion brands collabing with sports teams, universities, and whatever else is adjacent to that. More on Addison Bay in the New Store Openings section below.
There has been a lot of J.Crew tiny Rollneck™ chatter this week (yes, I’m part of that) but I’m into these J.Crew x Clark Wallabees. This feels like a step in the right direction for both brands.
New Launches
This handbag from Cos has been all over Instagram and TikTok and something is going on because it is no longer on the US commerce site. The Trullo bag (the page might still be going to a 404, I’ll update when it is live again) is being described as a dupe for the Balenciaga Rodeo and the Chanel Maxi Flap. (I also want to see this Cos handbag in person.)
Beauty is ON: Old Navy launched their beauty category with their own bath & body care items and an assortment built from partners like Tony Moly, Patchology, and Buxom. They went really heavy in the patches. Gap Inc shares their earnings today (Thursday) but it is too early to share any details from this launch.
More Gap Inc news, the first of Reed Krakoff’s product for Gap was shared in September Bazaar that I quickly flipped through last night. A very all-American denim silhouette. I wonder if we will nickname this the de-rkin. As in the “denim Birkin”. Can someone come up with a good name?
From September Bazaar — I’m not a great photographer. More denim campaign launches:
Tate McRae is the face of Calvin Klein denim. The products from the campaign are here.
7 for all mankind with Chloe Sevigny. Their new fall collection is here.
You can now shop With Nothing Underneath’s denim collection. There is a classic straight leg, baggy style, and a cropped wide leg.
Donni Fall Part 1 launches today (Thursday) the new delivery includes plaids and the silk track pant with a lace strip for the racing stripe.
Have you seen the new Prada Wish in red? So cute. But I bought this recently and it scratches the same itch.
Nancy Twine, the founder of Briogeo and who later sold it to Wella in 2023, is launching Soulstice Beauty with a premium positioning for both haircare and skincare.
Archive Sale to note: One of is hosting a Limited Edition Archive Sale Friday 8/28 - Saturday 8/29. DM on Instagram for more details. Hosted on the UES, NYC.
Yes, I’m obsessed with these new Loewe sandals. This gives the shopper a reason to shop for a footbed sandal that isn’t a Birkenstock. Otherwise I typically say just go for the Birkenstock.
Reading the Resale Tea Leaves
When I visit Marin Country Mart one of my favorite spots to Channel Check is The RealReal. Actually, on any shopping trips if there is a TRR nearby I like to stop in because I can tell so much from visiting the stores. They tend to have shoppers buying, looking for something new to spend their credit on, as well as consignors dropping off items they are ready to unload. On a recent visit I noticed just how busy TRR was with the store filled with steady foot traffic. Meanwhile the strip of stores nearby was much quieter. While I didn’t read this as anything specific on those stores I took it as a way to look deeper into who is actually in TRR and what they are doing in a secondhand store.
Some are buying. Some are dropping off items they’re ready to unload and consign. And increasingly, per a recent Bloomberg interview with TRR CEO Rati Levesque, they’re comparison shopping before buying anything new at all. More than 80 percent of the company’s fastest-growing customer segment, Gen Z and millennials, now check resale prices before spending on a new designer item. In this way, the secondary market is acting as a value check on what things are really worth (of course an item can be worth whatever you are willing to pay for it). It’s a useful gut-check before a consumer parts with their money. The other service resale is offering consumers: a workaround when a store increasingly won’t take a return.
Don’t leave the story hanging here! Behind the paywall you’ll find details on how consumers are using secondhand shopping, what I discovered about The Row from The RealReal’s Resale Report I haven’t seen talked about anywhere else, and the latest on Blazy’s Chanel handbags I’ve been watching on TRR.
Plus I’m sharing a quick note, a TL;DR for Urban Outfitters and Abercrombie’s recent earnings report.
