PSA: If you are reading this Thursday morning, today August 20th, I’ll be hosting a virtual conversation with The Co-lab about going from corporate retail to journalism and now fully independent with Private Label. Hope to see you soon. More details here. And if you aren’t familiar with the Co-lab you should follow Kristy Hurt and check it out.
Deep Dive
New Collabs — a round up from denim x princess to college sweatshirts
New Launches — beauty, J.Crew, and fall deliveries
Pop-Ups — will you be in the DB Sport line this weekend?
Tween Rebels — Maisonette launches tween destination Neon Rebel
New Store Openings
People in the News
In My Feed — from the Vanity Fair article on Puck’s Lauren Sherman, canvas totes, the Jelly Birkin, and The RealReal’s markup on new Chanel.
In this send: Taking stock of the tween scene. Where it was and what the options are now. Maisonette launched Neon Rebels for the tweens. Plus: Princess Olympia of Greece does denim, Parke, Zippo lighters, J. Crew Vintage, beyond The Nap Dress™, fashion nerds, Polo Sport x-67, Minnesota State Fair, Pickle Report, Vuori, Quenlin Blackwell, Jelly Firkins and since everyone can comment now (not just paid subscribers) where did you shop as a tween?
I’ll be back this weekend with the denim trends with my insights as well as details from favorite brands, designers, stylists, and experts! This was from a reader request — so let me know what you want me to report on.
New Collabs
Denim fit for a Princess: A triple collab in the form of Princess Olympia of Greece x DL1961 x Moda Operandi. In early 2025 Princess Olympia of Greece joined Moda Operandi as Contributing Editor. You’ve been able to shop her closet, aka her edit, on the site. Launching today is a new nine-piece capsule collection she designed with DL1961. She was inspired by vintage styles from her own closet, menswear designs, and when the press release mentioned “1990s supermodel leaving the airport” I immediately pictured this. A few highlights include the Slim Straight Jean, a suede cinched jacket and matching micro shorts, and the barn jacket with leather details in a rich deep burgundy color.
College x Sweatshirt Takeover: Last time it was the coffee brands x sweatshirt brands. Then last week I mentioned the Love Shack Fancy x Fanatics collab. Now Parke has a collab with ‘47. My question is who is managing the inventory? If it is Parke this will be sold out in less than 5 seconds.
When I visited a college bookstore last summer while I was on campus for my husband’s college reunion I was impressed with all the brands that had large displays in the bookstore. Rhone, Faherty, Lululemon all had products with the school logos. This is a solid licensing program that you need to get the colors right with and then you can just run with it. Hundreds of colleges and universities and large fan bases already built in.
Birkenstock x Staud in the Loma style, similar to the Boston clog, launched today in three colors. With the wider strap it reads a little loafer inspired and timed well for fall back-to-school. This isn’t the first time the brands have collaborated.
Madhappy has a consistent collab funnel going. The latest one in time for back-to-school is with Keen. I like that they went after this silhouette, the sneakerina (maybe with Keen it is more of a hikerina) feels right.
We keep seeing that smoking is back in the zeitgeist. I’m not making any calls or judgements here, but there have been a ton of jewelry items around lighters and cigarettes. Foundrae x Zippo for the latest in the conversation.
The Willow x Free People collab came together nicely. I like how the pieces individually look good and just easy to sell merchandise. The pieces GenZ-Alpha will shop for. But the real win is how they are styled together and feel much more directional especially for a teen mall-ish brand.
U Beauty x Flamingo Estate adds the Prinesstarta Milk Bar Soap along with hydrating U Beauty products.
New Launches
If you love Vintage J.Crew more than new crew: J.Crew is launching a vintage shop online with merchandise from 1983-2000. When I’ve covered other vintage drops like this before, I’ve mentioned that it is much more of a marketing and loyalty play than revenue.
Unfortunately, revenue is what J.Crew needs. How can J.Crew turn this into a revenue play? Use the data from clicks to discover more items to bring back like the popular Rollneck sweater.
Why is this not a revenue strategy? Let’s base this on a bit of history from the Banana Republic archive sales. They had under 250 pieces in previous events, so I’m going to estimate 250 just to be conservative for J.Crew’s vintage sale. That’s still a massive amount of sourcing for one-off pieces. When Banana Republic had their event the prices ranged from about $80 to $500 for a leather jacket. Let’s hit the sweet spot of $150 average retail price for J.Crew. If the cost for the pieces is around $30 they would make $30,000 retail margin on this vintage event not counting advertising or any back-end production costs of putting online. This is a retailer that is down 30 percent according to the Financial Times reporting they need big revenue swings.
J.Crew aiming for a bigger revenue swing: New J.Crew denim launched. Benjamin Talley Smith worked with Olympia Gayot and the J.Crew team on this delivery. You know Benjamin Talley Smith’s work because he has designed and consulted on denim for Khaite, Aflalo, Reformation, and most recently Guest in Residence (launching in early September). For more on the J.Crew revenue struggles, catch up with the story from earlier this week here.
Fashion nerd alert: I love data insights and Nell Diamond shares these on Instagram Stories occasionally. According to her stories, top sellers by units in a 24 hour period earlier this week was this silk slip dress, these pants, this dress, then this nap dress and this nap dress and this nap dress. The fact that the top 3 styles are not nap dresses and item number 2 is a pair of pants is pretty impressive for The Nap Dress™ brand. The brand has evolved.
New Glow Recipe Lip Blur Balm is launching August 24th. Remember all the new beauty launches — most launched today. Like the new m.ph lip gloss, Tower 28 Swipe Serum, InnBeauty Project Extreme Milky Cleanser, and the Sarah Creal pH lip liner.
The new Miu Miu sneaker that are being hyped up (see here from Hypebae and Becky Malinsky featured in her latest newsletter). The silver nylon ones remind me of the Polo Sport x-67 that were a best seller when I was a shoe buyer at Bloomingdale’s circa 2004/2005. The fact that the name of the shoe was x-67 is another reason these should have a comeback with the kids. Although that ship might have already sailed.
Savette Fall is available and I’m loving this new shape.
New Lisa Yang for fall/winter 2026 is live now too. Through the sculptural details a few things stood out to me: this skirt reminded me of a ‘70s shape and although not a drindl, gives that kind of feel. I think the scoat (scarf-coat hybrid) is ushering in a lot more capes for jackets and sweaters with extra volume/cape feel. See here and here. I love the structure of this dress, but it isn’t possible to tailor so it has to be the perfect fit.
e.l.f. Beauty is bringing back the pickle flavored Glow Reviver Melting Lip Balms and the press release has a few details that caught my attention. First, I think it is cool they are partnering with the Minnesota State Fair for a surprise and dill-light (their term, not my smart pun) for an activation. I love to see an activation with out of the box (pickle jar) thinking. Second, the first time they had this it sold out in 8 minutes. Finally, there is a Y Pulse Pickle Report.
A few Fresh Receipts I’m into — this opera pump style reminds me of the Chanel Opera Pump/patent moccasin with a slightly higher heel, nylon bags but make them polka dots, Tuckernuck launched their own version of the oversized cashmere bandana scarf (this one and this version was everywhere last year), is this Olympia Le-Tan book clutch too on the nose for NYFW?
Where to Pop-Up This Week
Want to know where to find the line this weekend? It will be at Dairy Boy Sport. DB Sport is popping up at 9 W 8th Street from 10am to 7pm 8/21-8/23.
In Austin, TX Wildlike is doing piercing and styling at Westside Market. August 20th-23rd. More details here and to RSVP.
Kids brand Hanna Anderson (I love their little kids pajamas) is having a pop-up at Malibu Country Mart on Saturday 8/22. If my kids were still tiny enough to wear my daughter would have been obsessed with these, I’d buy these adorable ones for my son, and would gift a pair of these to new parents.
Tween Rebels
If you have a child or know one in the 9-15 age range I don’t have to tell you how absolutely impossible it is to find real clothes for them. Something they like. Something that isn’t too young or make them look like are ready for a college party. There’s no middle ground. So when I heard that Maisonette, the online children’s multi-brand destination for stylish kids’ clothes, was launching a tween shop I was thrilled. Both personally and professionally. Neon Rebels launched Wednesday.
Behind the paywall we’ll get into Maisonette’s history, where the tween landscape was (looking at you Limited Too) and where it is now. Plus all the fashion random bits I’ve been reading and consuming this week.
