In this send: I’m looking at the retail opportunities in Mahjong (mahjor margin) and the retail lessons in a “sold out” handbag. Plus: demerits, Tom Sachs, Nike, Roller Rabbit, GRWM, sleep-time moisturizer*, tiny animals, Aventura Mall, “the next pickleball”, another Love Shack Fancy Collab (I added to the LSF collab tracker — that’s a total of 12 different collabs since I started tracking this summer), fashion nerds, and Isaac Mizrahi. Who wants to teach me how to play mahjong?
The Rundown
Fresh Receipts — for the sneaker-heads, teens, and beauty aficionados
Forecasting — tiny animal prints
Dot, Bam, Margin — While everyone is playing Mahjong, I’m looking at the margins and retail opportunities.
Is This Really A Trend? — A Free People “broke the internet” handbag that I turn into Retail 101
In My Feed — fun content to wrap it up
Fresh Receipts
Tom Sachs x Nike: With the 15th anniversary of the first Tom Sachs’ collab with Nike coming soon, the latest offering of the General Purpose Shoe is launching. The Demerits references a nod to Sachs’ misbehaving school days of wearing soccer shoes instead of the required dress shoes. He had colored in the logo with a marker to disguise them giving another fun nod to the drawn on shoebox and handwritten like logo on the heel. It’s the first GPS made with ECCO® leather uppers instead of the knit and made with a traditional waffle sole. The sneaker drops September 30th at 10am ET on SNKRS for $119.99.
Courtesy of Tom Sachs I went digging for Tom Sachs x Nike history and the first place I went was to my brother. He wore his Tom Sachs General Purpose Shoes literally every day for about 4 years. When they finally gave out he bought the exact same pair again. This shows a customer who wears the product into the ground and appreciates the art of this sneaker.
The resale market tells the other part of this partnership. StockX’s Senior Director of Customer Community and Engagement Brendan Dunne made this great piece of content that breaks down the demand for the Mars Yard. I’m curious where the Demerits will land with both wearers, collectors, and resale.
The Dôen x Vogue book club nightgown collab is smart but I kept having this feeling like they had done it before. Not exactly. Dôen previously collab’ed with Library Science, Kaia Gerber and Alyssa Reeder’s book club. Still fun. I like books. I like nightgowns. I like collabs.
The handbags from The Horse popped on my radar last year when their Clementine shot to the top of the ShopMy affiliate links. The bags are well-made and at an accessible price point. No gold foil logo like a lot of other similarly priced handbags have. The newest handbag is an east-west duffle silhouette, The Maggie.
Collab coming soon, cute for the teen sleepovers and GRWM1 Roller Rabbit x Tarte on Roller Rabbit’s first beauty collab. Arriving this Thursday. Tell the teens not to snooze.
Frances Valentine’s new Mary Tyler Moore collection launches today. I had the chance to preview and the pieces are either easy (great cigarette pants, classic knit turtlenecks) or a total statement like the red peacoat and Mary Tyler Moore’s famous pom-pom beret. “You're gonna make it after all.” Last week Frances Valentine hosted their kick off event at the SCAD Film Studios in Atlanta along with the MTM Vision Initiative. Attendees could preview the collection and see artifacts from Mary Tyler Moore’s collection. If you want to enjoy more Moore, I also recommend the Being Mary Tyler Moore documentary.
Osea Malibu has been building out their Dream bio-retinol line. There is now a little bundle you can utilize to try the new products. Try the trio if you find lavender relaxing for sleep and/or you like to have something to remind you to unwind for bed. I’ve been keeping this serum* on my nightstand so now I have an AM moisturizer, a post-shower moisturizer*, and now a sleep-time* option.
Westman Atelier’s holiday sets are here. The Glassy Flush has a new pH-adaptive blush and I’m really intrigued to feel the texture. I’ll report back since I sometimes find this too sticky and difficult to blend. The brushes look perfect for travel (I love a WA make-up brush) and I’m impressed with the shades in the eyeshadow palette and I usually prefer to shop my eyeshadows à la carte.
Forecasting
Tiny animal prints: Latest case of three is a trend has me thinking that what is trending in animal prints isn’t a specific animal, but rather the scale (as in size, not lizard scales). tiny Let’s track these animal steps:
Parker Thatch is the newest entrant I’m watching with their new launch this week of the fawn hair.
Chanel has been channeling a tiny cheetah print lately.
Reformation is seeing spots with dalmatians. Isabel Marant too — slingback and a cozy moccasin.
What is going on? A pendulum swing, or is it that after a summer of seeing polka dots everywhere the animal print du jour is smaller scale and more closely resembles the polka dots.
The trend of opening in Aventura Mall (or the general Miami area) before hitting both NYC and L.A.? We’ve got another example with Revolve. Their only other location is at The Grove in L.A. but no outpost in NYC at this time. It makes sense for the Miami shopper, but usually NYC is the spot retailers try to mark first and early.
Dot, Bam, Margin
Mahjong went from being called out for cultural appropriation to being the hottest game and “the next pickleball” and I’m predicting a big Holiday Gift Guide item (big = $$ revenue because of the retail prices and big = popular because not everyone has a fancy set yet).
I bet you have at least 3 friends who have asked you to learn or play Mahjong with them. That is if you aren’t already playing and the one asking everyone else. The WSJ covered kids playing at sleep-away camp this summer [gift link]. In 2020/2021 some of the American brands that designed their own sets and started selling them were in the hot seat for cultural appropriation [CNN]. The chatter around that has quieted some but hasn’t gone away completely [Colorado Sun].
Behind the paywall we get into a quick bit of the history but mostly in the retail angles — the margin, the revenue opportunity, and predictions for the holiday season. I’d make a fun Bam! Crack! reference here but as I mentioned, I don’t play. Yet.
