Duomo Days

Fashion People

Fashion industry insiders Lauren Sherman and Becky Malinsky recap their experiences at Milan Fashion Week. They provide detailed reviews of

Key takeaways

• Prada's collection focused heavily on skirts but faced criticism regarding repetitive bra tops and 'bloomer' silhouettes.
• Jil Sander was praised for its superior next-generation tailoring and high-quality fabric choices.
• The discussion highlighted a period of significant leadership transition within Gucci and Armani.
• Milanese transportation, specifically taxis and Ubers, is noted as being notoriously difficult and expensive during fashion week.
• Dining in Milan, particularly at the Prada Foundation's restaurant, offered exceptional food at surprisingly reasonable prices compared to New York.

Main topics

• Milan Fashion Week Runway Reviews
• Luxury Brand Leadership Changes
• Fashion Industry Trends and Tailoring

Notable quotes

I am really a skirt person.

Conclusion

A deep dive into the current state of Milanese luxury, offering both c

Transcript preview

Speaker 3 (0:04) Hello and welcome to Fashion People. I'm Lauren Sherman, writer of Puck's Fashion and Beauty Memo Line Cheat. And today with me on the show is Becky Malinsky, writer of Five Things You Should Buy. We're talking about what we saw, what we bought, Speaker 2 (0:17) and what we ate at Milan Fashion Week. Speaker 3 (0:22) Happy Tuesday, everyone. Hope you are having a great week. I am back in Paris. I went to three shows yesterday, Julie Kegels, Hodakova, and also that one that translates to fecal matter. I'm not going to try to pronounce it in French. It is way too early in the morning for me to do that. But I will definitely be writing about this brand more, I believe, in Line Cheat. Speaker 3 (0:49) yes, the show you may have famously heard, it was in Republic, which was kind of incredible. And also it started an hour late and then also was a very long show. But you know what? I'm not going to complain about it. All I will say is that. If a brand wishes to conduct themselves in this matter, which honestly, like, all I kept thinking was, I need to be less uptight. I shouldn't have booked dinner for like, within inches of when the show was supposed to take place. Like, it's totally fine. I had a great night overall. I would just say like, if you're gonna have a show where you're waiting for someone and it's gonna be late and all that stuff. We were ostensibly waiting for Rihanna, which understandable, like. I love Rihanna. I am happy to wait for her. It just was, I also had a dinner reservation, but it's just like, so I feel like so bourgeois of me to care about that. But the point being, so I'm not going to complain. The point being like, just have a show at nine o'clock at night. Because the thing is, if it was at nine, I just would have been like, I'm sorry, I can't go. I'll come meet them another time. I think that's the best way to do it. If you're going to be kind of a late show, just be late. Generally. Anyway, I'm... interested in this brand commercially. I think the custom work that they do is really fascinating. And we're going to hear more about them. And you're going to be able to see reports all week from the shows on Monday's line sheet. I did have my sort of end of Milan and what it said about the state of the industry. And then I also had just stuff people were talking about. More Vogue World, more Zuckerberg, The Row, The Row's new advertising campaign. And then also the really fun thing is I got a sneak peek of the Virginie Viard book. And so I pulled out some tidbits from when she left Chanel and what she feels like what went down. It's pretty dramatic, but not that dramatic. And I think it's good to read it. Honestly, I think she needs to go on Laura Brown and Christine O'Neill's All the Cool Girls Get Fired show because it's like... The classic, like it could be a chapter in their book. Anyway, it was interesting. I'm going to have a lot more reporting from, you know, all around Fashion Week and all around the companies and all that good stuff. One thing I wanted to note was that. Becky and I did not talk about Glenn Martins and Diesel and that hilarious show where people just started like making out in the audience. It was extremely uncomfortable. And I was like giggling like a five-year-old. Becky was also there and she doesn't go to Diesel all the time. And for some reason she decided to go. But anyway, it was a fun show. And also to be honest, the clothes were quite good. It was just hard to pay attention to them. So Glenn Martins is very, talented and he did a great job at Diesel and I look forward to seeing his Margiela show tonight. I think that that was the only thing I wanted to say before we get going with Becky. I had a great time in Milan. I think she did as well and I hope you have a great time listening to this. Speaker 3 (4:04) Becky Malinsky. Welcome Speaker 1 (4:07) to Fashion People. Welcome back. Thank you, Lauren. I'm so happy to see you again. It's been so long. It's been what? 48 hours? Yeah. That's crazy. Oh, you left on Friday. Friday. Speaker 3 (4:22) Wow. It feels like it was only yesterday. Speaker 1 (4:27) It did feel like once I was home for two days and there were still shows happening, I was like, wow, I'm like already readjusted. This is crazy. Speaker 3 (4:36) Yeah. I think many people know this, but the amount of time you and I spend together during fashion month. Kind of makes up for the fact that we don't live in the same city. Speaker 1 (4:48) Yeah, I love it. And you like to make plans and reservations and I don't. So it's like so wonderful for me. Speaker 3 (4:57) I'm glad. I really love. If you would like me to book. It's crazy. I was never a personal assistant or an assistant of any type. I guess I'm not organized enough. You Speaker 1 (5:08) are kind of mine now. Because I'm like, what are you doing for dinner? I'm like, I don't know. I have to ask. Speaker 3 (5:13) I love. Speaker 2 (5:15) There is nothing like, Speaker 3 (5:17) you know, I have already booked. We were talking about where you should go to Pilates. I've got a bunch of places in your neighborhood in Paris. I've already booked all of my Pilates classes for the next two weeks. Speaker 1 (5:28) That's incredible. Maybe I should do mine after Speaker 3 (5:31) this. You should also maybe come to Lagrinas with me once. Sure. It's really fun. I love my teacher there, Jade. She's always like, stay with me, Lauren. Speaker 1 (5:42) I kind of need that. I need someone to be like, Becky, it looks great for me to not just give up. Speaker 3 (5:46) Yeah, she's always because she could see me starting to disassociate. And she's like, you've got to stay. It's just really, really hard. But it's fun if there's like a show around Speaker 2 (5:57) there. We'll figure it out. But Speaker 1 (5:59) yeah, Speaker 3 (6:00) I've just spent other than the times when I'm not working and recording podcast advertisements, I am booking. restaurants. And I need to book my Japanese manicures for the end of this week. But really quickly, I just want to tell you, I went to David Mallett this morning because Sophie Conti, Conti Communications works with David Mallett, the famous hair salon. They have one in New York and a couple in Paris. And they were doing something for Fashion Week because they have a new conditioner. And I was like, sure, I'm happy to come in and get a blowout to try out the new conditioner. And David Mallett ended up blowing my hair out. Speaker 1 (6:45) Wow. Wow. Was it like an out-of-body experience? Speaker 3 (6:48) Well, it was amazing because he was like, he said hi to us. And then he said, I'm just going to do yours. And when I sat down, he said, I would like to also do your color. I was like, I don't have enough time. But he was exactly right. Rain Speaker 1 (7:05) check. I'm so happy for you. Speaker 3 (7:07) Thank you. So how are you feeling about you're back in New York? How are you feeling about the Sam Heim, New York, Sam Heim, New York magazine covers for the men's issue? Speaker 1 (7:19) You know, I was looking at them this morning. I was just thinking it's so hard to do something original now. It's just like there's so much has been done. There's everything has been referenced. And I was like, oh, this is cute. And I haven't seen it before. And there's so many. I was like, how did they get all of these guys to agree to do this together? I just really liked it. I thought it was like sexy without being raunchy. I just liked it. Speaker 3 (7:44) Yeah. I did not think it was sexy, but I thought it was. really smart and interesting and compelling and also very journalistic. Like. And we should say it's a bunch of guys, I assume most of them live in New York, at the Russian baths, which is like a big thing in New York, especially in gay culture. It feels very New York and it feels like I thought it was smart to have Marlon James, whose novel is like, everybody is like, this is the best novel of the last 20 years or something like that. And then also... Elliot Page. It was a really interesting conversation between these covers and then the GQ cover of Tom Cruise without a shirt on also. All these men were shirtless is something we should say in the Russian baths. So it was interesting because it was like... Speaker 3 (8:47) I don't think that they're like particularly sexy, but they're very compelling is what I would say. And I thought it was smart. It's very New York. Like that's the biggest thing about it was that how when Sam came on the podcast, we talked a bit about how like, how are you going to make this New York? When what does that actually mean in terms of men's fashion? And I thought he. communicated that very clearly through these images. Speaker 1 (9:18) Yeah. I mean, one thing to think about is that there's really no fashion in it. Speaker 3 (9:23) Yes. Yeah. That's what Malik Speaker 1 (9:24) said. Speaker 3 (9:25) You Speaker 1 (9:25) know? Yeah. But I don't know. I thought it was a really interesting group of people. I love, you know, knowing that there are so there's so much politics when dealing with personalities, when you see a really interesting group of people together. I'm always so impressed by the people behind the scenes who have to negotiate that and get all of these people into the same feature. It's very it's so much harder than it seems. Speaker 2 (9:47) Yeah. Speaker 3 (9:47) Yeah. Speaker 1 (9:48) So well done, Sam. Speaker 3 (9:50) We're very. happy for him. And yeah, it's going to be interesting to see. I'm looking forward to reading all the pieces to see who who contributed, what kind of conversation. It's a new era for men's fashion. Speaker 1 (10:06) Great. No, I do think it's interesting that it's going back to like the men. I think men's fashion got to be to capital F fashion there for a while and really difficult for. not a very specific subset of men to engage with. So this should be good. Speaker 3 (10:21) Yeah, I agree. It was, it feels like it's moving the conversation forward and that is hard to do. Okay. So let's get back to what we are here for. We are here to discuss Milan Fashion Week, which you and I both attended starting with Prada on Tuesday. And then we ended with, I ended with. Armani, but you can comment on that too, I think. I would love to just like, I want to set this up in three pieces. One is that I want to discuss the shows, kind of go through the shows we liked, the shows that we were maybe challenged by. Then I would like to talk a little bit about shopping. And then finally, a little bit about food because we ate a lot of good food. But before we get started with the shows. Really quickly, Vogue World, do you have thoughts? Because I wrote about it again on Monday because it was all anyone could talk about even by the end, especially the Milanese because a lot of them attended and it was all anyone. And then MetaConnect following Vogue World and the robots and the Zuckerberg and just all of it. is of a piece, I think. And I'm curious if you have a quick, quick take. Speaker 1 (11:46) I mean, quick Speaker 3 (11:48) take. Speaker 1 (11:51) It feels very much like it's speaking to itself. As someone who did not attend, it sort of made no sense to me as someone. And so it felt like this sort of microcosm and the biggest. thing that came out of it was how much everyone hated the robots. So, you know, it's tough for me to make a comment. I wasn't there. I don't totally understand the purpose of it. And I think the robot thing, I mean, I guess if people don't know, they had robots walk and the theme of this entire thing was Italian craftsmanship and handmade elements. And so it was it felt. extremely disconnected from the message. And we're kind of in a time of everyone being very repelled by artificial intelligence. So it was tough. I thought it landed hard. Speaker 3 (12:47) Yeah, I would say I also did not attend, but I went to the New York Vogue World and also to the Paris Vogue World. And what I would say is that it's becoming, as you said, inward. It's deeper and deeper inward. And it feels like it's not communicating the Vogue brand. It's not entertaining for people who are not there. It is not. really making anyone happy to it. I think, and this may be my bias because I'm a fan of Lisa Loves, but I think the New York and the LA shows, which she helped produce, were the best ones. And I also was not invited to LA. And I still think, especially from the feedback of the people who were there, that that made more sense in the culture of like commenting on what's happening in the culture. Paris was extremely weird also, and I was there for that. But this one, it felt like the ultimate sort of example of Vogue not being able to use its power to amplify its brand, rather make its brand smaller in a way. And I am very, very nervous about the San Francisco, which is next year. Because it's going to... Speaker 3 (14:11) Be connected to all this technology stuff again. That being said, like Gap will probably be deeply involved. And I wonder if Lisa Love will be involved because she lives in L.A. and it's a U.S. thing. So look, maybe they'll think about it and say, how can we there? There are many things I've written about this 15 times already, but I just think we should we needed to address it briefly because. it was the thing everyone was kind of talking about for the rest of the week. And look, like all press is good press maybe, but in this case, I don't think that's the case. I Speaker 1 (14:47) don't, I think that's funny because in my conversations, I, it was not spoken about that much. Like I didn't talk about it that much. And I feel like you are Speaker 3 (14:55) not a person who they're like, can you believe that? Speaker 1 (15:00) Well, I don't know. I just it felt to me like if you weren't there, if you didn't work at Vogue, if you weren't associated with Vogue, it didn't involve you and and they didn't want it to involve you. So it was sort of like I didn't there wasn't a ton of outside press, not in publications. And to me, there was a lot Speaker 3 (15:16) of Italian press who dragged it like crazy. Speaker 1 (15:20) I got to look Speaker 3 (15:21) like Speaker 2 (15:21) you got to read them. It's wild. Like Speaker 3 (15:25) it's like they they think I'm bad. Like these people were like. just went straight to the heart of it like no sensitivity about respect to anyone involved it was it was interesting um very very harsh feedback um but yeah i mean i was talking to a lot of the brands that were involved so that's probably why it was coming up more for me than than Speaker 2 (15:52) you um speaking Speaker 3 (15:55) of brands involved let's go Speaker 2 (15:58) through the shows Speaker 3 (16:00) Do you want to just should we just kind of run through them or do you want to pick out some of your favorites or how do you want? How do you want to go for it? Speaker 1 (16:10) However you want. We can start at the beginning. I definitely have favorites, but I'm sure we'll get to them. Speaker 3 (16:14) Yeah, I think we should. I think we should start with Prada and skirts because it really did sort of lead the conversation for the week. You didn't an entire newsletter about skirts. I'm sure it's not the first time, but. it kind of set the tone. And I wrote that I feel like fashion month really starts with Prada in some ways. And that's even the case when Prada is on Thursday. But now that it's going to be on Tuesdays, I think they might keep that slot. It's going to set the tone for the whole week. And I love Milan because it really does tell