London (Fashion Week) Calling

Fashion People

Host Lauren Sherman interviews filmmaker Taylor Scarabelli about her new short film, 'The Dress,' which satirizes the New York fashion world

Key takeaways

• Taylor Scarabelli's short film 'The Dress' premieres October 17th at the Downtown Festival.
• Donatella Versace is set to launch a new line with Revolve, potentially including beauty products.

Main topics

• Taylor Scarabelli's film 'The Dress'
• Revolve and Versace partnership

Notable quotes

I think he's really the right person to take a brand like that and just like tweak it and upgrade it.

Conclusion

The episode provides a high-level analysis of how leadership changes a

Transcript preview

Speaker 2 (0:04) Hello and welcome to Fashion People. I'm Lauren Sherman, writer of Puck's Fashion and Beauty Memo Line Sheet. And today with me on the show is writer and filmmaker Taylor Scarabelli. We're talking London Fashion Week, Dario Adarmani, Glenn leaving Diesel, and so much more. Happy Tuesday, everyone. Hope you are having a great week. By the time you listen to this, I will hopefully be in Milan. Speaker 2 (0:30) at Shop the Story trying on 1990s prod on Miu Miu and Calvin Klein as I said to frequent podcast guest and my friend Becky Malinsky today is hopefully Speaker 3 (0:43) going to be one of the greatest days of my life Speaker 2 (0:45) just like a lot of good stuff going on some of it I may be able to share on Friday I don't want to jinx it but um Today is also the Prada show, which I'm very excited about. And yeah, maybe by the time you listen to this, it will have happened. Vogue World is tonight. I am not going to Vogue World, but I will have a report anyway, obviously. Thank you to all the people going who have been sending me information. There is just a lot going on this week outside of the Milan shows, but I'll be covering those. And the Malik will be reporting from MetaConnect. So we'll have some smart glasses discourse. Does anyone wear these things? Please, please let me know. You also have an update on the Stephen Kolb situation. But let's get going with Taylor. We have lots to talk about. Speaker 2 (1:44) Taylor Scarabelli, welcome to Fashion People. Thank you, Lauren. Thank you for having me. I'm so happy you're here. We were just having a hilarious offline conversation where I was saying, like, I already pre-recorded the intro and I said your name correctly and that it was the first time I'd ever said your surname out loud and realized that it was like one of those surnames that's actually very simple. But for years, I was just like, oh, you know, Taylor Scarabelli. Speaker 3 (2:12) Can you say it with an Italian accent, though? Speaker 2 (2:15) Yeah. And then you told me what the Italians say your first name is. I Speaker 3 (2:20) have a silent E on the end of my name because my parents thought it was more feminine. But the Italians say Tellore. Tellore Scarabelli. Speaker 2 (2:30) Yeah. That's amazing. I love it. I think your name's so pretty. How's Speaker 3 (2:35) it Speaker 2 (2:35) going? Congrats. You had a big day today. Congrats on your short film launch. Tell me everything. How did this happen? What's it about? It seems very fashion coded. So yeah, so Speaker 3 (2:47) it's been a long work in progress. It basically started because I took an acting class with a friend of mine who had made a short film before. And we started writing something together. And I was like, well, if we're going to write this, I want to direct it too. And it just kind of turned into this side project I had for a couple of years. And now it's finally coming out. It's called The Dress. It's a short satire, like very New York fashion world. downtown. It's about a West Village influencer who is looking for a perfect dress for the TikTok Awards. So she decides that she's going to go to a downtown archive to go shopping. And it turns into a bit of a humiliation ritual for her. But in the end, she becomes liberated. So it's a really beautiful, heartfelt moment. I mean. Speaker 2 (3:43) I noticed a Mr. John Caramonica is in the film. Oh, Speaker 3 (3:47) yes. He does make a guest appearance. It's quite spectacular. Speaker 2 (3:52) I'm intrigued. Yeah, it's Speaker 3 (3:56) super fun. Speaker 2 (3:58) It sounds awesome. So where does it premiere? At the downtown festival? Yes, Speaker 3 (4:03) at the downtown festival. And I should add that Miss Clara Sullivan did the costumes. Speaker 2 (4:09) And Speaker 3 (4:10) all of the vintage archive was supplied by Gabriel Held. So that is the fashion angle for you. Speaker 2 (4:17) That's very cool. So when Speaker 3 (4:19) does it premiere? On October 17th. It's part of a short block. Okay. with a few friends of mine are also have films in it. Um, Kiernan knives, Francis, who is a great photographer and filmmaker. Um, and then my friend Lena green, who's also an animator. So it should be fine. And will it be also available to watch online? TBD. We'll see about that. I hope, I hope so. I think we can make it happen. Yeah. I'm Speaker 2 (4:48) so excited for you. Congratulations. Thank you. And Speaker 3 (4:50) such Speaker 2 (4:50) perfect timing because you were supposed to come on earlier and we had to rearrange it. And this ended up, this was, it was meant to happen. Sometimes I think I'm like Speaker 3 (5:00) a little bit psychic. Yeah. I had nothing to promote before. So this is good. Speaker 2 (5:04) No. Yourself, which is more than enough, Taylor. So we have a lot of, it's been a busy, a busy news week. Today. The news dropped that Donatella Versace is going to do a line for Revolve, which is, I think, a great idea. But I'm curious what you think about it. Speaker 3 (5:25) Yeah, I'm very intrigued because I just ran into Dion Lee the other day and he was kind of telling me about his experience working for them. Oh, yeah. Off the record, so I won't say anything, but like. Quite interesting how they're snagging these designers. They actually bought his company, his label, but they also started a new brand with him. Speaker 2 (5:48) And so Speaker 3 (5:49) I think it's quite smart because it is different from what he did before. And I'm curious to see what that looks like for Donatella. Totally. But I also wonder what is the beauty angle? Speaker 2 (6:03) Oh, did they say that they were going to have beauty too? I didn't even see that. Speaker 3 (6:07) I believe there's a big beauty angle there. Oh, Speaker 2 (6:10) interesting. Yeah. I'll need to do a little bit of reporting on that when we get off the phone. Yeah, I mean, I think look like I've known, I don't know if I've ever met Mike, but Michael, it's Mike and Michael, the co-CEOs and co-founders since. 2010 or so and I think the interesting thing that they've done a they have all these different so they also bought is it Alexander Vautier is that the other like the couturier yeah Speaker 3 (6:43) I don't know Speaker 2 (6:44) I think that's his name he's Paris based um Speaker 2 (6:51) Let me just make sure. I think they also bought that. Yeah. Alexandre, I believe, Vautier. It's V-A-U-T-H-I-E-R. Not as easy as Scarabelli. But they bought that, I think it was like an administration or something. And then they have, the other thing that they have is they've done like a lot of, they've done some joint ventures. And they also have these brands in-house. So like Elsa Hosk's brand, I don't know if she's still with them because it was being sold to the Greeds who were going to kind of manage it, but they would still do stuff with Revolve. And then also Pia Baranchini's line, LPA. is part of Revolve. And the other thing is they have, what the two Michaels have done is that they've always had, they have this woman, Raysa, who is their chief brand officer, and she's in all the marketing for the Donatella thing as well. And then they also have Divya, who's their chief merchandising officer. And I think what they've done really well is they are two men, but they've hired a lot of really high level women around them who are also the customer. So it's like, yes, they are really smart and understand retail and all that stuff. But they are part of the customer base and I think really understand what the customer wants. And the Revolve shares, I need to look and see if this announcement did anything. I highly doubt it because this would be... you know, to start a pretty small venture. But Revolve hasn't been, isn't beloved. It's a public company. It's not beloved on the market, even though it's... you know, a very, like they do pretty well, but public market just like kind of hates multi-brand retailers generally. But let's see if the shares went up today. Yahoo Finance Revolve. Yeah, I mean, Speaker 3 (9:06) when I think of Revolve too, it's like such a influencer targeted company and they've been so good at like being in the right places and on the right people. Totally. you know, launching their brands on big pop stars and things like that. And it makes sense. Speaker 2 (9:25) It makes Speaker 3 (9:25) sense for that. Like it's like hot dresses to go out at night. Speaker 2 (9:30) Exactly. Yeah. Their shares are up like 2 % today. Let's see year to date. Year to date, they're down 30%. Speaker 2 (9:42) last year down 10 but year to date so since January down 30 percent in five year they've probably been public for like they're down 70 percent over the last five years because they went public about five years ago so it's not it's a it's a it's a tough if you're a public company tough even if you like every Malik usually covers their earnings and it's like they're doing fine. And yet, I mean, it's not, it's a, the, the shares are, you know, in, in the twenties. So it's fine. Like, it's not like a penny stock or anything, but it is just interesting. It's a, it's an interesting business to be a public company, but yeah, I totally agree. Like it makes sense. It's the right customer to be for her to align with. And, and I think it's a nice, like she doesn't want to stop. She wants to keep doing stuff. And so it's a nice kind of next phase of that. That's a little different than, I don't know, working with a licensing firm or some random, like they'll have the infrastructure for her to scale it if it works. Yeah, and she'll have Speaker 3 (10:54) more influence than she would elsewhere. Totally. Or control. Yeah, Speaker 2 (11:00) yeah. It's a great, the one thing I did confirm is that the product group, who owns Versace, owns the archives. So, which is interesting. You know, the Prada group also, they own a lot of archives. They own a lot of, yeah. And also came up with the Galeano Zara thing because obviously LVMH owns the Galeano archives and the Dior, naturally. But it's an interesting thing when these really big designers start doing stuff for these other companies like... it's their design, so they're going to make what they want. It might look similar, but they can't actually reference specific, or use the archival pieces to reference. It's an interesting little... Speaker 3 (11:53) Sorry, this is an off topic, but what happened to Galeano Zara? Seems fine. Did it come out? It Speaker 2 (12:01) comes out soon. Speaker 3 (12:02) Okay. I've gotten Speaker 2 (12:04) some notes of people who have been like, if you search this on Zara, you can find it. And usually I am like really into that. But I was like, I actually don't think this is it. So I just kind of dropped it. But it will be soon. It's starting to... It'll be soon. And I do know people who have seen it who said that it's like real close. It's not fantasy Galeano. So I'm interested. Speaker 3 (12:37) Yeah. That's what I expected. Speaker 2 (12:39) Yeah. Yeah. And there's just so much interest in Galeano on the secondhand market right now that I'm curious to see what it looks like Speaker 1 (12:52) for sure. Speaker 1 (12:56) It was a gruesome discovery off a dirt road in Georgia. Speaker 2 (13:00) Hunters had found a body. Was it immediately clear to you that this woman had been murdered? Yes. Speaker 1 (13:06) But who was this mystery woman in the woods? That looks like Mindy. I'm Erin Moriarty, and from 48 Hours, this is The Woman in the Woods. I've never wanted to be wrong like this in my whole entire life. Follow and listen to The Woman in the Woods wherever you get your podcasts. On the subject Speaker 2 (13:30) of real clothes, what do you think about Dario going to Emporio Armani? Speaker 3 (13:39) I mean, I'm excited. I'm a big stan. I think that... I think there's like a point to be made of like whether or not he's going to be able to actually like re-strategize and like re-merchandise everything. And especially because I think like it, I think Armani is really interesting because they've been doing the same thing forever and ever and ever. And the house codes are so locked in. And when you have someone like Dario, who is really, I think kind of a master. stylist as much as he is a designer, you know, I think he's really the right person to take a brand like that and just like tweak it and upgrade it and make it desirable for now. I think he's shown, I think he's demonstrated that he's very good at that. But whether or not he's able to bring that vision across the board with like stores and everything. The way they do their runway shows, I think that'll impact how... how much he can like turn it around. Not that it needs to be turned around, but I think that, you know, they're trying to sell the company and they want to generate some hype and desire that, you know, isn't exactly there. Speaker 2 (15:00) Yeah. Yeah. It's, it's interesting because look like you want to talk about a tricky infrastructure. You look at Versace under Capri and pre like, and pre Capri group, like, Versace's infrastructure was wild. Like the amount of different entities and different things that those, now that's being streamlined extremely quickly under the operational savvy of the product group. But the fact that he was able to do so much with so little resources and look, he had a lot of support from the the executive team at Versace. They really wanted him to succeed. But even that, and Versace has a great atelier that he was able to use, but even all that, he had a lot of crap he had to deal with. Armani is similarly tricky from an infrastructure perspective. And on top of that, culturally, I think Speaker 2 (16:09) It's so different from Prada, where Dario spent most of his career at Prada and Mimu, that that part of it is interesting to me. Like, look, it's Italians and Italians. But like... It's a different world. And so that part of it, like, is does he just have a tremendous amount of grit and will he be able to use that grit and savvy to cut through like he did at Versace? I think so. And I have a lot of confidence. But I think