[00:00:00] Speaker A: Foreign.
Hello and welcome back to Label Queen. All of my label queens out there again. Big thank you so much. I have some happy and sad news. This is my last podcast for season one.
However, season two is coming back early February and, and I'm rounding out and ringing up all the guests now. So it's, it's going forward. My intention was always to do 10 episodes and then to come back in February. So happy to do it. We, we made it 10 episodes and all of you have been so fantastic. A lot of comments of people really, really liking the fashion content. Of course, that's kind of, you know, my space.
And today is no exception. We are ending on a high with an incredible insider, journalist, reporter, author, the whole nine.
Someone who's very, very, very in it. I wanted to start by talking about the industry in general. I think it's a time in fashion that I've never seen before. And I've been doing this for many, many, many, many years on all sides. And I've never seen the industry in such, I don't want to say turmoil. I don't think turmoil is the right word.
Such a state of change, such a state. A bit of uncertainty with retail, publishing, designers at the house, the musical chairs of designers, as everyone is talking about.
And for me, it's interesting in that, like I said, I've never seen this before.
However, really what it means to me is there's a lot of distraction, there's a lot of look over here. And we talk about that in the podcast. And what I've come to realize is that through all of these years of covering fashion, from retail to being a creative director to journalists, to interviewing designers, I've always been focused on the, you know, what is in front of me, what's coming down the Runway and how important is that. And the older I get, the more I'm realizing I'm more interested in the what it means, not the, the what it is, but what it means.
And I've been going in that direction for, for a few seasons now. And I think the longer that you're in it and the more you have a history and a sense of reference, as it were.
It's important when you talk about fashion because it's very easy to just sort of get caught up in the, oh, that's cute, or I would buy that, or I won't buy that.
But it's a, as we know, a multi billion dollar industry.
And there's a lot to talk about within how it shapes not only culture, but how it affects, really all of us. And we all know that to be true.
So for my highs and lows, instead of focusing on film or television or documentaries, I decided to talk about the highs and lows in fashion books that I particularly love. And these are books that I think are really important.
Of course there's a million come for me in the comments.
Email
[email protected] and tell me what you think.
But I wanted to talk a little bit about the highs and lows. I'm going to start with the low because this is going to sound ridiculous because I haven't seen or read this yet, but I love the idea of it. It is a book that comes out in the end of November in 2025. It is called the Encyclopedia of Ugly Fashion, a hilarious introspective of history's best and worst fashion trends. What I love about this as a low is not that I hope. I mean listen, I'm hoping that this book is great. What I love is it sort of is funny and I like of course taking the piss out of fashion or anything because we cannot take ourselves too seriously.
But here's what this this book is about. Revel in the bad decisions of others with this collection of history's most bizarre fashion trends that will leave you asking who would even wear this? Listen, I say that a lot when I'm at fashion shows. Featuring historical context and illustrations pulled directly out of the past. Fashion historian and influencer Carolina Zabrowska. Hope I got that right. Appraises each look with an equal amount of thoughtfulness and humor. So important to have humor in this. I do love that this is being tied back into historical references. I think that's so, so great. From 16th century German hat shaped like plates to the 1950s bullet bra. This unique capsule not only uncovers the intention behind these kooky, sometimes oppressive, always outrageous trends, but theorizes how they all went so horribly wrong. Perfect for fashion fanatics, history buffs and everyone in between. So this is a little bit of a preview. I'm putting it in a low because it's dealing with the ugly side of fashion. I hope it's great and can't wait to see slash read it. Okay, my highs.
So these are three books that I think are so important to have in your fashion library. These are not coffee table books per se, so in a sense they they are reference books but but also really just well reported documentations of fashion. The first is Terry Agins and it's called the End of Fashion.
It's was written in 1999 by journalist Terry Agins from the Wall Street Journal. Now, I've known Terry for a long time. This book again is very, very prescient of what was happening not only in the 90s, but what fashion would become.
She chronicles the dramatic shift in the fashion industry from a designer driven elite business to one dominated by mass marketing and consumer demand.
As a reporter for the Wall Street Journal, Agans offers an insider look at how power transitioned from couturiers to everyday shoppers.
So really what this book does is it chronicles everything that we talk about, every place that we are now, from what used to be the designers really sitting atop of ivory tower, kind of saying what it was and how marketing and the consumer kind of took that back and what it meant to the industry at large.
Again, 1999. So it's going to feel a little bit not dated, but a little bit like, but so important because it does directly affect everything we're dealing with. Now the second book is completely different. It is called Believe it or Not, Fredericks of Hollywood 1947-1973. 26 years of mail Order Seduction.
I love this book. I recommend this book for any, every designer, every stylist, anybody who's interested in fashion.
It's the main book associated with Fredericks of Hollywood, which was, as you may or may not know, a very sexy sort of underwear catalog coming out of Hollywood.
And this is just a compilation of all of these vintage catalogs. It serves as a visual history of the company's early years. Now this is where it gets interesting.
Frederick Mellinger, the founder, he doesn't have a widely known autobiography, but there are articles and historical pieces detailing his life and the rise of his company. Why I think this is so fascinating to me, this is a fantastic movie that needs to be made. Fredericks of Hollywood was almost, I mean, some probably would consider it very risque, if not bordering on a little too far.
What I love about this book though is it chronicles what fashion and style look like in the 40s all the way to the 70s. So you see a real change in silhouettes, in how we dress, in everything from makeup and hair, celebrities that were being emulated. It's just a great book. Seek it out. I know you can find it.
It's really truly one of my favorites. And then the last book is Gods and the Rise and fall of Alexander McQueen and John Galliano. This was written in 2015 by Dana Thomas, somebody who we're going to meet very soon. The book explores the creative genius and the tragic downfalls of two highly influential fashion designers. This book is so important because beyond the creative genius of these two people, it also predicts and talks about kind of the state of where we are now with luxury fashion and how those conglomerates of the Gucci Group and LVMH and caring how they all collided and sort of tried to one up and just, you know, it's as much a business book as it is a creative book. It is fantastic. It spawned a fantastic miniseries or sort of streaming series that if you can find it, please, please seek it out. Is so good.
And that brings me directly to my guest.
So here we go.
My favorite part of the pod.
She is an American fashion and culture journalist. She's an author, she's a podcast host known for her investigative reporting on the luxury and fast fashion industries. This is very important. She's based in Paris where we talk to her from. She has written for prestigious publications for decades and is a vocal advocate for sustainable practices in the apparel industry. And I do pin her down on that. It's a very, very tricky subject to talk about within fashion. Early in her career. She began her journalism career in 1988 at the Washington Post writing for the style section. She then spent 15 years in Paris working as a cultural and fashion correspondent for Newsweek starting in 1995. That's probably when I met her. Her writing has been featured in the New York Times, the Wall Street Journal, the New Yorker, Vogue, Harper's Bazaar and the Financial Times. I'm sure many more. She also hosts and produced the Green Dream, an award winning podcast focused on sustainability and human rights.
She has books galore. She's written.
Oh well, hold on. She also wrote the screenplay for the 2020 documentary Shoemaker of Dreams about the Ferragamos, which premiered at the Venice Film Festival and was directed by none other than Luca Guadagnino. And her books include the Price of Fast Fashion and the Future of Clothes. The which also has a very interesting subplot to it, the Gods and Kings, which I mentioned, the Rise and fall of Alexander McQueen and John Galliano in 2015 and Deluxe how luxury lost its luster in 2007.
My guest is the incomparable and insightful Dana Thomas. Stay tuned.
Dana, I am so grateful and thankful that you're joining me, especially at this time, this bizarre, weirdest time in fashion.
Thank you so much for taking the time. I know we're in the middle of the season and I wanted to kind of check in and get your temperature, your read.
And before we start that, I just wanted to know globally, what is your take on the industry at large, writ large at the moment?
[00:12:33] Speaker B: Ah, now there's a big question.
[00:12:34] Speaker A: There's a big one.
[00:12:35] Speaker B: So there's a big one. I think that we're in a very tricky place right now. I'm seeing two different things happening, not just in the runways, but in business in general. We have the big groups, and we have the independents. And sadly, we lost one of the last great independents earlier this month with Giorgio Armani. And the groups have really worked on making. You know, we see the impact of things like algorithms on design now. Like, it's not just focus groups and marketing and paying attention to what's selling and not selling. It's more than that. And so we're seeing kind of weird fashion that doesn't always have a human touch to it, or if it does, it's like tweaking human touch. And we're seeing a lot of recycling of stuff that. I mean, like, everyone was going bananas yesterday about the parachute coats and gowns at Saint Laurent, and how many times have we seen parachute coats and gowns, you and me? We've seen it a lot. And they're acting like they've never seen it before because there's also. That's the other part of it. Part two is there's a whole new young generation of writers, reporters, retailers. Not retailers necessarily, but influencers, commentators who don't have the history they don't have. And it's not just simply because they're young. They also just kind of don't think they're such a. In such a digital world where everything's now, now, now, now, now.
[00:13:58] Speaker A: Right.
[00:13:58] Speaker B: That they think that, you know, 2018 was a long time ago and that nothing happened before the year 2000.
[00:14:06] Speaker A: Right.
[00:14:06] Speaker B: And we're really seeing that in fashion, too. So I'm seeing, like, you know, Demna to re. Redoing a shoe that Tom did, and I'm like, I have that shoe.
[00:14:16] Speaker A: Well, you bring up.
[00:14:18] Speaker B: Or, you know, and nobody's clocking it. And I'm like, I wish somebody would do their homework. Or, you know, Demna doing Jackie Kennedy coats. And nobody's calling that, you know, that looks just like what Audrey Hepburn wore by Givenchy and Charade. Like, nobody's saying this because they don't have the. They don't have the history. They don't have the context. They're not. There's context is missing. And the third thing that I find very upsetting and disturbing is that we've gotten away from the idea that Fashion can be about. Should be about beauty.
[00:14:49] Speaker A: Right, Right, right.
[00:14:50] Speaker B: Beauty is not in the mix anywhere. Every once in a while pops up and everyone starts swooning like, oh, my gosh. Louise Trotter's Boatega Vanette venitas show was. Was amazing. Why was it amazing? Because it was based and rooted in beauty, as opposed to being fierce and cool and hard and hip and modern. And modern and modern beauty. Armani was about beauty. Pierre Paolo is about beauty. But it's like you can count on one hand the designers that actually care about and promote and design with beauty. Today I saw Peter Copping at Longvin Beauty. It was women looking beautiful.
And we're missing that. And we're not just missing it in fashion design, we're missing. And in Vincenz, we're missing it in culture. I mean, when Robert Redford and Giorgio Armani died this month, I was like, the world's a little less beautiful.
[00:15:44] Speaker A: Well, you bring up a really interesting point for me, and you hit on a lot of things that I wanted to talk about, from Demna at Gucci to sort of these conglomerates. And I'm sort of describing it as the bubble within the bubble of the bubble. We are inside the bubble of the bubble. And I feel like what's happening is the conglomerates, the big companies that you've written about, I think a lot, a lot, and really beautifully have gotten to the point where they've actually forgotten a. That the world at large doesn't really know about the bubble. So there's a disconnect between exactly what. What you're saying. The beauty, the sort of desire. I think desire is a huge part of this desire and also sensuality. Correct, correct, correct. Allure.
So within this season in particular, and it's been written about, and I feel like you and I are really poised to talk about this. I have Never, in my 30, 35 years of covering fashion, have seen a season where there is so much change.
So many, so much change. And then we got the news yesterday that Sylvia Fendi was. Was leaving Fendi. So.
[00:17:00] Speaker B: And that. And then. And the people who are slated to look take over are all men.
[00:17:04] Speaker A: Right.
[00:17:05] Speaker B: More men.
[00:17:05] Speaker A: Right, right. Although I have heard Maria Grazia in the mix of that which.
[00:17:09] Speaker B: But the others were men.
[00:17:12] Speaker A: Exactly. And I think that. Let's sort of.
[00:17:14] Speaker B: No offense to you, my dear, but.
[00:17:16] Speaker A: You know, listen, I'm sick of it. I think, you know, it shouldn't be news that a female creative director is taking over the house of a major brand. That should not be news.
[00:17:25] Speaker B: Especially one that was founded by a woman. Like, why didn't Chanel hire a woman?
[00:17:28] Speaker A: Right.
[00:17:29] Speaker B: I love Peter Copping at Lanvin, but there was an opportunity to hire a woman. It was a house founded by a woman.
[00:17:34] Speaker A: Exactly. So I think that this season in particular is filled with turmoil. Unknown. And I wanna point to two things. Cause I don't think you and I have the same reaction to Versace.
So I want to go by saying that the Versace debut was shocking in many ways. And for me, as I'm starting to get, well, getting older, covering fashion, I'm less interested in the what it means as opposed to the why it means. And for me, the Versace debut was a little bit like Alessandro at Gucci that first season where everybody was like, what is this? Why is this? And it meant so much. And I'm not putting the two on the same level, but I do think that in terms of these debuts, this Versace debut was so shocking in its departure that it actually sort of made news and set the tone for the prodification of this kind of. This company. What was your take on that Versace debut?
[00:18:46] Speaker B: Well, at first I thought it looked like J. Crew and somebody else said, no, it was Benetton. And then I started thinking about it. In fact. No, you know what it was? It was Versus. Do you remember Versus?
[00:18:56] Speaker A: Yes, of course.
[00:18:57] Speaker B: Versus was the. Was the sort of young bridge line jeans. And it was younger and hipper and kind of catering to more streetwear as opposed to sexy high fashion.
And this collection felt like that. It felt very sort of streetwear younger. And once I figured that out, I was like, oh, he's turning towards verses rather than Gianni versace of the 1980s, which I loved. And I'm old enough to say that I knew fashion then. And those ad campaigns with all the supermodels, the Dickinson sisters and Kelly Emberg and Jerry hall shot by Avedon in the metal mesh dresses. Like, I found one. I'm gonna put my substitute newsletter this week where they're all lying on top of each other. It looks like it's a dressed orgy. I mean, it was hot, right? It was hot. This collection was not hot. It was not hot.
But it.
He has an audience in mind.
And that's where I'm going back to the algorithms and the. And the young.
A young. A new young audience that doesn't have the references to Johnny versace in the 1980s at all.
And so he's catering to them. And it might work, but then again, it might not. I already hear that he. As soon as Pradda finishes taking over the company, he's likely on his way out. Like they're cycling him out. But this is coming from an inside Versace source.
[00:20:27] Speaker A: Well, I think that you also kind of said to it you sort of, you know, I don't think you can do Versace without sexy.
And that doesn't mean that sexy needs to be tight. It doesn't need to be half naked, but it has to be, you know, back to beauty, back to desire. Sexy can be redefined. And this for me just was not a sexy collection.
[00:20:49] Speaker B: No, it was not. There was a lot of skin, those little tank toppy things and stuff, but they weren't sexy. They were kind of like what somebody wears when they're, you know, working on a car.
[00:20:58] Speaker A: I don't know.
I want to go to your garage. I love that.
[00:21:03] Speaker B: You know what I mean? Like sort of an old T shirt that you've sliced off the sleeves and it's gotten out of shape and it wasn't sexy. It wasn't sexy.
[00:21:12] Speaker A: All right, so then let's talk about the hype surrounding Demna and that Gucci debut, which was a little bit of a surprise. Done. Of course. I think more through a marketing campaign than an actual collection.
To your point, the eyes of people thinking that it was fantastic. And I thought it was the most sort of lookbooky, boring, cut and paste collection. And for me, I was highly disappointed. I think that.
[00:21:42] Speaker B: Well, you know, it's.
[00:21:44] Speaker A: Go ahead.
[00:21:44] Speaker B: My husband. My husband was the best reviewer of all.
[00:21:47] Speaker A: Oh, good.
[00:21:47] Speaker B: I showed him the picture of the blue coat. He said he's French. And he said, safait, concierge.
[00:21:54] Speaker A: Translate it for our American.
[00:21:57] Speaker B: It's giving concierge.
[00:21:59] Speaker A: Yeah, yeah.
[00:22:00] Speaker B: Now this isn't a time where we don't even say concierge anymore. We say Guardian. Right. So this is like, it's sort of retro. It's what the concierge thinks is fashion when she basically has no taste.
[00:22:13] Speaker A: Yeah.
[00:22:13] Speaker B: And she sweeps the court, she sweeps the courtyard and sorts the mail, like, and then she puts on her coat to go to church. Like, it is bad. So I thought, you know, here's. I'm going to tell a little story. I've written this in my newsletter over the years. Once or twice in substack when I was working on Fashionopolis, I would go to the library on Sundays just to like get out of the house. But knew I needed to work. Right. So let's change it up and go to the American Library of Paris and sit down. And there was this young woman who was paging through all of the vogues from the 1980s and the 1990s and all the Harper's Bazaar, successive Sundays in a row, just taking the volumes down, paging through them. And when she saw something she liked, she took a phone picture of it.
And I thought, oh, she's doing research and she's going to go to the office tomorrow and then she's going to say, look at this piece by Jeffrey Bean from 1986. Should we do this and tweak it a bit, make it ours? And damn. His collection felt exactly like that. And he took some of Alessandra McKelly's. He took some Tom Ford and he barely. And he took some Givenchy, and he took some Saint Laurent from Belle du Jour, and he took some Ole Cassini, and he barely even tweaked some of it. Like there is a shoe that is a line for line repro of something Tom did. Right now we love Tom. So if you're. I mean, I'm not gonna go down on, you know, get upset with anybody who wants to do reproductions of Tom Ford Gucci. I still have my original Tom Ford Gucci. And every time I wear it or my daughter wears it, everyone's like, that's so good.
So maybe that's the solution, is that they shouldn't have a designer, so they should just take the Tom collections and cycle them through again because everyone's still wearing stuff from the 90s anyway. And it's hot.
[00:24:00] Speaker A: Yeah, and there's that word again.
[00:24:02] Speaker B: We want hot.
[00:24:04] Speaker A: Hot. I mean, for me, it's more like, why are we doing this when it can be a film, when it can be released on Instagram, the algorithm, like you said, when it can be shown in a way that is.
Whatever. Non traditional. You wrote the book Fashionopolis. And there's two things about that book that I think are fantastic. One is. Well, the first is. I didn't realize it was. Also, there's a children's or a younger version of that book. Has that ever been done before in the history of books where you're sort of like, I'm gonna speak to this audience, but this material is so rich that it needs to be go to a younger audience.
Who came up with that? Was that you or. Huh.
[00:24:50] Speaker B: Smart. It's a. It's a Young Reader's Edition imprint in the. In the Penguin Group. Dial Books.
[00:24:56] Speaker A: Dial.
[00:24:56] Speaker B: But see, there's a little Penguin.
[00:24:58] Speaker A: Yeah. Yeah. Well, first of all, to Me that.
[00:25:00] Speaker B: Yeah. And they're teaching it in schools.
[00:25:02] Speaker A: Yeah.
Yes. Because that, to me, is the actual, you know, solution to sustainability. So this leads me to a really difficult question and something that I have kind of wrestled with my entire time in fashion.
Can sustainability actually exist within fashion?
Yeah, talk me through that because.
Go ahead.
[00:25:29] Speaker B: Here I am, I'm wearing a suit by Stella McCartney that's made from wool that comes from farms that are where the animals are treated well.
[00:25:39] Speaker A: Right.
[00:25:40] Speaker B: So because they say happy sheep make better wolf in and.
And I've had this suit already, I don't know, four or five years. I wear all the time. So that's making it sustainable already. Right. Like, this isn't something I've worn seven times and thrown away like the average garment today.
[00:25:54] Speaker A: Yeah.
[00:25:55] Speaker B: And then this little shirt is made with Echo Neil, I think, which is a recycled nylon, usually from old fishing nets. Not always, but old fishing nets that are found in the sea. They go and collect them and then they recycle them and turn it into fabric or like used hotel carpeting. The owner of Echo Neal said, do you know how much carpeting is found in hotel and office carpeting that just gets ripped up because it's so trash. And we turn it into bathing suits, you know, like, we turn it back into nylon and then it's your new bathing suit. So in that regard, yes, there can be sustainability. But the biggest problem facing us in this, there's two big problems in sustainability. Trying to make sustainable fashion. The first one is that two thirds of our clothes are still made from polyester, which is petroleum based plastic clothes. And they never biodegrade and they do leach. When we put them in the landfill, they leach in toxins into the earth. And we're drilling for oil to make that fabric. And do we really need polyester? No, we don't need polyester. The only reason we use it is because it's cheap and so you can have more higher profits.
And the second and the biggest problem is volume. There's just way too much volume. And the fast fashion companies in particular, but not only the fast fashion companies, base their business model on moving volume and big volume. And it's like I said, it's not. It's luxury companies do it too. It's about volume and trying to just move as much product as possible.
And it's not simply sunglasses and cosmetics and perfumes, though that is a lot of the business. And that was something I found really admirable about Giorgio Armani. You know, his name is, as you know, well known brand as Chanel and Hermes and Louis Vuitton, wouldn't you say? Worldwide, he was doing one tenth the revenue that those brands are doing. His company did $2.3 billion a year in sales last year. And that includes L' Oreal Beauty's line and Excelsior, all the glasses and all that. So the fashion business was actually kind of small.
Vuitton, Chanel and Hermes do 20 billion a year.
So that just shows you that there are big business. You know, there are businesses in luxury that are basing on volume too. It's volume. And as long as we are overproducing and over consuming, we'll never have a sustainable industry.
You know, if we stopped making clothes today, we would have enough clothes on, new clothes on the planet to wear and be dressed in something new every day until 2050.
[00:28:29] Speaker A: Yeah. Well, thank you. And I agree with everything you said and I love that the book is reaching younger readers because every young designer that I speak to, whether it's at a college or even high school level, sustainability is the number one thing that they are concerned with, that they bring up. And it's, for me, it's a sort of beacon of hope. So thank you.
[00:28:51] Speaker B: What we call the book, and you know what the healthiest and fastest growing segment of the business is, is resale. Vinted is an enormous company. And Vestiere is booming.
[00:29:01] Speaker A: Yep. As well it should be. I have worked with Vestiere. They are fantastic. So yes, they're fantastic. Yeah. Okay, so you brought up the other word that I want and you said it, not me, but you said the L word, luxury.
In 2007, you wrote the book Deluxe. How luxury lost its luster.
[00:29:23] Speaker B: Subject to this.
[00:29:24] Speaker A: To me, you have sort of a crystal ball because in almost 20 years ago, you were predicting the sort of bloom was off the rose of the, of the luxury business. What do you think you got right in 2007 and what has surprised you in 2025 in the luxury space?
[00:29:47] Speaker B: What did I get right? A lot of stuff. Basically that the business had pivoted from making beautiful product to making beautiful profits, that its raison d' etre was about making.
And they've only continued to prove that and that I don't believe that you can be a publicly traded company and actually produce anything luxurious because you're too busy answering to your shareholders as opposed to actually crafting really beautiful products. And that's not just in fashion, in anything.
I think that these are just two ideas that are, they clash, they don't work. And speaking of George Armani. So did Giorgio Armani. So.
[00:30:24] Speaker A: And then.
[00:30:26] Speaker B: But what I got wrong was I thought it would reach a tipping point and then it would stop.
And it did, briefly, because the book came out in 2007 and 2008. We had the global economic crisis because I could just feel that the whole engine, the go go engine of money and spending and everything was just reaching sort of like redlining on the odometer. Right. Like we were going to blow the engine.
Yeah, we did blow the engine. And people said, I predicted the. The 28. The 2008 crash. And I was like, well, if I did, my husband didn't realize it because he is in the finance world and he didn't see it coming.
And.
But.
So I thought there would come a point where the world was just like, we're so over the stuff. It's everywhere. It's in every airport. I mean, they're set. Push. They're. You're pushing it on you on EasyJet planes, right. Like that. We would reach to saturation point where, you know, I remember asking Eve Carcel at Louis Vuitton, when will you be happy?
I think the figure was 40% of all Japanese owned a Louis Vuitton product. And I said, when does do you reach the top? And he said, well, it's 100%. I said, and then he would be happy. He's like, no, no, because then we want them to own two Louis Vuitton products. I was like, oh, okay. It never stops, right? Like, will we get sick of it? And I thought it would. And then these businesses have quadrupled, quintupled in that time.
But it does seem like the brakes, there's.
Yeah, someone's pulling them. They're hitting the brakes now. Like, the Chinese certainly are. Like, maybe this. The stuff isn't as amazing as we thought. And, you know, Deluxe was a bestseller in China.
Well, listen, he still sells a lot in China.
[00:32:22] Speaker A: I think your crystal ball is absolutely true. And what I love about this is we actually do have the history now. You wrote it in 2007. We are today. I will go out on a limb and say we are headed to that sort of pump the brakes moment.
I do think that there's a lot.
[00:32:41] Speaker B: I think there is a tipping point.
[00:32:43] Speaker A: Yeah. And I think there's a lot of distraction right now that is kind of like, look over here, look over here. But there is a pump the brake moment.
[00:32:52] Speaker B: And I think that's one of the reasons that LVMH is now sponsoring the Formula one, because they're trying to reach different people that might not be. And they're doing it through different products like their champagne. They're non alcoholic champagnes in the Middle east. And watches in the hotels. They're trying to.
[00:33:10] Speaker A: It's smart, it's smart. But yes, I do think that there is a little pump the brake moment. I know you are off to a show, but I wanted to ask you a couple of quick questions. McCartney. Oh, you're going to Stella. Good.
Sustainable Queen.
[00:33:25] Speaker B: Sustainable Queen.
[00:33:26] Speaker A: There's something that maybe I'm wrong and you can tell me something that I've seen that I don't think I've ever seen in my career, which is we have three new prominent creative directors. Matthew Blasey at Chanel, Jonathan Anderson at Dior, and somebody else that I'm forgetting at the moment, but we've seen already there. Oh, Versace is a good example. Julia Roberts and Versace. Yeah. So Julia Roberts wearing that early look from Versace and a couple of people.
[00:33:56] Speaker B: At the Venice Film Festival.
[00:33:57] Speaker A: Correct. And a couple of people wearing Dior already. And a couple of Tilda Swinton wearing Chanel.
What do you think that strategy is and why? And we've never really seen that. So before these collections are released, we're already getting it. Talk to me, talk to me, talk to me.
[00:34:16] Speaker B: So here's where context and history comes in handy. As I noted in my book, Gods and the Rise and fall of Alexander McQueen and John Galliano, the first Dior by John Galliano was worn by Princess Diana at the Met Gala.
[00:34:30] Speaker A: Yep, yep.
[00:34:31] Speaker B: Two months before the first show.
[00:34:33] Speaker A: Yes. And I wanted to bring that up because I was at John's first Dior show. And I do think that, yes, I do think that we were. And I do think that the difference there is the hype of it all was not what it is today. I think that was a beautiful debut on Princess Diana. But I remember being sort of in the, not the showroom but in the store I think on the second floor. It was a very intimate presentation. Of course it grew and grew and grew. But those early, or that early particular one was not what it. So.
[00:35:08] Speaker B: But that was like a, that was like a, it was almost like a template then. You know, like let's put it on a celebrity at a big event and just trot out one and have the paparazzi take pictures. And then it ran in magazines and now it runs on social media like, like it, it's sort of like that amused bouche at the beginning of a three star Michelin meal. And that's what they're doing. And they're sort of teasing people, getting people excited.
I thought that Jonathan Anderson released some pictures of shoes he's designed for Dior. I'm like, why are we looking at shoes? This is a couture company. Massaro used to make Dior shoes.
[00:35:43] Speaker A: Do you think it helps?
[00:35:45] Speaker B: It's about just trying to drum up. It's hype. It's hype. It's hype.
[00:35:49] Speaker A: Yeah. Yeah, I think that's exactly what it is.
You brought up your book Gods and Kings, which in the beginning of this podcast I'm gonna talk about, because it's one of my top three books on fashion in New York at the moment. I don't know if you've seen it, but there is a play now about Leigh McQueen.
[00:36:08] Speaker B: Yeah, I've heard about it.
[00:36:10] Speaker A: It's not great.
It's not great. But I kept thinking about you because I was like, you know, listen, you've written a screenplay. You've written books. You're a journalist. I was like, dana needed to write this story. You know what I mean? And I'll leave it at that, because you need to see it. But it's not great. And you would have done an amaz.
I do. I want to bring it up.
[00:36:32] Speaker B: Something might happen one of these days when you keep your ears open.
[00:36:36] Speaker A: Okay. I like hearing that. I wanted to bring that up. And then I'll let you go, because everything, again, your crystal ball that you talk about in that book, not just between John and Lee and LVMH and caring and Gucci.
[00:36:54] Speaker B: Then Gucci group.
[00:36:55] Speaker A: Yeah, and then Gucci group. All of those things are. I feel like that you wrote about are a result now of what we're dealing with.
That was sort of the start of it, but we are dealing with the after effects, the hangover, the sort of ugliness of what that sort of rise to fame and the top of the heap was before I let you go. Just end with that. Like, did you know when you were writing about that what this world of fashion would become?
[00:37:33] Speaker B: I mean, yes and no. I had some ideas. I mean, part of that's being a reporter because you're out talking to people, so you get kind of ahead of the curve views on things because you're hearing them talking about it early on and.
And then you're putting it together all like. You're thinking about it and you're putting it all together and you're seeing. Seeing trends before they happen, or you can see what's coming down the road. But I was also a student of history. I studied politics, history, and communications, and I took so many history classes, I almost wound up with a minor in history.
And that's the beauty of studying history and reading history, is that you're taking all the things that happened in a line, you know, and then synthesizing it and telling a story about it, and you're figuring out what it really means and what it was leading to. And that's what I try to do with my books. But doing it in the here and now and saying, you know, these are the things that have just been happening or have happened in the last 10 years or 15 years, and how's this gonna play out?
Yeah, yeah, we're gonna see. But here's some ideas.
[00:38:38] Speaker A: Dana, thank you so, so much. I'm gonna end it there. I know you have a show to get to.
I want to thank you for your writing, your insightful way of sort of being in the moment on the story at the time, and also that this writing is so important because of the lasting effect of it. So I do want to thank you, because I don't think you're writing just for the now. I think you were writing for the future.
[00:39:06] Speaker B: That's what I've always tried to do, and I try to write for everyone and not for fashion people.
[00:39:11] Speaker A: Thank you. Because we're all horrible. Dana, thank you so much. I cannot wait to see you. I'm gonna see you very. Oh, actually, we're gonna be on the Cunard together.
[00:39:21] Speaker B: Let's just give it a little plug. The Queen Mary 2 crossing the Atlantic.
[00:39:25] Speaker A: I can't wait.
[00:39:26] Speaker B: Our own fashion love boat.
[00:39:27] Speaker A: I love that. And hopefully we can have a little chat like this on the. On the.
[00:39:33] Speaker B: That will be beautiful. I would love that.
[00:39:36] Speaker A: Thank you so much, Dana. Enjoy the rest of Fashion week.
[00:39:38] Speaker B: Acres away.
[00:39:39] Speaker A: Bye. Bon soir. Bye.
