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I’ll have more coverage of the couture collections in Thursday’s Premium issue, but Matthieu Blazy received a standing ovation for his first couture effort for Chanel in Paris Tuesday. The clothes were largely sheer, and the model cast generationally diverse. Blazy said, “Women who are more mature bring a completely different dimension to my clothes… They are not just beautiful, they have lived, they are anchored, they have seen the world. I think it gives another dimension for the women who are going to buy the clothes, the idea that they can recognise themselves in something they see on the runway.” The Guardian reports that he asked the models to select something personal to incorporate into their outfit; Blazy said their choices were too “intimate” to reveal, though one model picked the word “kindness.”
Valentino Garavani’s funeral took place over the weekend and it may as well have been a red carpet event. Anne Hathaway was there, leading TMZ’s headline; Donatella Versace paid her respects in a sharp Valentino red suit while he was lying in state (she wore black to the funeral proper); and everyone from Tom Ford to François Henri-Pinault showed up.
Hamish Bowles recapped the funeral for Vogue, remarking, “It was strange to see Anna in black, for day — it rather took me aback.”
This week’s podcast includes analysis of where Chiara Ferragni goes with her public image and brand following her acquittal in Italian court. She attended the Schiaparelli couture show and this video of someone screaming her name wildly on her way in rather took me aback.
Kanye West took out a full-page ad in the Wall Street Journal to swear he’s neither Nazi nor anti-semite, claiming that a brain injury led to his bipolar disorder, which in turn led to his offensive behavior. Vanity Fair interviewed him about the ad over email, along with experts. Dr. Avinoam Patt, director of the Center for the Study of Antisemitism at New York University, pointed out, “I think what’s important to say is that the vast majority of people who have mental health issues, or specifically have bipolar disorder, don’t espouse antisemitic or racist ideas.”
Pat McGrath Labs was valued at $1 billion in 2018 — and it just filed for bankruptcy. The Business of Fashion notes, “After a succession of investor exits, that valuation sat closer to $174 million, as the brand suffered from significant debt, repeated layoffs and allegations of mismanagement.”
Anna Wintour, Lauren Sánchez, and the Death of Fashion’s Old Rules
It’s couture week in Paris. Viral moments include: Lauren Sánchez Bezos and Anna Wintour exiting a shared black car; Jonathan Anderson debuting his couture work for Dior, with John Galliano prancing about like a celebrated sage of the industry instead of one who suffered a justified downfall from that very house 15 years ago following vitriolic displays of antisemitism; Sánchez and her husband Jeff Bezos posing with Anderson and LVMH executives at that show; and, over at Schiaparelli, Daniel Roseberry showing clothes that sprouted horns, stingers, and snake teeth.
Roseberry explained his collection was inspired by a visit to the Sistine Chapel, but it also felt like an appropriately dark vision for a bleak moment. The reaction within the industry to Anna being chauffeured around Paris with Sánchez has been, largely, abject horror. Maybe they’re doing some Met Gala planning (Sánchez is very involved in the whole thing, from what I hear, and the museum is making special effort to praise her and Bezos whenever they come up in meetings). But many industry folks and onlookers seem to view their alliance as a sign of end times.
Anna and Galliano at the Dior show; the Bezoses at Dior and Schiaparelli. (Photos: Swan Gallet/WWD via Getty Images; Anthony Ghnassia via Getty Images; Pierre Suu via Getty Images.)
The rub is twofold. First, Anna has a history of cozying up to people who seem at odds with her professed values. Anna is a Democratic fundraiser and supporter; Bezos and Sanchez sat front and center at Trump’s inauguration. Anna professes to be a champion of liberal causes like DEI; Amazon, in which Bezos still owns around $225 billion in stock, dialed back those efforts preceding Trump 2.0. Anna called Vogue Germany’s 2024 cover featuring 102-year-old Holocaust survivor Margot Friedländer “brilliant and inspiring”; yet she’s so committed to Galliano that she’s still, according to my sources, holding out hope that the Met can do a Costume Institute exhibition on him. (I’d argue that Galliano did not seem remorseful for his antisemitic tirades in that image-rehabilitating documentary on him, which Condé Nast helped produce.)
Second, Anna has been lionized her whole career for her snobbery. She became a celebrity for having standards so exacting that they became comedic gold in The Devil Wears Prada. Her Starbucks order is one thing. But more importantly, for the leader of the fashion industry, is her taste in matters of style. She turned Vogue into her vision of class. Many would agree that, throughout the majority of her tenure running the magazine, it was tasteful. And many still felt like she broke with that taste level when she put Kim Kardashian on the cover in 2014 and brought her into the Vogue inner circle.
The same thing is happening again with Sánchez. Paling around with her violates the two things people want to be true about Anna — that she possesses unshakeable progressive values and is an arbiter of exacting standards of taste. It emphasizes that in fashion, as elsewhere in society, tech billions make the world go ‘round. Former Met Gala planner Stephanie Winston Wolkoff told me when reporting Anna: The Biography that no amount of money used to be able to buy someone a seat at the Met Gala. Though that principle was not generally so outwardly stated, people understood it to be true. It was the underpinning of the whole thing — tune into the Met Gala, and you will bear witness to the ultimate manifestation of fashion and taste.
But now? Maybe you can just buy your way into the gala and this industry writ large without the style and panache — or, if you were a member of the middle class, hard work starting in an assistant job — that used to be a prerequisite for entry.
It’s a strange group of overlapping circles — Anna Wintour, Lauren Sánchez, John Galliano, Dior, Jonathan Anderson, couture. I wouldn’t have thought five years ago this is what we’d be watching at couture week —Galliano’s rehabilitation complete enough that Anderson and Dior felt secure telling the press that Galliano, Anderson’s childhood idol, served as the genesis of the entire display. (Anderson asked him to meet when he started at Dior, and Galliano brought him a bouquet of cyclamen, which inspired the whole show.)
Vogue’s review of Anderson’s show pointed out that Dior will open “Dior Villa, a new VVIC shopping salon.” VVICs like Sánchez — and whoever may have enough money to follow.
