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🎙️ New on the Back Row podcast: StyleZeitgeist founder Eugene Rabkin joined me to review the industry’s disastrous third-quarter reports, and attempt to answer the question: can designers save fashion? A teaser is free to watch/listen to on YouTube, Spotify, and Apple Podcasts.
The full episode, including our discussion of Vogue World and Hermès’s suburban sprawl, is available to Back Row Premium subscribers on Spotify and Apple Podcasts.
Loose Threads
Coperni will shut down after 11 years in business since it failed to reach an agreement with its majority shareholder and distributor Tomorrow Ltd. Turns out runway stunts (spraying fabric onto a nearly nude Bella Hadid on a runway, casting Kylie Jenner to walk at a show in Disneyland) aren't the key to longevity.
A board in Bangladesh agreed to increase garment worker wages after days of protests, though it's not clear by how much. Owing to a higher cost of living, workers have been demanding an increase in the monthly minimum from 12,500 taka ($102) to 30,000 taka ($244).
Celebrity hairstylist John Freida, who came up with the Purdey cut for Joanna Lumley in the 70s and whose brand makes damn good drugstore shampoo and conditioner, died at 75 years old.
EBY started its Black Friday sale early. I will vouch time and again for the comfort and durability of this bra, also available as a set with undies.
Here's Anna Wintour looking joyous at home on her 77th birthday.
Democratic superstars like Jon Ossoff and James Talarico have been fundraising in Hollywood circles, but trying not to publicize it. Noting that celebrities were not part of the campaign strategy this election cycle, one political consultant in LA told Page Six's Ian Mohr "It was a repudiation of Hollywood."
Which tees us up for today's big story…
The Impossible ‘Vogue’ Cover the Internet Loves
As the blue tsunami crashed ashore Tuesday night, this AI cover of Vogue made the rounds on Instagram.
Featuring NYC Mayor Zohran Mamdani, President Obama, Senator-elect Abdul El-Sayed, Senator-elect James Talarico, and Sen. Jon Ossoff, it racked up tens of thousands of likes across a slew of accounts. The mockup is a natural extension of the Ossoff thirst content that gave way to El-Sayed thirst content that gave way to general Democratic candidate and blue tsunami thirst content that’s now subsuming many of our feeds.
After more than ten years of Trump, a Democratic bench stacked with young, articulate candidates — fresh faces, in fashion parlance — who can defeat Republicans and competently lead us into a new era of politics is intoxicating. Particularly when Republican leaders are, quite literally, barely sentient. Still, that doesn’t entirely explain the appeal of this fake cover, which went more viral (and felt more relevant) than Vogue covers usually do.
The image is essentially Vogue thirst content — a fantasy of what Vogue and fashion could be after Vogue ceded (digital) cover real estate to Lauren Sánchez Bezos and LVMH vomited clothes all over the Trumps and their associates at the inauguration in 2025.
There’s also something deeply ironic about this AI cover, which delivers exactly what the audience wants — and which Vogue could simply never deliver now.
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