Vogue World Milano wrapped moments ago and if you're still confused about what it is: it's live video for Vogue to clip for social media and also sell ads against. This time, sponsors included eBay (which I hear is one of Vogue's biggest advertisers these days), Alo Yoga, and — everyone's favorite (sarcastic) — Meta Glasses! I think we can all agree this was a real missed opportunity for Pepperidge Farm and its iconic cookie style, the Milano. 

Here are the glasses in an opening commercial played during the livestream a.k.a. proof that Mark Zuckerberg did not ebecause he had an itch to get dressed up.

Moving along. Some of the fashion was fun. I like how they include a mix of new and old clothes, like Prada’s spring 2011 banana print. Some of the models danced as they walked the long runway in the Galleria Vittorio Emmanuele II, which was also notable. 

However, nothing was as notable as the squad of robots that walked the runway toward the end. Watching the rich celebrities in the front row whoop it up for them made for a real Hunger Games sort of tableau. 

And then you had Valentino designer Alessandro Michele, dressed like he was just stopping by a networking event after work and couldn't quite comprehend what he was looking at. 

Since Condé Nast CEO Roger Lynch has previously expressed his comfort with ragebait, in the context of Jeff Bezos and Lauren Sánchez paying for the Met Gala, maybe he and his fellow execs are fine with the robots drawing ire here once more. It will help them rack up online impressions for Meta, at least.

Before the event, Vogue riled up Instagram commenters with an expensive-looking, highly produced Vogue World ad featuring AI-generated imagery and starring model Vittoria Ceretti. In a reel, Brett Staniland awarded the ad "AI slop of the week" and pointed out the obvious disconnect between Vogue claiming this event would "highlight ways in which the time-honored practice of making clothing has changed" and "celebrat[e] the irreplaceable power of human invention." 

Once again, this was a giant missed opportunity for grocery store cookies that — don't @ me — everyone loves. Instead, Vogue distracted from some great fashion and a great runway cast with scary technology that, an abundance of research tells us, Americans do not like.

And Vogue won’t stop here. Vogue World's next stop, we learned last month, is San Francisco. 

In news that will disappoint, well, almost no one reading this, Shein's market cap is down following its Hong Kong IPO. The IPO price was set at $26.5 billion, but Shein ended its first day trading at $24 billion after shares fell around 10 percent. If $26.5 billion sounds high, consider that in 2022 its valuation was around $100 billion. 

However, while it is not sad that investors might not be making as much as expected from this company, we can't exactly write the end of the Shein story just yet. Though its valuation has decreased nearly 80 percent since 2022, the company is much bigger today. Sales increased from $23 billion in 2022 to $41.8 billion in 2025. Apparel sourcing expert Sheng Lu, director of fashion and apparel graduate studies at the University of Delaware, told me the valuation is down because Shein maxed out its market and doesn't have a growth story to tell investors.

"Their current consumer base, somehow, is already kind of saturated. Even our students feel fatigue — 'I love Shein. I still shop there, but there's only so much I can purchase from there,'" he said. To grow, they're trying to find new market segments. This explains Shein's acquisition spree, including Missguided, Forever 21, and Everlane. 

"Shein is a little bit opportunistic. Shein always purchases these brands when these brands are in financial trouble. Shein has cash — this is its unique advantage," he said. (The IPO helps with that.)

However, Lu added, "They're not satisfied with just being low-end or mass market." This explains why they opened a store in Paris, a global fashion capital: to send the message that they're more than use-twice-and-trash $5 tank tops. 

Everlane may be the most upmarket brand Shein has acquired yet, but who knows what other distressed assets it might ferret out of the fashion calendar or some private equity portfolio. 

Let's take a minute to assess the lay of the land in fashion right now. Former Givenchy designer Clare Waight Keller is the global creative director of Uniqlo. Former Dior and Margiela designer John Galliano has a Zara line coming out this month. Former NYFW headliner Reed Krakoff is making denim handbags for the Gap. Zac Posen leads creative direction at Gap and Old Navy. Former Marni designer Francesco Risso designs for GU, owned by Uniqlo parent company Fast Retailing. These aren't one-offs, like Karl Lagerfeld trying to enjoy a moment of irony by doing a single collection with H&M, but yearslong partnerships.

And now, Donatella Versace will launch a fashion and beauty brand (or "joint venture") with Revolve, the internet's go-to retailer for going-out tops, see-through Coachella pants, and too-sexy wedding guest dresses. It makes sense from a positioning standpoint, given that Versace knows her way around revenge dressing. 

The new business partners released the following black-and-white photo of HRH Donatella, sandwiched between Raissa Gerona, Revolve's president of brand and partnerships, and Michael Mente, co-founder and co-CEO of Revolve. The lighting and intensity of their gazes really reminds you of their shared passion for thigh-high slits.

We know very little about the brand so far — the name and initial batch of products, per Vogue, will come out in 2027. Revolve isn't as downmarket as Uniqlo, but it's more downmarket than Versace, which pushed out Donatella in 2025 after nearly 30 years. If high-end designers are increasingly going mass, and brands like Shein are increasingly trying to be fancy, we are living through fashion's Upside Down.

Following his physical altercation with PETA protesters at the Cos show at New York Fashion Week, Steven Kolb has resigned from his position as president and CEO of the Council of Fashion Designers of America. This seemed inevitable after his leave was announced earlier in the week. The resignation was announced late on Friday, surely to minimize the coverage. People in the industry are still stunned by the footage, which drew exponential attention to PETA and resulted in a rash of stories about the wool supply chain their protesters were demonstrating against. 

A handful of protesters infiltrated the H&M runway at London Fashion Week Thursday night. Probably owing to the Kolb incident, H&M did not have them forcefully removed from the runway. Security appeared to gingerly suggest, by way of outstretched arms, that protester Josie Knowles leave the stage after a good long sashay. She has since gone viral for her walk.  

Billionaire Amy Griffin's story has been in doubt since the New York Times investigated claims she made in her memoir, The Tell, chronicling horrific childhood rape she said she recovered memories of through MDMA therapy. Griffin didn't speak to the Times when the story came out about a year ago. But she has sued her old classmate, Joleen Altum. Altum previously sued Griffin, alleging Griffin stole her story of sexual abuse for the book. Griffin now alleges Altum defamed her. 

New York magazine’s new story, by Jessica Bennett, is worth a read. Griffin has endless money to throw at lawyers and PR people and is determined to be believed. Bennett writes, "Though experts agree that it’s possible for people to recall, with basic accuracy, events they haven’t thought about in a long time, recovered memories can also be unreliable, and they have notoriously led, in some high-profile cases, to false accounts of childhood sexual abuse. As for MDMA, though it’s been studied as a treatment for PTSD for more than 20 years, it’s still far better known as a party drug." 

The story includes some great details, like this, regarding Altum's claim that she met with Griffin in 2019: “Griffin’s private jet logs show that she was not in Palm Springs at the time the meeting allegedly took place.” 

One thing that seemed certain heading into this book's March 2025 publication was that people would ask further questions about her story, which alleges horrific crimes. While her ghostwriter Sam Lansky told Bennett through a lawyer-approved statement he didn't expect the book "to later be subjected to a forensic analysis," it sounds like Anna Wintour saw that coming.

Anna and Griffin both serve on the board of the Met and had lunch in early 2023, before Griffin got her book deal. Griffin had written an essay about her teacher sexually assaulting her titled "The Flow of Water." Anna's response was: "But you have such a nice life." Griffin never published the essay.

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