Irish fast-fashion retailer Primark opened a store in New York’s Herald Square last week. They hired Andy Cohen and Sarah Jessica Parker to breeze through and talk to media about how they “really, sincerely cannot get over the pricing.” Primark sells boys’ sweatshirts for $8. Women’s denim starts at $12. A child’s outfit can cost under $10. The prices are more like Shein than Zara.

In photos that circulated on social media, Cohen and Parker posed with Derek Blasberg, fresh off his appearance at the Met Gala.

Creators quickly called out all three in disgust over the partnership. Creative consultant Mimma Viglezio, a former EVP of Bulgari and Louis Vuitton, said in a reel, “Derek Blasberg, Sarah Jessica Parker, and Andy Cohen are very successful and very wealthy so why would they need or accept…god knows how big [of a] check from Primark to host, I guess, their first opening in New York City? It’s not something to celebrate.” She pointed out that Blasberg and Parker supported sustainability and human rights when it was “in trend” to do so.

Fashion critic Philippe Pourhashemi wrote on Instagram, “Doesn’t she have enough money already? Does she need more fame, visibility or exposure?... Does she understand that promoting the opening of a Primark store makes her look like a greedy and soulless idiot?” He went on to ask, “Why are we supposed to worship people who clearly have no morals?” Sustainable fashion activist Livia Firth also called out all three of them for promoting “an incredibly unethical fast fashion brand… certainly you know that when clothes are so cheap, someone else is paying the price.”

Celebrities get paid to appear at things they wouldn’t go to and say stuff they wouldn’t say and wear stuff they wouldn’t wear all the time. When reporting Gwyneth, sources told me about the brands she endorsed that she would never otherwise engage with, which didn’t strike me as a big deal as lots of celebrities in the history of celebrities have done and continue to do this. The sky is blue, water is wet. To be famous is to monetize one’s image. The public, in more normal times, largely tacitly accepted this.

But of course, the creators have a point. Fast fashion is terrible for the planet, a particular scourge on the Global South. Its waste accumulates into toxic mountains scaled by literal livestock on the beaches of Ghana. The 2013 Rana Plaza factory collapse in Bangladesh killed 1,100 garment workers making clothes for Primark, along with other low-cost chains like Mango and Walmart. In 2022, factories in Primark’s supply chain were accused of child labor (child labor allegations previously surfaced against Primark in 2008). More recently, European authorities found Primark guilty of greenwashing (the brand appealed — and lost).

What intrigues me about the backlash following the Met, however, is the shifting dynamic between celebrities and the audience, who sniff out fakeness like never before. Notably, the backlash hasn’t come for celebrities endorsing luxury labels, which have well-documented supply chain problems of their own. In recent years, Italian authorities have been rooting out labor violations at factories servicing brands including Dior, Tod’s, and Loro Piana — pretty damning stories for companies claiming their exorbitant prices stem from quality craftsmanship. But maybe a rich celebrity swanning about in designer clothes feels less fake than Parker acting amazed over a $12 pair of jeans, which makes the chasm between her and the masses who cannot afford anything else feel even more gaping.

The Met Gala, too, highlighted a different kind of phoniness, as stars who have denounced Trump and spoken out for marginalized groups seemed to shirk those allegiances for a night of glamour and publicity, paid for by apparent Trump supporter Jeff Bezos and his wife Lauren Sánchez. The Kardashians can weather it because they’ve marketed and revealed, to a degree, their fakeness — their shapewear, their plastic surgery, their glam routines — while not ever standing for much.

I don’t know where this ends, but it feels like one piece of a burgeoning class revolution. Celebs — and Derek Blasberg — are easy targets for a lot of justified and pent-up anger.

Condé Nast CEO Gives Corporate Thumbs Up to Met Gala Controversy

Condé Nast CEO Roger Lynch discussed the Met Gala on Peter Kafka’s Channels podcast, bragging that this year’s coverage drew 3.1 billion video views, up from over 2 billion last year. Where those views came from, how long they were, and whether they resulted from, like, posting two times the number of videos was not interrogated. But the point is that the event is big business for all Condé titles (including The New Yorker, which exposed Gigi Hadid’s inability to name a piece of art).

Lynch told Kafka, “You mentioned this year, there’s some controversy. That’s fine. It’s actually good.” Regarding the controversy stemming from the Bezos’ reported $10 million donation, Lynch said, “[T]o actually criticize them for donating money to a cultural institution, to me, was a bit off base.” (This wasn't why protesters were criticizing them.)

The bigger question may be what’s going on with revenue. Condé is private, and we don’t know many financials, but Kafka said the company was basically flat since 2021. Lynch insisted revenue is growing. It’s unclear if that growth outpaces inflation. If it doesn’t, the company is going backwards.

A Costume Institute Copycat?

London-based artist Anouska Samms has been posting videos to Instagram about how she should receive credit for a dress in the new Costume Art exhibition that looks like one she made with fashion designer Yoav Hadari. She said she previously collaborated with Hadari on Hair Dress, which the Met expressed interest in buying last year, and which is made with her textile incorporating human hair. Hadara created a new dress that resembles Hair Dress, but does not utilize Samms's textile or any human hair. Samms was later tagged in a post on Instagram of Hadari standing next to the piece, Nervana Corpus 0.0, at the opening. Samms blames the Met for not crediting her or paying her for the work, which she described as "something like a counterfeit." According to Samms, the museum responded that the dispute was between her and Hadari. 

I reached out to Susan Scafidi, director of Fordham's Fashion Law Institute, to find out if Samms — while sympathetic — has a claim here. "Untangling [Samms's] statements is as messy and potentially painful as combing out a coiffure after a ride in a convertible, but under U.S. law, it's unlikely that there are any significant claims against the Met," she said in an email. "To begin, the term 'counterfeit' in U.S. IP law refers only to substantially indistinguishable copies of trademarks, and Samms doesn't actually make any arguments related to trademark law." She added that the original Hair Dress "cannot be a joint work of Samms and Hadari under U.S. copyright law, because U.S. law generally does not recognize garments as copyrightable works of authorship, period." While textiles can receive copyright protection in the U.S., Nervana Corpus 0.0 does not use Samms's hair textile, nor does it appear, legally speaking, to be "substantially similar" to it or a "derivative work." Regardless, the Met is not being accused of copying the garment, but merely displaying it. 

U.K. laws offer more copyright protections for garments, but Scafidi points out that her claims are uncertain under those as well. Perhaps, Scafidi noted, the Met will feel for her, and acquire one of her pieces. 

Dresses, Cars, and Stars

Is there a corporate luxury brand that hasn't been inspired by Hollywood? The long list of fashion shows staged in Los Angeles to emphasize cinema-related inspirations expanded with Jonathan Anderson's Wednesday night cruise show for Dior at LACMA. Featuring "themes of cinema, California's natural landscape and vintage car culture," guests like Al Pacino sat "among classic automobiles as simulated fog drifted across the runway." (Gas prices are so high that it is basically a luxury good now, so this all tracks.)

But Marlene Dietrich references aside, Anderson told Vogue this was about business: “What you’re seeing here… is part of a kind of broader picture of what we will do over the next 12 months in cinema… So this is going to be like: how does a fashion house work with cinema? And how does the cinema work with a fashion house, and what is a new type of business model within that?”

Play coy, Jonathan, but we all know the answer and it's The Devil Wears Prada 2. (Or 3. Or 4.)

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