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Loose Threads
Well this might help bury the Teen Vogue news discussed ahead a bit: Anna Wintour’s final cover as editor-in-chief of Vogue dropped — and it’s Timothée Chalamet photographed by Annie Leibovitz, wearing Celine, imposed onto an image of space from the Hubble Telescope courtesy of NASA. Not what I would have predicted! This means the next cover is head of editorial content Chloe Malle’s first.
Olivier Rousteing is leaving Balmain after 14 years as creative director (he started when he was 25 years old!). Who would you pick to replace him?
Finally, a Hollywood IP play that is neither plastic toys nor super heroes that we can get behind: Jennifer Lawrence and Emma Stone are developing a Miss Piggy movie with Cole Escala of Oh, Mary! writing the script. Asked if she would be in it, Lawrence said, “I think so, we have to.”
E.l.f. beauty sales are up 14 percent in the first half of 2025, thanks to the performance of Hailey Bieber’s Rhode.
If you need a swimsuit for any upcoming vacations, Andie Swim is offering 20 percent off to Back Row readers with the code BACKROW20 through December 31. They have lots of options for things I personally struggle to find like full coverage bottoms and long torso options. This cover-up is also great.
The Grim Truth About Teen Vogue
The progressive corner of the fashion internet entered into collective mourning this week for the loss of Teen Vogue, which will fold into Vogue under newly appointed head of editorial content Chloe Malle.
The title is joined by Vogue Business, which is also becoming part of Regular Vogue, so a larger budget-cutting scheme seems to be afoot at parent company Condé Nast. Condé Nast has seemingly cost its owners, the Newhouse family, a considerable amount of money. (According to Forbes, the family is worth $24.1 billion, so I’m speaking in relative terms.) It lost more than $120 million in 2017 (the same year Teen Vogue’s print issue died); returned to profitability for the “first time in years” in 2021; then missed its revenue target in 2023. And that’s just fairly recent history — aughts disaster Portfolio (sort of Vogue-meets-business coverage) reportedly lost around $15 million a year and cost the company $150 million. And the list goes on. So things must be fairly bad at Condé Nast for the company to be making these cuts.
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