Transcript

Historic changes across high fashion, with WSJ. Magazine’s Sarah Ball

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1:39 Incredibly excited to see what happens at Chanel. Also looking with huge interest to Dior. These shows are enormous productions, so they are Five, six million euros to pull off for three to four hundred gas. if a sort of creative director hasn't found their footing or sales are struggling. You know, you'll see them replaced.

2:01 pain tolerance is low when there is an unstable overall economic environment. That's Sara Ball, editor in chief of the Wall Street Journal's WSJ magazine. As the fashion world navigates an unprecedented wave of turnover from Chanel to Dior, I wanted to talk to Sarah about the most closely watched New York Fashion Week in years, what she calls a September to remember. Sarah takes us inside the drama in anticipation, what's at stake and what to look for, plus how Vogue is poised to take shape post-Ana Winter, the shockwaves from Giorgio Armani's recent passing, AI's impact on fashion creatives, and more. Whether or not you self-identify as a fashionista, Sarah offers a guide to an industry that ripples through commerce at large, which is at a historic turning point.

2:59 So let's get to it. I'm Bob Safian, and this is rapid response. I'm Bob Safian. I'm here with Sarah Ball, editor in chief of WSJ magazine. Sarah, thanks for being here. Oh, I'm so thrilled to be here, Bob. Thank you for having me.

3:17 We are speaking in the midst of New York Fashion Week a key moment. In the fashion industry calendar, but there there are so many fashion weeks these days around the world, across the country. Is there something that makes this one Distinctive?

3:33 There's a huge thing that makes this thing distinctive. And in fact, it's almost it's up, I think close to a dozen things that make this year distinctive. And that is uh the number of new creative directors that are being appointed at brands around the world. This is considered the quote unquote September to remember in fashion, a huge sort of sea change. Of designers, and that's not just kind of, oh, they're sort of people are kind of sprucing creative and next gen is coming in. It really is. A remarkable and historic number of changes of leadership um that kind of represents.

4:06 Fashion. Heading into e ever more uncertain economic times and really making sure that creative is Incredibly fine tuned caring in addition to having um several new Creative directors take over some of their brands. Also has a new CEO who starts on Monday and who um spoke this week for the first time officially in the capacity as CEO, kind of alluding to changes that are ahead for all of those brands. Those include Gucci and Balenciaga and Alexander McQueen, another caring brand. So it is a huge year, a huge month, and it's been on the calendar circled in red.

4:43 For at least nine months. So it's it's kind of that drum beat as well. Of anticipation of so many exciting debuts. So this so this transitional moment is all like coming to a head for this Fash week. Correct, correct. We're gonna see

4:59 Um I think close to a dozen uh collections as revamped through new creative directors' eyes. And what that again, what that means is That sort of brands are fine tuning their market position. Who is the customer? What do they want right now? We're coming out of a bit of the, you know, quiet luxury emphasis on um sort of inoffensive, expensive craftsmanship. We have returned to a sort of explosive creativity. We've returned to color. Um but at kind of at the business level, I think what you're seeing is a true next generation, almost

5:33 almost all of these new creative directors are in their early forties, so they're older millennials. You have places like Chanel that have only had four creative directors in their entire history are trying in their appointment of Metou Blaise to have a sort of and the next Carl Lagerfeld, someone who's gonna be in that role for decades and decades. So it it kind of has higher stakes than a simple You know, to use a sports analogy, um, the way that head there's a head coach shuffle at the end of a season say this is a sort of a much higher stakes version of that to have so many changing over at one time and really rooted in fashion and to and beyond that fashion conglomerates, uh luxury conglomerates. trying to weather these sort of uncertain macroeconomic conditions. This transitional moment like

6:21 How much of it is about sort of The state of style, you know, of of the designers versus this like larger economics and these externalities in a lot of ways. I think they're both related, you know, and you know, it and all ties into like consumer confidence and how consum where consumers are going to spend their money now. I think you see some categories that are still sort of incredibly important and explosive in growth. Um, jewelry, accessories, these things have a resilience to them, especially through kind of up and down times. I think with pure fashion, with ready to wear, um, that that can be more challenged. And I think you do see sort of brands trying to assess what the customer is going to want. Not only in a trend cycles have gotten so short with TikTok and social media, a trend cycle is really quite brief now. So it's like it's both become

7:12 A more aggressive game of hopping lily pad to lily pad, and also more consequential because, you know, there are again, there is uncertainty in that pond. To extend the metaphor, there's little white caps and waves. Um, and then also to your point, style has become you know, much more expressive. We're we're showing what we're wearing, we're kind of exam at work, we're on camera off work, like in this vertical video world that we live in. And then there are important conversations that influence style, such as sustainability and people who want to reduce waste. So there's kind of all of this swirl of factors. Before coming to The Wall Street Journal. Um, I worked for a long time at Condonas. I worked at GQ, so I was very embedded in men's style discussions. And that really is a group that likes to just be told how can I very seamlessly, quickly, and easily buy something and have it and always be able to rely on it, but at the same time It's always playing more and more and wanting to be more expressive um and and challenge notions of conventional sort of suit and tie masculinity. So you see, you know.

8:15 the way that menswear has exploded and changed over the last five, ten years, you have seen the seeds trend cycles are c becoming more and more brief. So I think style has changed, the conditions have changed, and brands are now just trying to respond to that. As you've got these uh this date circled in red on your on your calendar. Are there Are there any particular Shows

8:37 That you're most Focused on that you're like I gotta be there. Yeah. Yes, I think there's a couple. I am Incredibly excited to see what happens at Chanel. Again

8:48 I think of an appointment, um Mathieu Blazier was appointed. I believe he's forty-one years old. He would previously was the creative director at at Bata Veneta really revived that brand through craftsmanship, a sense of play, especially of using the house codes of leather. And it's very famous, as you may know, for like woven leather woven leather, sort of basket woven leather. He used that and sort of subverted that. Um and made incredibly interesting collections. that were very sought after. And now he comes to a house with a ton of heritage and legacy in Chanel that has a ton of these house codes established in the twenties by Coco Chanel. It's considered, you know, maybe the biggest and highest pressure job in all of fashion is to run Chanel in Paris. So that's like got every Hollywood element, um, to kind of be glued to what he'll do. And then I'm also looking with huge interest to Dior. Dior will be now run, both the men's and women's sides of that business and Couture will be run for the first time by

9:46 one person. Um, in in the past they've been run by multiple creative directors. Now they're united under one person who's Jonathan Anderson. He um is known for taking the kind of Small um relatively inconsequent consequential brand of Lueve at LVMH and growing it. into a multiple

10:07 You know billion Euro business uh for the Arnou family. Um he was he's seen as such a superstar talent, very interested in sculpture and art. Um and really grew that business into this massive. It was the it is the cool kid. So he grew that into the cool kid of LBMH and then was given the the crown jewel job of taking over Dior. Um he's had one collection already.

10:33 A men's show where he really dabbled in kind of eighteenth century. Motifs, if you can imagine sort of French Revolution frock coats and cravats. But married with slouchy jeans and a sort of really playful, humorous, very fresh, modern look.

10:53 And it's again a huge high stakes position. This is an enormous business, and he'll be leading it forward through again. tropes that he kind of has to pull for himself. Dior's actual fashion history is pretty brief. It was founded in 1946. It is not 400 years old. It it didn't exist at the time of Les Miserab Brock codes, so he's really pulling out of art and history as he's But um you know, an incredible network, the filmmaker Luca Guaragnino and really interesting actors and actresses and authors, Aide Smith and Greta Lee and Daniel Craig and Rachel Vice. This is sort of his world from

11:29 of talent and friends that he kind of brings with him. So I think he's gonna build a whole new set of um references for Dior and I I'm very excited to see what that yields. For these houses, whether it's Chanel or Dior, the other ones like How do they know w whether their show has been, you know Successful? Is is it what folks like you say about it? Is it sort of things that come out from influencers? Like how do they know?

11:56 It's a great, great question. I think that uh you can immediately usually feel the energy, right? So there's standing ovations, there's cheering, there's whooping, if it's a real triumph or success. Usually it's quite a decorous cloud crowd, excuse me, lots of clapping and people take Videos and you know, immediately share snippets from the show. These shows are enormous productions. So they are specific. five, six million euros to pull off for three to four hundred guests. You know, there's music, it's dark, you're sometimes transported, in many cases you've been transported to a particularly magical setting, just this real atmosphere that you're instantly

12:36 you know, aware of as a guest at a show. those in the audience are not just editors or VIP celebrity guests. They're also clients, very important VICs, very important clients who are there. Um kind of as a customer, um as a sort of passionate collector really is probably a better way to describe them, a collector of this artist's work. And you can of course see in them a level of enthusiasm. And then how it's then shared out to the world is the collection immediately, you know, it appears on fashion news sites, it appears across social media, TikTok, vertical video moments that happen. How are people sharing those? So it's a whole ecosystem of reaction. And then of course A few days after a show.

13:16 a designer and the brand are meeting with buyers and those buyers, again, who are present at the show, are saying, We'd like to order, you know, these, we'd like these modifications, or this is what we'd like what our customers want, where can we meet in the middle on this, and that you'll get a sense from those meetings and conversations, you know, the salibility, so to speak, to put it in like sort of less, um less exciting creative terms, but you know, how is this collection going to filter out through to the customer? I I think there's a there's a variety of metrics that companies are using to to test success, but I would say the most instant assessment is Frankly. Applause. You know, it's just that that metric of, you know, huge enthusiasm.

13:58 Even though the these these fashion weeks are happening all the time, like it's still about the buzz that you sort of can generate each time. Correct, correct. And that buzz can translate into immediate covetability of items that come down, fresh silhouette, a new accessory or shoe that's shown, like that buzz can translate into real you know, commercial firepower for certain components, that buzz can translate into, okay, this collection was a designer finding their footing, but were overall really enthusiastic about it, you know, it in the akin to the way you might um, you know, buy and sell stocks. You're hearing good things, you want to invest in this company, like you can get a sense of how a designer is gonna sort of match with the brand codes, with the house codes, how they might develop over time. Not every debut is a, you know smash hit instantaneously. Sometimes it takes a few seasons, but by the same token, after a few seasons, if a sort of creative director hasn't found their footing or sales are struggling, you'll see them you know, you'll see them replaced. And I think those cycles have gotten shorter as well. I think pain tolerance is low when there is a, you know, an unstable overall um economic environment.

15:06 The fashion industry has always fascinated me. Like any other business, fashion is beholden to financial metrics, but it also feeds off of buzz. So, how is social media and social buying impacting that buzz machine? And what should we expect? From Anna Winter's successor at Vogue. We'll talk about that and more after the break. Stay with us.

15:33 Hey listeners, Bob here. If you listen to Rapid Response on Masters of Scale, you may be missing half the show because every Friday we release a second Rapid Response exclusively in the Rapid Response feed. The guests and topic are just as compelling and timely. From Ford CEO to NASA's administrator to the lessons from The Devil Wears Prada. It takes about 10 seconds to find, just search rapid response wherever you listen to podcasts and hit follow to make sure you never miss an episode. I hope to see you there. Humans will never be more intelligent than AI. There's gbi two types of companies, those are great at AI, and those that went out of business because they weren't. How do we build a future? That is human centered.

16:24 I'm Rana El Chayubi. And on my podcast Pioneers of AI, we answer that question and so many more. As an AI scientist, entrepreneur, and investor, I know what it takes to build AI that works for everyone. Every week, I sit down with the pioneers shaping our future. And we take you behind the scenes of the AI that's transforming our lives. Find pioneers of AI wherever you tune in. For the break, WSJ magazine Sarah Ball shared how New York Fashion Week reveals an inflection point in the fashion business. Now Sarah talks about the passing of Giorgio Armani, the ascension of a new editor at Vogue, and the role of social influencers as taste makers.

17:10 Let's dive back in. Social influencers play a a bigger role now in in every industry, including fashion. How do you look at the role of influencers in the industry? Like are taste makers coming from new places? That's a great question. So I think, you know, this initially this quote unquote democratization maybe of fashion shows started when street style bloggers would set up outside of shows. This was, you know, at this point 15 years ago, at the rise of sort of fashion blogs, when maybe traditional glossy fashion media was on the slower side to embrace um, having a lively digital presence. And then you saw some of those fashions become invited to shows and sitting in the front row. And that represented at the time this great pearl clutching moment in fashion media that, oh my goodness, the it's no longer closed to just editors and buyers and clients. I think today in my mind, I

18:10 even though they're quite different and working at the Wall Street Journal is So different than being a fashcer. I think that in the minds of these brands, they are it's it's now press and influence. You'll notice even people who work at fashion brands, vice president of press and influence, they press and influence in their mind are kind of joined, and that is external comms as furthered by inclusion in fashion press and media, um, as well as furthered by influencers. Now how we work is very different. Um fashion as expressed now very robustly through digital, through site and app and social. We use the clothes, the accessories, the jewelry, the product. You know, you're looking at a photo of Right behind me of Kylie Jenner and Martin Scorsese. They're wearing beautiful luxury fashion that we, you know, put on them and styled and shot them in incredible locations. So there's the side of fashion media that continues to profile designers. We have, you know, um, our September men's and women's issues that are out right now, you know.

19:10 include these clothes and and ambitious uh work talking about what they're putting out in the marketplace. An influencer is not doing that. An influencer is wearing the product, is showing up to talk about the product, and it's much more um, you know, speaking Um as proxy for the consumer in here I am, it's so fun. Oh my gosh, I'm seated next to Sophia Coppola at the Chanel show. Look how beautiful she looks. You know, it's sort of you know it's the it's the fan experience, I would say it's obviously a huge part of fashions having them represented at shows and choosing who

19:45 the right influencers are for your brand. I can't think of a single fashion brand that I, uh, whose show I've been to where there was absolutely zero presence from someone who would be considered a content creator or an influencer, even the sort of most elite um an exclusive fashion shows. As a former magazine editor myself, I I was intrigued that that Vogue finally named a successor to Anna Winter as editor, Chloe Moll. Vogue's been like the the Bible for fashion under Anna's reign. How significant is this transition for the industry? And like what does Chloe need to do to sort of grab that? Alpha taste maker reputation. I love her. I'm I'm very proud of her and very excited for her. She's an old friend and a dynamo, fiercely talented. And

20:33 My favorite thing about her is her sense of humor. So I know that even the challenge of taking on this incredible job, um, she will bear with a lot of wit and playfulness, which is something that I think I hope to see expressed in her vogue. I've definitely seen it expressed in her vogue.com. Um, I think Anna's reputation as a taste maker, I think the conde has been very strategic in underlining that Anna is Still very involved as a taste maker and not just over Vogue, but I think all over all of those brands. I think Anna's role is. Taste Maker still um remains intact. And I think Chloe gets to kind of put her stamp on the execution and still set the sort of taste and agenda of what Vogue is. I know she has big ideas for um how it shows up in the world. Um, but I think You know, she views it as an asset that she's not necessarily forfeiting Anna's

21:23 presence to help her with navigating the overall fashion industry. Um, I think that's the right attitude. I think fashion is bigger and more challenging and more complex and more global than ever. And You need You know. Many hands make light work, I would say.

21:37 So I I wanna ask you a few quick hit questions in the in the couple of minutes we have left. AI. Vogue recently featured a guest ad with an AI generated model that sparked some debates. AI net negative or net positive for fashion? Oh Uh

21:55 remains to be seen incredibly interesting ways it's being applied. mining archives for new ideas that then can be riffed on by sort of human creativity, um, how they show up to the customer, and of course all the data and logistics that AI will make a lot easier. So I think I'm sure net net positive for efficiency, uh, neutral on creativity. All right. Dupes. The the rise and normalization of dupes, including this this craze a around Labuboo. H how does that impact the industry? Does it

22:27 Does it help build connection with new audiences or just You know, make things more complicated for brands. I think it makes things more complicated for brands, as is it forces a ton of transparency from brands that they're not used to giving. I think there's The idea that customers don't want to know about how it gets to them. We're gonna tell them it's sustainable and we're gonna emphasize that we use the best materials, but there's a lot of nuts and bolts they maybe don't need to know. They just wanna go in, have the glass of champagne, feel the bag, purchase the bag and go home. I think that's out the window. I think the customer is really prizing. Traceability, provenance, tell me how it was made well. I think customers genuinely are interested in these because of the rise of.

23:08 These videos on TikTok that show, you know, superfakes being made. easily um in China, et cetera, I think that's given them a lot of fear that we have to emphasize how our products are so much better in order to justify these huge five figure, if not six figure prices. Mm. I wanted to ask you about Live stream shopping. This is a a new phenomenon for me. So part social media, part QVC. Huge in Asia maybe start to take off in the US.

23:38 I think it I I absolutely think it will continue to grow. I think even just this isn't live stream, but even the the um the rise of halls to go far beyond the small corners of YouTube to now. We had a story published this week about the ways in which back to school halls of tweens and teenagers showing their back to school shopping and taking you along for the journey of what they're shopping for back to school is now so much the norm that it's driving up the cost of going back to school for families, um, and creating this whole subgenre of content that feels ubiquitous and inescapable and like you have to participate. So I think that's going to continue. I mean the the the the industry needs to

24:17 You know access and animate Gen Z buyers, right? They're future customers as time goes by. And and this is one of the ways to do that. I think so. And I think that again it challenges these traditional notions for luxury brands that are used to not only you would you not not necessarily be filming inside of the store. You still have people at the the door gatekeeping who even gets in your store. And then in the case of some luxury brands, you know, you're you're limited on what product you can access unless you've kind of built up a history as a customer with that store. So I think

24:53 uh the the luxury industry is used to being sort of really closed off and and dare I say gatekeepy, but the live stream shopping experience is radical, radical transparency. So I think you're gonna see these forces at loggerheads for a little bit, but absolutely engaging younger customers in the fact that sh shopping can be an adventure and a journey. I think it could be net positive for luxury brands if they're able to kind of adapt. To that. Giorgio Armani. Iconic designer, brand builder, recently passed away. His will apparently puts Armani Group for sale.

25:28 What do you see happening here? I think this is so fascinating and is going to be one of the most interesting stories in fashion. Over, I would probably guess over the next year. So obviously he was CEO, sole shareholder, and creative director. of the brand. It's not just even the ownership of such an enormous, again, multi billion euro um luxury brand that's up for sale. It's also its entire direction because he did not have any heirs. There was not this kind of sort of airtight succession plan that you maybe see over at LVMH with all of the Arno children taking bits and pieces of the brand and steeping themselves in how it's run with their father. This was not the case with Armani. So I think this will throw some chaos um into the landscape. It's a huge prize. It has many, many businesses.

26:18 There's of course the men's and women's women's businesses. There's Privé, which is the red all of your Oscar dresses, there's Casa, there's a hospitality element and hotels, uh, there's fragrance and beauty. And it's so it's just enormous. Um and I think this bidding war um for kind of who gets to who gets the the keys to the to the literal castle. Um is gonna be all I'm hearing about when we're over over in Europe for fashion week hearing sort of fashion gossip. I asked earlier about taste makers. You were also a taste maker. Do you have any predictions for what you see ahead for the fashion industry? I couldn't have predicted

26:56 that we would whipsaw from talking about Covid recovery to talking about tariffs to talking about AI. I think um the of the climate is so uncertain. So I think my My biggest prediction is that I think Charm, I know this is quite pat, but I truly believe it, that charm and creativity will kind of win the day. I think the customer is feeling a little jerked around and nervous and scared. And I think that the collections that we see, the the more someone is able to kind of harness a positive outlook. um beautiful and inspiring work and not maybe your dark your sort of zoolander cliche of the dark black austerity steering into the mood. I think I think that charm. And covetability in that really classic sense is what the customer's craving. Almost

27:47 comfort, if you will, and that I hope it yields some sort of really frisky, creative, exciting work. Well, Sarah, this was great. Thanks so much for doing it. Thank you for having me. It's been a true pleasure.

28:00 Some applause for Sarah for making fashion's rarefied world so accessible. I find her observation about consumers' desire for comfort particularly applicable, whatever business you're in, with geopolitical and macroeconomic uncertainty sparking volatility across every industry. Customers everywhere are looking for a safe haven, something warm and reassuring. So as we begin to feel the chill of fall in some places and oversaturation of pumpkin spice. I urge you to consider how you radiate that feeling of warmth and safety to your customers, to your audience.

28:39 And your team. We can all use that sense of togetherness these days. I'm Bob Safian. Thanks for listening. Rapid response is a wait what original.

28:58 I'm Bob Safian. Our executive producer is Eve Tro. Our producer is Alex Morris. Associate producer is Mashumaku Tonina. Mixing and Mastering by Aaron Bastanelli. Arthine music is by Ryan Holiday. Our head of podcasts is Le Cal Malad. For more, visit rapidresponsshow.com.