Amy Odell: Dana, I know that you’re a New York Times bestselling author and as you were just saying, you’re a major podcast award winner, but now you have the distinction of being the first guest on the Back Row podcast.
Dana Thomas: It’s a pleasure to be here. It’s fantastic, I’m really excited and I love podcasting. This is a great thing that you’re getting into.
What we’re going to do today are Fashion Month Awards. So Dana and I came up with a list of categories for awards for the spring 2026 show season, which just concluded. Dana’s in Paris, so she’s been going to some things over there. I went to some things in New York.
It just concluded like 10 minutes ago.
Dana and I picked our winners in advance of getting on this podcast and we don’t know what the other person picked. But Dana, before we do that, can I ask you a question? Since you live in Paris and you’re my source for French cultural knowledge, are 40-year-olds in Paris getting facelifts?
Interesting you ask. I think that they’re not getting face lifts per se, but they are definitely getting more work done than they did when I was 40, which has been a little while ago. It’s actually the younger women who are doing like tweaks here and there so that they don’t look 40 when they get to 40. But they’re not going for like the whole — no.
Right.
What I do see is older women — women older than I am — who do go for the whole kit and they’re going to people who aren’t very good. They look kind of like plastic surgery from 20 years ago in America has finally arrived in Paris. And it’s kind of depressing.
Subscribe to my YouTube channel for the video version of this pod.
There was a period of a week or two where every day I looked at the internet, I had to think about 40-year-olds getting faceless because people were writing about it.
Let’s do our first award. Most Polarizing Collection. Dana, you go first.
Well, clearly it’s Versace.
I picked Versace too.
It’s clearly Versace. And you know, it’s interesting because I’ve been hearing a lot of people dismiss it as sort of Benetton or at first I thought it was J. Crew. But in fact, no, you what it was? It was Versus. Versus was the bridge line for young people, the sort of streetwear, sportswear brand that Versace did in the early 2000s until 2009. And they finally shuttered it because it just wasn’t doing very well. But that’s what Versus was. It was sort of like cute, young, jeans, T-shirts, denim jackets, bright colors — he was pulling from that Versus digging into the 1980s Gianni.
I feel like Anna Wintour once said like, the 80s is a decade that no one really wants to revisit, while all these collections are revisiting them. Dario Vitale, this was his debut for Versace and he came in after Donatella was pushed out, so it’s sort of an interesting debut in that regard. He worked at Miu Miu.
And Prada Group is in the midst of buying Versace. So the reason that this is interesting is because they put him there, but I’ve already heard that they’re going to yank him from it. They’re going to sack him as soon as they finish acquiring the brand. And it’s almost like they parked him at Versace to sort of wheel him out. And this is very common for Patrizio Bertelli, business head of the Prada group. You know, he bought Helmut Lang and then got rid of Helmut Lang. He bought Jil Sander and then he got rid of Jil Sander.
And they were thriving brands when he bought them and he kind of killed them. So basically, whenever there’s competition to Miuccia, he neutralizes the competition. And the greatest competition to Miuccia most recently was Dario Vitale at Miu Miu, where Miu Miu was outshining Prada. And you just can’t do that.
A friend of mine told me that when he left the Prada Group to take this job at Versace, when you leave, that does not win you any friends over at Prada Group. They don’t like when you leave. So this source of mine was skeptical that he would remain on. The show was sort of crazy.
Some people are saying, I liked it, I like that he’s messing it up and doing new stuff. I do think that I saw him posting 80s archive Gianni Versace looks to his Instagram. And this is something that kind of bugged me and has been bugging me about fashion lately is designers seem to just kind of go into the archives — I don’t mean to say just like it’s not work. I’m sure it’s hard to go through decades of archives. But they go through the archives — we’ve seen Demna do this — and they pick a look and they just kind of recreate it. And then people online can make a side by side of here’s the 1966 version and here’s the version today that basically looks the same.
And it’s just internet catnip.
The next award. Most Baffling Success.
Your turn to go first.
Dior. You picked Dior, too? I hope we have different picks as we go down the list. This was a huge deal because it was Jonathan Anderson’s debut for women’s ready-to-wear. He came from Loewe. He was there for about a decade. He made that the hot, “It” brand. I thought he did some beautiful stuff at Loewe. He did some cool stuff at Loewe. Yeah.
Question, have you ever seen anyone actually wearing it in the street?
People wear the bags.
That’s different. They don’t wear the fashion. They don’t wear the fashion.
Yeah, the bags are popular.
No, but the bags. The bags. But it was originally a leather goods company, so that makes sense, but he’s not a fashion designer.
His ready-to-wear. And I’ve talked to people behind the scenes who are like, yeah, his ready-to-wear — I don’t know. So I think we saw that with this show. I just thought it was very odd.
There was no beauty.
The opening dress, the strapless dress. structured with the bows, kind of diagonal bows. I’m sure that there will be a star who will wear that on the red carpet and they’ll make it work.
Yeah, but will somebody wear it to dinner? No. Will somebody wear it to a party? No.
Jonathan Anderson, has been elevated to this fashion god status. And I don’t really know. It’s interesting why. I think he’s a very internet-y designer. He’s clued into what people are talking about online and he acts on it. And I think that’s appealing.
What is his most famous thing? It’s a handbag that looks like a pigeon.
Or the tomato clutch, the heirloom tomato. I did like the anthurium collection he did at Loewe.
He’s a bit like Marcel Duchamp, you know? Like, let’s put a toilet in the room and call it art.
On that note, next category, Most Ridiculous Viral Stunt.
Margiela with the mouth stretchers. It wasn’t ridiculous — it was grotesque.
The commentary I saw was that people were not happy about that. It seemed demeaning to the models. And it’s a shame because he had a great couture collection, Glenn Martens, for Margiela and he seems like a promising talent. So that was a miss.
Having written a whole book about Alexander McQueen, I feel like he was trying to be outrageous like McQueen in that sort of weird S stuff that McQueen used to do with Sean Lean, the jeweler. Except that it didn’t work because there was no beauty involved. And whatever weird kinky stuff that McQueen would do in his design, it was always rooted in beauty.
He’s buzzy, he’s got wind at his sails.
Does anyone remember the clothes? No, because we’re all just talking about the mouthpieces.
Exactly. That’s such a good point. My most ridiculous viral stunt. I do feel like we’re seeing a little bit less of that kind of overt display — I’m going to do this big stunty thing and it’s like theater and hope that it goes viral.
However, my most ridiculous viral stunt is Jean Paul Gaultier by Duran Lantink, the body suits that had pictures of penises on them. There were body suits that were really, really high cut that just were vulgar.
Yeah. Vulgar.
Very strange shapes. It wasn’t like a cone bra. It was like a bubbly — if a woman were a balloon animal bra, stuff like that. Thumbs down for me on that show.
Again, while he’s at Gaultier, and I’ve known Jean-Paul since the eighties, and I love Jean-Paul, even the most outrageous things that he did, like Madonna’s cone corsets, were rooted in beauty. Madonna looked really beautiful in those costumes on that tour.
Next category, Biggest Sleeper Hit.
You go first.
I picked Schiaparelli because I didn’t think it got the attention this season that it has gotten in Daniel Roseberry’s earlier seasons. And I thought this was his best collection because — you were there. He lightened it up. I didn’t like the collections that he did, you know, earlier in his tenure with like Bella Hadid wearing the lungs and like nothing underneath. It was heavy, crusty. I don’t like crusty evening wear.
It was heavy, like they looked like they just weighed a lot and they were very structured and constricting. This was very light. I’ve been teasing everyone until the Chanel show yesterday. said, it tells you a lot about the state of the fashion business when the most beautiful, sexy show is the one, and wearable, the most wearable clothes is the one rooted in surrealism.
That’s such a good point. [Schiaparelli]’s the VIC brand, the very important clients, the rich people who buy 40 percent of the luxury fashion that’s sold. Like that’s like the brand. But yeah, it was good for Daniel Roseberry. He’s a fellow Texan. I think he’s also 40 years old like me. And if you haven’t looked, Ina Garten, when he turned 40 — Ina Garten wished him a happy birthday on Instagram, which I thought was pretty fucking fab, but she didn’t go to his show. She went to Hermès. So what was your pick?
I went to the re-see and saw the clothes up close and they’re really beautiful and the dresses were not heavy. They were light and I was like, I could wear this. And I’m not a Schiaparelli person. I’m not a surrealism person, but I was like, these are good.
Next time you come on the pod, you’ll borrow a Schiaparelli dress and that’s what you’ll be wearing. And I’ll be here in Reformation. You go, your Biggest Sleeper Hit.
My biggest sleeper hit, I think, is Bottega. A lot of people are big fans of Louise Trotter, but everyone was like, Matthieu Blazy left, and what will it be like? And it’s a small brand. I don’t think they do very much in business. And everyone in Milan went gaga for that show. Now, I think some of it was just because it photographed really well, especially those chubbies that were sort of floating beautifully. And for me, the sustainability writer, I love that she was using recycled synthetic materials for those coats.
The shiny ones, right?
While everyone was really pleased that she got that gig, I don’t think people thought they were going to fall in love with it. And people fell in love with it.
That is definitely one of my top shows. Obviously, not very many women are in these jobs, so good for her. I wish she had broken a little bit from the previous vision, but I can also understand why she didn’t.
She’ll find her way. But I would love to have seen her at Gucci. I think she would have done beauty at Gucci.
Next: Most Awkward Front Row celebrity. Should I go first? I think I have a tie. Charlize Theron and Johnny Depp at Dior.
Yeah, that was pretty funky.
Did you see them?
So she was wearing a leather biker jacket with nothing underneath and it was unbuttoned and she’s like air kissing Bernard Arnaut. And she snubbed Johnny Depp. Johnny Depp is like standing [off to the side].
She was also wearing these green long shorts. She just didn’t look like she was feeling her outfit. And then Johnny Depp looked silly in these oversized jeans and this oversized jacket. And he’s just a silly man. Can’t they move on from him? Does he sell that much perfume or that much cologne?
He sells that much perfume. He does.
Do people in France like him?
It’s the number one selling around the world. It’s unbelievable. It’s the number one selling scent. It’s explosive around the world.
It’s a pirate’s life for him now, I would say.
So my most awkward front row guest wasn’t actually in the front row, but was on her way to the front row. And that was our dear friend, Lauren Sánchez Bezos, who was wearing her 1995 Galliano suit, it was the one that Amber Valletta wore in the show.
And there’s Lauren Sánchez wearing it. She looks great in it, but she kind of looks like she’s trying to look like some sort of diva from the 1950s, which is exactly what John was trying to do in 1995, and here we are 30 years later. And she’s in these heels, and meanwhile, Bezos is dressed in, it looked like to me, Cucinelli. He’s got the long gray cashmere coat.
I saw a comment on Instagram that was like, Why is he wearing a long coat when there’s people around him in T-shirts? Which I thought was hilarious.
I know, so he’s working his Cucinelli or Cucinelli-esque look in his sneakers, right? And they’re holding hands and they’re trotting on their way to this show. And he is dragging her because he’s taking these huge long strides and she’s tiptoeing in her little high heels and she can’t keep up. And so she’s running behind him. It’s like I was looking at women, a woman from the early 19th, 20th century, bell époque, who can’t keep up with this guy in his sneakers running off in a hurry.
The week that John Anderson is making his debut at Dior, she’s wearing Galliano from the collection that got him the job at Dior. And was that a sort of la la la la to Bernard Arnault, maybe. But I just thought this woman’s supposed to be this power woman, feminism, went into space, and she’s inhibiting herself by dressing like a poupée, like a doll, and he’s not the gentleman walking next to her and taking care of her, but just dragging her along.
So she has a new stylist, Molly Dickson, who — do you know who else Molly Dickson styles who gets a lot of attention?
Sydney Sweeney, which is hilarious because Sydney Sweeney went to their wedding in Venice over the summer. And then people were like, why is Sydney Sweeney there? Are they friends? They don’t know each other. And then the reporting in Page Six was that they were not friends. Sydney Sweeney was going because she was in a movie that Amazon was producing. So she was essentially, and I’m paraphrasing, like, paying respects to the boss, who would be Jeff Bezos.
Interesting.
But then, Sweeney had this birthday party where she wore this thing by The Blonds. It was kind of cool, it had stars all over. It was a corseted Blondes type thing. And the whole thing was space-themed. And then Lauren Sánchez was there with Jeff Bezos also. Anyway, now her stylist is Lauren’s stylist. And I find this to be just like the most amazing, hilarious Venn diagram. And I also noticed, Dana, that Vogue wrote this up, that Lauren Sánchez and Molly Dickson have a new styling relationship or however they put it. Vogue doesn’t put bylines on their Lauren Sánchez articles.
They’re removing them probably because they get so much hate, which — I don’t think anyone should get death threats for doing their job. People are going to click on this, I understand why they’re writing it up. But I think that her Vogue cover is paying dividends now because that was kind of her entree into the fashion world.
It is so much hate.
Now we’re seeing her same thing that happened with Kim Kardashian — she debuted on the cover in 2014 pegged to her wedding. And then she was accepted by the fashion world. So when Anna anoints you that’s like a bat signal to all these brands like it’s OK now. She was at Chanel. She was at Balenciaga. She wasn’t at Dior, but if you had asked me before the season if I would expect to see her there, I would have said no.
The next category is Best Debut. You go first.
Matthieu Blazy.
OK, I picked him too. You were at the show. Talk about it.
It was beautiful. It was just so beautiful and joyful. It was joyful. I haven’t seen joyful in fashion in a really long time. And it wasn’t just that the models were smiling and jaunty and having fun, which they clearly were. The clothes were joyful and happy. The set was beautiful and uplifting. Everybody who has ever been somewhat connected to Chanel was there. So was kind of like a big family reunion. ran into Marie-Louise Clermont de Tonelle, who had worked for Coco and then retired after 50 years a couple years ago. And there was another woman there with her who was really old and I suspect had been in the atelier since the sixties or something.
And out front there were hordes and hordes of people. Twenty people deep, thousands. There were barricades. They shut off the whole street in front of the Grand Palais from the river to the Champs-Élysées. There were thousands of people along the barricades and up on the steps of the Petit Palais and up on trees —like, it was insane. And they were cheering and they were joyful outside. And then you walked in and you saw these planets floating in the Grand Palais, which has recently been restored. The light was beautiful, everybody wore their Chanel. Like you’ve never seen so much Chanel in your life.
I didn’t like it as much as you. I thought that it kind of looked like, you know, his Bottega. And I was going back and looking at the old, his old Bottega stuff, and there’s some striking parallels. I had totally forgot he had done those pom-pom hats at Bottega. And then I was looking at Bottega, I was like, I really like these collections. he had some that were better than others, but I really had forgotten how nice and cool wearable a lot of the stuff that he did there — luxurious — it looked. I thought it was the best debut, it was not my best show. But yes, I do think that you know, that was pretty good.
Yeah. And it breathed life back into this corpse that Chanel had become.
Karl’s Chanel was ugly, you know?
Some of it was beautiful. In the 90s it could be very, very, very beautiful. But he always had a sort of root of eighties punk percolating underneath. German eighties punk, except like for a small window in the in the mid 1990s when it was just pure beauty. And that’s gone. Thankfully, finally, the 80s have moved on [at Chanel] — or have been left behind. I thought it was very modern. I thought it was very much of our times. Yet nodded to Coco in the 20s, nodded to Coco in the 50s, nodded to Coco in the 60s, nodded to Karl in the 80s. Yet It was totally 2025, and that’s what I loved about it. Unlike Gucci, which was super retro.
It wasn’t my favorite, but it’s a good start.
Like you could wear those clothes and you won’t look like a freak. You won’t look like a weird fashion person. You just look really great.
I think that there were a couple bags — that kind of egg-shaped bag I think people are going to go crazy for. And then there was a globe — it sort of looked like a globe bag. People are going to go nuts for that.
Yep. And even the old classic sixties — clasp at the top rectangle, or square bag with a little chain on it. Like my mother used to get, what we used to call a purse but in a modern way with the CC on the outside, it was white. It was great. I was like, I want that bag. The bag’s great. You know, enough of the 2.55 flap, quilt-y thing, which Karl revived in the late 1980s. Enough, we’re moving forward. That’s what it felt like. We’re moving forward.
Even though I didn’t like Jonathan Anderson’s collection for Dior, it was nice how he paid his respects to the people who came before him, including Maria Grazia Chiuri. And I think Chanel could have done a better job of that, them calling Virginie Viard an intermission — it was just kind of backhanded. She worked there for 30 years.
It ended badly.
What do you mean it ended badly?
Apparently they had a meeting where they said, we’re going to start transitioning you out. And we’re looking for somebody to come in, but we want you to stay on for the next year and keep working. Even though you know you’re leaving. And she’s like, well, forget that. And she told him to pound sand. She turned around and walked out. Three weeks before the couture show. Like, bye. So yeah, it ended badly.
But still she worked there for 30 years. So like the optics of that, I didn’t love. Let’s move on. Trend most likely to get knocked off.
Slouchy pants.
You feel like that’s a new trend?
No, but they were on every runway and they’re really, really low slung and the skirts even have that same sort of like blue jeans belt line and they’re really slouchy but they’re kind of sexy because they’re so low-slung. More than nineties hipster low slung because these are slouchier as opposed to hipsters and there’s not like McQueen’s bumsters. They’re not quite boyfriend jeans, but they’re kind of boyfriend jeans. But everyone had them and they were wearing them with lots of crop tops and men’s belts. And I think we’re going to see a lot of that in like Zara and H&M. It’s an easy one to knock off and the teenagers will be all over it.
Yeah, that’s a really sophisticated pick. So I picked two sort of silly ones. One is space because I was thinking about outer space because of Lauren Sánchez and also because of the Chanel set, even though I know there weren’t like planets printed on the shirts or anything like that. And then Thom Browne had that alien head in his show. So I was like, maybe we’ll see some chintzy Shein alien T-shirts or Zara alien sweaters or just like planets. Do you know what I mean?
And then my other one, Miu Miu aprons, because I think we will see knockoffs. I could also see like a Shein or Temu Miu Miu apron knockoff that just goes bonkers viral. So those are my picks. And also because tradwives, I guess everyone’s supposed to be a tradwife now. So I’m assuming aprons are in demand.
The Miu Miu aprons.
To be clear, I’m not pro-tradwife. So we’re going to come back to our best friend, Lauren Sánchez. Most likely to be worn by Lauren Sánchez.
Back to our friend. That bad Dior mini-barsuit.
Really, you think so? You think she would wear that?
Well, because she was basically wearing the Galliano version of that suit when she went out and she’s super about being fit and showing off her attributes, including her legs and her cute little hips and the tiny little waist.
Okay, fair, fair, fair. She just feels so much more Galliano to me than Anderson, but sure. If she was like, “I want to wear this,” they would definitely give it to her.
I mean, of all the things I saw. I did not see the Dolce show. I bet there’s something in Dolce she’d wear.
Well, Dolce feels kind of like a gimme. Yes, I think we could probably safely say Dolce. So my pick, most likely to be worn by Lauren Sanchez, is McQueen.
You know, it hurts my heart too much to look at what he’s doing to McQueen.
Did you look at that one? I know you’re McQueen’s biographer, but it sort of looks like Dilara Findikoglu. I feel like I’m always saying that wrong. It was very, very, very low pants, which I don’t know that she would wear, but a lot of kind of like corsetry and breasts and lace up things and clothes just like laced up tight and kind of falling off. Do you know I’m saying? That’s her vibe.
Yeah, that sounds right.
The next one is Least Likely to be Worn by Lauren Sánchez.
The Prada baby bloomers.
That’s a really good one. That’s a really good one.
I do not see her looking like she’s wearing diapers.
No. So I picked The Row, but you could always pick The Row. It’s just funny to me to imagine her in The Row.
You can always pick The Row, yeah. Or Hermes for that matter, beyond the handbags.
Yeah, or Hermès. But she’ll be there next season. I feel like she’s going to be at all these big shows. Like it or not, I just think that’s what’s happening. That was a really good pick. Next category: Most Annoying Look.
You go first.
Well, I kind of already talked about it, but it did just annoy me this deeply that I’m going to mention it again, but the penis suit at Gaultier.
For me, it was the Alaïa armless dress that made the woman look like a mummy.
Dana, that’s also a really good one. Yes, I hated those.
It is so anti-Azzedine. I knew Azzedine since the early eighties. That was so anti-Azzedine.
I think it was a bodysuit — like shorts and then the arms were just —
There was a long version, it was like the sack dress without any arms. It had little pants going with it.
And the arms were worn inside all the fabric and there were no holes for any hands or arms to emerge from the garment. It was so crazy. What was that? But I thought that whole show was crazy. I didn’t understand the fringe around the knees. I thought that that show was odd. I did not get it.
It was hateful.
Rihanna may wear that stuff and make it look cool, but I also can’t see her going somewhere without any arms. I guess what you could say is if you can exist in the world with your arms inside your clothes and an inability to use your hands, you are probably extremely fucking rich. Because you have someone to do everything for you. Open all your doors —
You cannot look cool without arms.
You’re not doing a goddamn thing for yourself.
No, my Lord. Most depressing moment. Well, you mentioned him earlier. Duran Lantink at Gaultier? Pauvre Jean-Paul. I think he’s on the phone to Puig saying, that guy’s got to go.
Would he have the power to have an impact?
Maybe. the guy, bragged and said, “I didn’t look at the archives.” And it’s like, yeah, clearly. What are you doing there? Why are you putting anything out with somebody else’s name if you have actually no intention of trying to do anything related to their name?
There are so many other people who could do it, too, who would love the opportunity.
I mean, it was just so bad. It wasn’t just that it was badly designed. It was badly executed. It was badly made, which is terrifying because Gaultier had the best atelier in town because he took everybody from Saint Laurent when they retired — the best atelier.
You know what the penis bodysuit kind of reminded me of? I think it was a bodysuit, unless it was two pieces. It reminded me, like when I was a kid in grade school, I would put these fabric book covers on my textbooks. It reminded me of that. Like it was a book cover for the human body.
My most depressing moment was we already talked about them, but the mouth guards at Margiela. Most Inspiring Moment on a more positive note. I say Armani. The face his face on the eveningwear at the end of the memorial show.
Giorgio Armani.
It was so beautiful. And talk about wearable clothes. That man’s wedded to his vision to the very, very end. And rooted in beauty. But also, here he was in his 90s and clearly he had his hand in this collection and it was inspired by his vacation home in Pantelleria.
So you had these sort of beautiful taupes, in the beginning that were linens and cottons like you want to wear during the day on this rocky island off the coast of Sicily. And then it turned to the evening wear and it was the blue of the Mediterranean and the green of the pines and the colors were spectacular. It was shimmering — you could see the light on the top of the water at sunset shimmering. It was just so breathtakingly beautiful and to think that it would be the very last time we would see his hand on something was heartbreaking but also so inspiring.
And everyone is in black tie. It was just like so chic. And there again, there was a lot of joy for somebody who just died.
Classy. What’s that like?
You know what’s interesting about that brand to me is — and I talked about this in the book I wrote about Anna Wintour — editors just don’t like Armani, they don’t want to pull it. They photograph it with disdain. I’ll be really curious to see what happens. I would like to know if you have a prediction about what will happen there because did Armani not say in his will he wants the brand to be sold to a bigger conglomerate, right?
Well, Armani Beauty is a L’Oréal license, so that’s done. Then the eyeglasses, which is one of its biggest selling money makers is EssilorLuxottica, which is a French company as well. So that’s done. So that leaves the fashion brand. And it’s said that LVMH is going to take it over, but then I heard in Milan that this might not happen because it’s not so sure that the Italian government wants this gem to become French, this Italian gem.
Do they have the power to get in the way of that?
Sure, of course they do. Yeah, they can block the sale. That’s an interesting idea because it could just all become French. I remember interviewing Mr. Arnault back in the mid 1990s. And he said, I’ve just talked to Mr. Armani about buying his company because he’s getting old and he should retire soon. I was like, yeah, you don’t know.
But he hung on till the very end of his life, which is interesting in an industry where people are really loathe to retire.
There we are. Look at Arnault. Arnault’s staying on until he’s at least 85 now. So then Mr. Armani said, yeah, I’m not selling to him. And I know that they talked back and forth and LVMH was going after Armani or trying to convince him to sell for years and years and years. And Mr. Armani left nothing to chance. So my guess is that he sorted everything out.
The Wall Street Journal reported that his will specified when his family members could use the yacht, to your point.
It’s all spelled out. But it could be interesting if the government steps in and says, yeah, we don’t think so. And then if that happens, I would not be surprised if it went to the Elkann family from Fiat and Ferrari.
Well that’ll be something to watch. And then the next category, I’m going to let you make a pick because I just didn’t see this talked about, but it’s Most Green. Stella [McCartney] is the only one I could think of. But I wanted you to talk about it because you’re much more of an expert in that area. I feel like we were talking about sustainability a lot in past seasons and just less so now.
It’s Stella, of course.
And a lot of brands were just greenwashing [before]. But now we’re not talking about it. I continue to think that regulation of the fashion industry would be great when it comes to its carbon emissions and the like. Can you talk about that? What Stella is doing that sets her apart? And where the sustainable fashion conversation is.
Well, the sustainable fashion conversation is slowly getting buried because fashion looked at it as a trend and then they’ve moved off the trend. But in fact, no, it is a truly big problem that needs to continue to be addressed. So there are still several brands, major brands, that are kind of embracing this. Gabriela Hearst, for example. And then Stella, who every season highlights another new startup in her collection, or more than one, that’s doing some sort of cool biomaterial that’s a replacement for something that’s toxic. Biomaterial, meaning biologically made materials as opposed to animal materials — or petroleum — for feathers and those little feathery things that came out that were very floaty.
They’re biodegradable and they’re non-toxic. And then she always has organic cotton, regenerative cotton, and she has wool from animals that are well-treated. She’s the daughter of the world’s most famous hippie. This isn’t just something she’s trying to do because it’s the thing to do. This is her education.
Because she’s in the position she is, she can godmother these startups and really give them a platform so they can go to the next level and scale up.
You mean the material startups that are making, you know, leather copies that are indistinguishable from leather in, like, cauldrons in New Jersey.
Mycelium and yeah, made out of mushroom root systems and all sorts of different things. She had some bio sequins — most sequins are made out of plastic, right? Like 99.9 percent of sequins are made out of plastic. Plastic never biodegrades. So glitter and sequins, they’re here for eternity. Like you’ve had kids, you know about glitter. Glitter, it stays in your house, it doesn’t just stay in your house —
I was 20 and went to raves once so I know about glitter, but yeah.
She wanted to find sequins that, if you put them in a landfill, they will biodegrade.
It’s really cool. And you know, so much better than the ones that never go away. They’re kind of like the Legos of fashion.
Many of which I have in my home for my seven-year-old son. The last category: Best Overall.
I think Chanel.
I picked Givenchy.
I love everything Sarah does. I think she’s great.
I thought it was really nice. I’m calling it bathroom core because the fringe on the skirts and some of the tops and some of the shoes looked like bath mats. And then she had the girls — there was one dress towards the end where she was wearing it sort of like a towel. It wasn’t a towel, but it was the effect of like having a towel wrapped around her body that she was holding up. And even those sarong style skirts, they kind of looked like a towel wrapped around the waist. So I was kind of like just as comfortable as that stuff can be and pretty wearable and elegant, dare I say. So that that would be my pick.
I think Chanel because — it was interesting, somebody asked me today, will it trickle down to the affordable fashion lines? I was like, yeah, it will. We will see that wrap skirt that’s a single seam that looks sort of like a spin off the quilt or a kilt. We’ll see that everywhere. We’ll see the two tone mules. We’ll see them with a thick heel. We’ll see them everywhere. We’ll see, we’re going to see things from that show trickle down. And so that’s why I thought overall it’s not too elitist. There was a lot there.
There was a lot there too that’s easy to knock off. Because it was relatively unfussy. The skirts, the pants, I think even the coats — like that coat with the, I didn’t like it, but that coat with the lines across the middle. Relatively simple, you could see it, you could see a version of it in Cos or Zara, definitely.
People used to call Chanel high-end Zara. Are we still thinking of it like that? I kind of am.
Maybe. Actually, think Zara’s low-end Chanel. Let’s put it that way.
Well, Dana, this was great. Thanks for coming on the pod.
My pleasure, anytime.
