My name is Irina, Alexander and I'm out contributing writer to the New York Times magazine Few weeks ago, I had a story on the cover of the magazine about the collapse of the fashion industry. In April. I was at home. I was bored and lighter, and I were on the phone and she said you know what's happening with a fashion right now, because we saw these other industries like restaurants and everybody else. The film industry was struggling, and, I said Well- I have no idea what's happening and fashion, I mean I feel, like everyone's wearing swipe dance, but I said I met this guy about a year ago who used to design band of outsiders, who was Scott Sternberg, and I said, let me reach out to him and see, if maybe he knows what's happening in the fashion industry and Scott

and I happened to look the same neighborhood in LOS Angeles, so every day I was trying to find like destinations. I could walk to just like get out of my house and one day, Walker S house, and I sort of very casually ask them what's happening in the fashion industry, the minute he started talking. I realized that the story was so much bigger than I had anticipated. I've been covering the fashion industry on and off for about a decade, and I knew that the industry had been in trouble long before the pandemic, but I didn't realize just how bad it had been and how there had been this guy normous bubble of overproduction, with too many shows in too many collections and too many clothes

and a sort of set of people who had acted so irresponsibly in a way that really kind of drove the industry into the ground. It really reminded me of two thousand eight and the financial crash, and I thought what, if you tried to write about the fashion industry, way, you would any other bubble, like the sub prime mortgage crisis, an We got into what happened to the industry on a really granular level. So here is my story called sweat pants, for were made by Julia. Well, it's difficult in retrospect to pinpoint, when exact

panic about, corona virus took hold in the United States, but March twelve stands out: stores ran out of canned goods. Streets emptied of cars. Tom Hanks had just tested positive for the virus that evening sky Sternberg, a fashion designer was lying awake at home in the Silver Lake Neighbourhood, of LOS Angeles thinking about entire world, a line of basics. He founded two years earlier. Would people still buy clothes? How much cash did he have to, going. When would he have to lay people off? A band of outsiders. Battle scars just opened wide. He said, band of outsiders was Sternberg previous company. Founded it in two thousand for as a line of slim shirts and ties. Remember those skinny tie boom that was Sternberg event.

We grew into full men's and women's collections that one over the fashion world, with self consciously preppy clothes Sternberg took home to council affair Designers of America see FDA awards the industry's equivalent of the Oscars he posed for photos with Conway Michelle Obama WAR, one of his dresses he opened stores in Tokyo and New York, then in two thousand fifteen to everyone's surprise, Stir Burg announced that band was going out of business and investment with some Belgians had gone bad, but that didn't feel like the whole story. Sternberg knew the whole story Every choice he made an entire world was to prevent it from happening again. Now a global pandemic had hit. He couldn't foresee that no one did unlike other designers Limburg studied not design but economics. A major he chose in part because the

Here he entered Washington University in Saint Louis, the economist Douglas North, a professor there, one a Nobel Prize, Sternberg graduated Summa, Cum laude. His senior thesis was about the economics of actors in Hollywood, which is how he wound up in LOS Angeles in the first place. This is all to say that Sternberg knew what Uncertain DE does to consumer behaviour. What was going through my head was man. I don't know how big businesses are going to deal with this he said, but for a small business. This is enough to take all of us out. He snapped his fingers in one shot ass. It happened. It was the giants who would fall first over the next few months. J crew Newman, Marcus, Brooks Brothers and Jesse penny filed for bankruptcy gap ink couldn't pay rent on its two thousand and seven hundred eighty five north american stores by July Diane Vaughan

Sternberg announced she would lay off three hundred employees and close eighteen of her nineteen stores the impending damage to small businesses with inconceivable the next morning, a Friday. Dernburg drove to entire world offices in Koreatown. He sat down at his desk and began drafting an email. While I mean W T F, He didn't run the email by his staff. There was no meeting about it. He just sat down in road. It am I sick all right Can I leave my house? What do I tell him employees. Will my mom be ok on her flight home today? Can Zogg Sternberg Dog get corona virus? Did I buy enough tape? how long will this last who's in charge? What's next. The email went out to the brands. Thirty thousand subscribers on Sunday March fifteenth. It was in a sea of day

promotional emails, a distinctly human one, but this was still a promotion very sweatsuit, the brands top seller a hero item in industry, speak inspired by a french children's film entire world, sweat suits, come in a prism of cherry colors, and in Sternberg Vision, sort of make. You look like a cross between a teller, tubby, and Stiller in the royal ten and bombs and a J C penny add from nineteen seventy nine it wasn't long before Sternberg employees began texting him happy face emerging on an average day, the brand still in its nation stage cells. Forty six sweats that day,

old more than a thousand when they ran out of sweat, suits shoppers moved through the t, shirts, socks and underwear by months, and the brand sales were up six hundred sixty two percent over March the previous year. The day we met April, twenty fourth with the high Grossing day in the company's history, a new shipment came in the morning and promptly sold out again entire world now grows more in two months than in its entire first year in business by Matt. I mean that we were in Sternberg Backyard in chairs position twenty feet, apart with the set up of disinfectant wipes between us. At this point, Sternberg hadn't been leaving the house much instead, Sobs sitting on deliveries from blue apron, the meal care service and rationing. Ingredients into multiple meals, entire world managing director, Jordan, Schiff, formerly of doves

chinese american apparel, whose heyday Sternberg line openly pays homage to had just come down with covert nineteen, but he was still tracking the numbers just a few days before shift reported that the company had sold out Six hundred pairs of lavender women Socks Sternberg, was in a good mood. This was obviously not just because of an email nor was it simply because America had settled into sweat pants for the foreseeable future. In laying down this groundwork. Since band of outsiders, imploded entire world wasn't partner, in name only suggesting, as it does the opposite of the inn crowd? It was also Sternberg rejection of the traditional fashion system, the one that once vaulted him to success, no more fashion shows,

No more seasonal collections, no more wholesale accounts that have become unreliable are Ip Barneys or the mark ups required to pay for it. All bans shirts started a two hundred twenty dollars. Entire world are ninety five dollars. For years, Sternberg had been saying that the fashion industry was a giant bubble heading toward collapse. Now the pandemic was just speeding up the inevitable in fact it had already begun. An incredible surplus of clothing was presently sitting in warehouses and in stores, some of which might never reopen that whole channel is dead. Sternberg said: and there is no sign of one it's turning on again. In April clothing sales fell. Seventy nine percent in the United States, the largest dive on record purchases of sweat pants though or up eighty sent entire world was like the rear life form that survives the apocalypse by bedding

luxury market would fail. Sternberg had evaded the very full is that we're bringing down the rest of the industry because you can see the writing on the wall. He said the man in writing on the wall, the Barneys listen Barneys. That was not a shock to anyone there's one image that I will remember from the last days of the fashion industry as it has existed for the last two decades. Its mark Jake Streaming live from the Mercer Hotel in New York in pearls and perfect make up. The broadcast ran to seventy five minutes in length over two different virtual events. It began on April fifteenth with votes global conversations, a series the magazine introduced to figure out how to fix the fashion industry and continued.

Months later on may fifteenth with business of fashion the industry's go to news website, I'm in the process of grief right now, Jacobs, told Vogue. Why are you grieving mark? The moderator asked why? Because this is all very sad then later, how are you going percent your spring summer. Twenty one collection, I'm not sure there will be a spring summer. Twenty one collection Jacobs had come to see his full two thousand. Do show as a kind of farewell. I've said this to my psychiatrist, my lovely doktor Richardson. He told business of fashion after taking along ride from his weight and that I would be very happy if that were my last show, that collection would never be produced, buyers couldn't place orders and even if they had factories were shut down,

Jacob said he had to lay off a bunch of people and ask others to take pay cuts in other. This began with the pandemic, since two thousand thirteen Jacobs is business had shrunk from two hundred fifty stores to just for speaking to vogue. He said this has been a very difficult business to be in for a long time. I think things look different in two thousand five I'm using that year. Someone subjectively, because that's when I started as an intern at women's where daily it was a thing. Link time an american fashion, a new Art of young designers had just entered the scene, displacing the stars of the night. Eightys and Ninetys Donna Karen Calvin Klein Michael quarters. Others and re energizing, the runways, interns dont, say much, but it can

Molly fashion, weak invites trickled down. My first show was Zack poison in something like row ate. My second was Provence schooler, though designers, along with Alexander Wang, Derek LAMP, Philip Limb rag and bone row. Dirty Jason, whew and later Joseph Altisidora seemed to grow into glue we'll brands overnight, with the help of store buyers and fashion editors eager to usher in a nine eleven generation of american talent band of outsiders was part of that Sternberg with twenty nine when he started the brand in two thousand for like the road artist sisters who had formal training and lived with their parents in Pasadena California, Sternberg a former agent,

Creative artists agency designing a line in what was then a fashion desert was an outsider instantly embraced within months he had a full page photo of his ties and g q and was picked up by Barneys. We were next to dream, but Lindsey AGA Prada. He said, and we were me making shirts and ties allay along with brands like Tom Brown Ban joined the wave of the nerdy preppy resurgence, shrunken Blazers Polos boat shoes or what Sternberg called preppy clothes about preppy clothes. Once he expanded into women's, where the brand grew into a fifteen million dollar wholesale business sold in two hundred fifty stores worldwide. It wasn't by the end, all that good for us, obviously, because we weren't building a sound business, Sternberg said, but it's pretty incredible the power,

What that global fashion system could do when Sternberg says global fashion system he's referring to the ecosystem of designers, fashion, media and stores that puts us all in clothes fashion week is where those entities meet the reason spring collections are shown in the fall, and vice versa is so they can be ordered, reviewed and produced in time for the actual season, as well Most things. This system was appended by the internet once normal people could view collections online, which confusingly they couldn't by until six months later, everything began to accelerate Now stores needed deliveries earlier to fill demand and to deliveries simply weren't enough. Suddenly midseason collections me. The pre fall and resort, also known, as crews became the norm even for smaller designers, whose custom

Those were not necessarily among the small subset of people who get off to a pre or Sandro pay for the winter months, so designers for making two collections a year to four. If you have men's line. Maybe it was actually six and if you do your orgy of all she, you were also doing couture, as fashion shows had grown into huge marketing events, because reality or an Hathaway or whoever was sitting in the front row. Each of those collections was also a show. Somehow. This was all still going pretty well consumers. Consuming store buyers were buying more and designers, produced more and faster business boomed and everyone just kept growing. If there was a turning point, it might have been fall. Thousand eight that year, New York Fashion Weak drew an estimated two hundred thirty two thousand attendees and generated four hundred sick. Six million in visitor spending three days after it end

In September, the economy collapsed the luxury Margaret was already over saturated and now there was no one to buy the stuff stores, panicked and marked everything down early, but then they did it again. Steer and the year after that, relying on marked down to generate revenue and training, consumers to shop on sale so Now you had summer dresses arriving in January and being discounted before the weather would even allow you to wear them. The fashion cycle stopped making sense, despite dwindling budgets, thousands of people were still flying all over the world. Every two months for the shows designers started to crack under the pace most nobly John Galiano, who attributed his two thousand eleven anti semitic rant and subsequent fight.

Being from your to work, related stress and the clothes themselves got kind of weird. The sped up calendar gave birth to season was dressing, a trend of Frankenstein clothing items tools boots sleeveless codes, you get it when you're delivering fall in July. It's really not about whether anymore. This might have been the time to rethink things instead everyone double down and made more stuff. As online retailers like net airport hay and matches fashion, game traction and everything was suddenly soul, everywhere department stores, look for new ways to draw customers and her novelty, a term for the

sometimes little bells and whistles that buyers increasingly ass designers to add the collections in order to entice string customers like cats. If in the last decade you ve gone looking for a simple cashmere sweater and instead encountered ones with zippers an animal phases, glitter shoulders or distressed anything, that's novelty. If you found yours annoyed do you were not alone? That was so. We could sell to sacks name. Barneys Nord Stream Collect and everybody could have their own special thing, Sternberg recalled, I was basically make stuff. I didn't like, because I thought a buyer wanted it, not even the customer. It used to be that stores attracted shoppers with the promise of an exclusively carried designer

once designers can no longer afford to remain exclusive to a certain store. The compromise was exclusive styles, in addition to a presented collection, buyers requested slightly altered, looks lengthened him here at a sleeve. There take the print from that dress and make it into pants. The could then be exe listen to their customers. This is still going on the amount of work you do for exclusive is out of control, but she never hey a former. De Gator who started her namesake line of off, killed her prairie dresses in two thousand. Sixteen told me I want this: can you make this with a little this? Some of it is because they think it might sell, but some is just so they can say its exclusive. This part cast is supported by a trade

trading isn't for everyone, but he trade is whether at saving for a rainy day or your retirement, each trade has you covered. They can help you check financially off your list and with a team of professionals giving you support. When you need it, you can be confident that your money is working hard for you get more than just trading with e trade to get started, visit each dot com such podcast, for more formation, each trade Securities LLC member fin raw as Ipc Molly Nutter, a former view P for merchandising Barneys worked for the department store for nineteen years. This is has been broken for a long time said Nutter, who is now the president of by George, a specialty store in Austin Texas. There was a lie pressure on designers to produce more collections and therefore more product, I would say: wasn't it real demand by the customer. I think it was just retailers trying to grab market share. They thought If I can get more n and earlier than I can get more clients through my door, but

everyone doing this. It just compounds the problem, then, of course, all these stores and up with too much inventory, and this is where all of the promotional activities starts to take place, you're basically putting luxury product out there and devaluing as almost right away. It was just this vicious cycle. This is what Jacobs would later be morning in his hotel room, while everyone see, eager to define fashions future. He was holding space for its present. He was lucid, candid, somehow smarter than everyone. I was relieved when he declined to be interviewed for this article we ve done. Everything to such access that there is no consumer for all of it. Jacobs told Vogue everyone is exhausted by it. The designers are exhausted by it. The journalists are exhausted from following it. He added when you're just told to produce to produce to produce its like

a gun to your head and saying you know: dance monkey in two thousand thirteen Sternberg sat down with the chief executive Barneys at the time marked Lee who Sternberg says over promised how much inventory the department store would be able to sell, Barneys promised us the world and never delivered on any of it. Sternberg said we did not respond to requests for comment and it was stupid of us to listen to them, but we trust them. That was a complete killer and you feel insecure, like I need Barneys to be cool and then and there are these things- called our tvs. Our tv stands for return to vendor, which is what it sounds like. If a collection, the one that the store has

I asked you to pad out with a novelty and explosives, doesn't sell. The retailer can return it and ask for its money back according to Nutter, as stores struggled. The terms of this deal got worse, in some cases, stores ass designers, to sell on consignment or to share costs. If a certain percentage of the collection didn't sell at full price,

So let's say a store decided to mark the collection down early. You now, oh did for those losses, even as I'm telling you this nutter said I'm like. Isn't that crazy? It is, it is crazy, and here is where it God, even crazier, in order to protect exclusivity stores had to commit to even larger, buys ordering more closed than they could possibly cell. Then, when they couldn't moved the stuff. They'd return it thanks to the rise of fast fashion and the luxury market, simultaneous attempt to keep up with it's impossible pace. It all started to feel disposable, so detrimental was the cycle of overproduction, and Dick mounting to luxury goods that in two thousand eighteen Burberry, the british label revealed that it had been burning, not metaphorically, but literally burning. Thirty. Six

million dollars of worth of merchandise per year to maintain brand value in short, fat, and seem to slowly annihilate itself, remember fashion weak well, incurring all those losses designers were still putting on shows roughly every three months, productions that ran hundreds of thousands of dollars or millions. If you wish Now. The problem is that everyone who attended the shows and streamed them out via endless blurry instagram videos with actively making the case for the demise of their jobs. If you're there watching via the tiny screen on your phone while the real live show, is happening feet away? Why, go God Bless Fashion, media Sternberg said they still have not caught up to

idea that everyone is seeing it at the same time it such a little scam fashion week. He continued, I love doing shows, but you get caught up in it and then you can, stop, because if you stop they're going to write about you, stopping and you're going to look like a failure or the stores will stop buying your stuff And you don't really know why their buying your stuff, but their buying it and you're not, haven't any more. If you're not doing a show, Sternberg acknowledged that there were other factors that killed band of outsiders, chief among them, his own inexperience and scaling in niece brand, but ultimately he was under funded and overleveraged the day he the store in so how, with a Mamma food milk bar attached, he knew it was over stern. Took a two million dollar convertible loan from seals, C c, a fashion fund backed by a belgian shipping magnet and defaulted six months later, the brand was collateral

band has since been reborn as a zombie version of itself run by the Belgians in May two thousand fifteen. He handed off passwords keys and storage locker in Pomona California, with the brands archive and walked away, but it wasn't some big disaster. He said well by the end, it was a little bit of a disaster. Sternberg story not unique among his peers in Europe luxury, Russian conglomerates like avi am age and carrying paired young designers with experience. Business people in America It was much more entrepreneurial, Andrew Rosen, a founder of theory and an early

faster in programmes and ragged bone told me. You had a lot of these incredibly talented young designers that, frankly, didn't have the business partnership to go along with it. I asked Sternberg if he felt as if he lost the narrative. To some extent I didn't lose the narrative, because I never have the one he said I started making shirts and ties for men and everybody loved them. Then I made men's as for women and everybody loved them all these amazed stores and magazines were eating them up. I was just a kid in a candy store waiting for an adult, step into the room and rain at all in the adult, never came per Windsor schooler has gone through myriad investors ending up with one that specializes in distressed assets last summer, Derek Lamb,

down his high and line in November Zack pose and went out of business the same week as Barneys the store that once discovered him followed closely. By opening ceremony in January then covered nineteen hit numerous stopped, having any need for fashionable clothing, retailers scrambled the cancer and return orders remember. Our tvs. Minors were unable to cover basic expenses like rent and payroll, let alone upcoming collections suddenly and India that was already on the brink ground to a complete halt. It crystallized a lot of conversations that the fashion industry had been having for some time and a winter editor of artistic director of Candy Mass, told me when we spoke the zoom in May, for an industry that is meant to be about change something we take a long time to do just that, because it so big- and there are some- many moving parts, but now

we really forced into a moment when we have to reset and rethink full disclosure. I've written for evolve later. Last winter. Why so many designers of that generation were now struggling? I think in general we ve created a system that is unreal is and a strain for even the largest of brands. She wrote in an email. It could be that some younger designers were playing the same game and trying to keep up with the big brands rather than deter. What's best for them. In March, vote partnered with the sea FDA to set up a common thread, a pandemic relief sure do that has raised four point: nine million dollars to date by May more than one thousand companies had applied for aid. I was truly saddened by that number winter said: adding It really is time where we need to learn from. What's happened almost about how fragile

when on the edge we were all living and that it wasn't that solid Stephen called the president of the safety. Eight was even more I think there will be brands that dont come out of this still a business. He said how did we get here? This is a question I asked almost everyone. I think everybody would say it's the other and not themselves called told me. I don't think you can blame one person or one part of the industry. Winter said certainly the media had something to do with it, as everything went so instant through digital and the emphasis on what's new in May, I called Jeffrey Kalinowski the Red Oh pioneer who opened Jeffrey in New York, meet packing district in nineteen. Ninety nine transforming

neighbourhood into the retail zone. It is today Kalinowski was first in New York to sell band of outsiders in two thousand five historic were acquired by Nord Stream. One of the department stores said to be well position to survive the pandemic. I think all of us played a part Kalinowski said it was the stores and the customers and the brands and all of us, I hate, what's happening in the world, but I think, if there's anything good that can come out of this, it's the chance to look at ourselves for days after we spoke. Nord stream announced that it was closing Jeffrey,

Sternberg, never intended to design a uniform for sheltering in place after band of outsiders folded in two thousand fifteen. He patted around his house for a few weeks and avoided the press. Then he got an email from going as Paltrow. I was so sad when band closed. She wrote it was a dark day for fashion I'm not sure what you're doing where your head is add or if you have a non compete, but I have an idea, I'd love to run by you soon, Sternberg had a job design, held rose clothing line for goop, her wellness and lifestyle business. Meanwhile, he thought about what he might like to do. Next Sternberg surveyed the fashion scene and saw

a lot of noise, the luxury minimalism of countless Celine copycats, the maxim elysium of Franz like Gucci, the fall gamut of street, where from Supreme to vat months, he wanted to do something that felt like a pallid cleansers. Sternberg, took meetings with target and Amazon Fashion and pitched super product. Well, designed basics that he hoped could be with the gap once was neither went anywhere. He decided to do it on his own entire world was born in two thousand eighteen, as a de tc direct consumer line with no seasons no shows no novelty. I wanted complete freedom from now. She said, you probably know what did you see is even without knowing it reformation ever lane, outdoor voices war be Parker, all birds, all those sand. Sarah venture capital funded brands that have proliferated

So much in the last decade, the you're probably wearing one of them right now have you ever buy clothes from an instagram. Add that's d c entire world is sort of post ddt seed which is to say that there is no Silicon Valley, boardroom trying to solve a problem for you. It's just Sternberg, a fashion industry, refugee feeling his way through it. I am incredibly business minded Sternberg said, but where design driven, I come out of fashion, I'm not coming out of a power. Deck. Most styles in his line are perennial. There are pleaded trousers that are sort of the cooler version of what your eighties dad might where and a giant shirt inspired by Ralph Laurens big shirt of the nineties. The sweat suit made a fabric that Sternberg developed from scratch feels like the sartorial version of a hug, something about its cause.

Nation of color fabric and fit makes it feel. Ok too, where not only to bed but also out in January, I saw a woman in New York wearing it under a burberry coat. Unlike bands, slim fit most by entire world or roomy and wide its slogan is the stuff you live in in recent years. The collapse of the fashion industry has pushed other runway designers like Coon Panic School and the shoe designer tomorrow, melon to redefine themselves as details, see companies, those who haven't

are now being nudged in that direction. Take about shovel hay, for instance, who in April had more than half of her wholesale orders slashed and one hundred thousand dollars owed to her by retailers. When I reached her, she was packaging web orders from a lake house in Upstate, New York and selling face masks via Instagram. She estimated that before the pandemic de TC was about ten percent of her thus, but now it's kind of all my business. She said, Emily Adams body amends where designer who want to see FDA award last year was until reason he sold in one hundred twenty stores worldwide, with e commerce accounting for less than ten percent of her sales in May body was at her fiance. His parents, home in Canada, rushing to put her spring summer. Collection online stores that we ve had in our excel sheets. On the probability of getting paid at ninety percent, now call us and say: they're closing. She told me

we have to completely rely on our own selling, because at the end of the day I dont know how many stores are going to be able to. Harry the weight in another six months last November, just as everyone declared that retail was dead booty opened her own bricks and mortar store on the lower side. The store which is sort of the old school version of D C ended up saving her what she projected to sell in a month she started selling in a day I dont think we'd be here without the store she said. Hey was also looking at store space, just as the crisis began and plan to again there's going to be a ton of empty retail space, she said I'm sure I can find an amazing deal. The pandemic has also forced a correction of the calendar with facts. Shut down and deliveries delayed. Many of this year's fall collections will for the first time in a long while actually arrive in season summoned the industry have even talked about push

the unseen and unsold two thousand twenty collections to two thousand twenty one to avoid losses which, by the way, not a bad idea. Sternberg said it's what the clothing industry has over the food industry in the food industry. The aged inventory, rots. The fascinating part is that, in order to do that, to give that Aged inventory value again requires literally killing fashion that nebulous deity. That says something is in this year and not the next in May to separate groups of designers banded together to put forth proposals on how to change the industry essentially pushed for the same thing. Later. Deliveries delayed mark downs, fewer collections. I think a lot of us,

are aligned on this idea that seasons have to go back to what they were. Joseph alters aura who signed both proposals. Told me. The only person who didn't think fashion had been moving too fast was the designer Virgil AB low, even though he had to skip his own fashion. Show in Paris last September, reportedly because of exhaustion, Abso juggles history, where label off white with Louis we Tom Men's where, as well as collaboration with Nike IKEA Evian, Jimmy chew and others. I work at the pace of my ideas and those come off, and he told me the consumer today is a hyper being, I'm not one to say: let's go back to the old days when we had rotary phones or something he called revising the delivery schedule, an obvious fix Morse. Than a profound idea or anything. What does all this mean for the shows? There will definitely be some

but nothing resembling fashion week, as we knew it winter told me a blow announced that he will no longer show on a seasonal schedule or basis shows in one place the bell designer trees Van noted and will not show until two thousand twenty one Chanel premier at a virtual would show the week that the George Floyd protests began and came off as mostly tone. Deaf, Sandro me Kelly. The Gucci designer has reduced the number of shows from five to to doing away with season and gender altogether. There has also been talk of virtue, reality and films, accompanied by fabric samples in New York. The sea FDA will still be the affair. Scheduler of New York Fashion week in September, though it's on your. Why mostly digital shows would have to be scheduled. I think fashion weak as over. He said, I'm pretty sure it's over forever. If not the shows, then certainly the collective circle-

the travels from New York to London to MILAN to Paris twice a year. The more important question is whether people will buy clothes that aren't sweat pants in the near future, Some are already designing without uncertainty in mind, alters aura. Who makes the opposite of home body clothes. Told me he was adding softer fabrics and more relaxed silhouettes to his spring twenty one collection, necessarily like lounge, where or at leisure he said, but I think after spending months and sweat, pants people are going to want to feel comfortable. Hey, meanwhile, was pivoting from party dresses to house dresses I'm just like ok we're home more, but why does that have to be sweat? Pants she said Kennedy address a house dress is completely easy. You can throw it is if it off whatever. Maybe I'm going

who far imagining a future where were constantly in and out of quarantine, but business wise, I'm sort of preparing for that, and if that's the case, what happens to designers like oops, when asked about online Shopping Jacobs, told business a fashion. I love to go to a shock. I like to see everything I like to touch it. I like to try it on. I like to have Coffee I like to have a bottle of water. I like to get dressed up. He raised his eyebrows for emphasis but ordering online and a pair of grubby sweats is not my idea of living life. Incidentally, Jacobs is false. Two thousand twenty show in February was among his very best the closed reference to Internet New York. Well, modern dancers, charged at unsuspecting audience members seated at cafe, tables in a way that now feels prescient in two thousand aid. Sternberg Eustace.

Begin to Jacobs is shows that the Lexington Avenue Armoury, as everyone did then on a huge mark, Jacobs fan. He told me that was the year that saunter gold and am I a played on every runway and the magic to the way that the music being models and the fabric and motion gave fashion is heart beat the incredible. HOLLAND of someone. My Jacobs is that his clothes didn't even have to be produced all worn to have influence he's. All about starting a conversation that then threads its weight, HU the system eventually landing and consumers hands via a perfume or an accessory. If at all, so what happens to mark Sternberg asked? Where does he end up? He answered his own question.

I guess in the Mercer hotel wearing pearls in June, I stopped by Sternberg Grosch, where he keeps a personal archive of band of outsiders designs. There are crates labelled terms for the turbans he sent down the runway. Four fall: two thousand thirteen, a collection inspired by Billy A and a Tory video Games and SS twelve for spring summer, two thousand twelve, which referenced Peter Weirs picnic at hanging rock. There are also polos from his. This is not a polo shirt line, fur jackets before he got off fur from the show that opened with mountain climbers, repelling from the ceiling and bandage skirts stitched out of suspenders, I made

Yea me Sternberg, said flatly. This is some ugly print that Rashid Jones WAR on good morning, America, he said Sternberg gloves drones its own work. He is ambivalent about What do you do with all this expletive? You don't want to throw it out, give it away Should someone be wearing it? It's not art. For God's sake, going through this stuff, Sternberg was a bit like a musician revisiting the hits he made before he got. Sober. He loves them, he really does, but the excess of it weighs on him all those ideas that never became anything all those materials all that waste, but shoes, LISA Manoel blocks and Gulf Cleat Oxford and platforms with watch bans as straps all developed just for the shows at thirty pairs per show and never even produced and its season. After see,

he said. If I like you're, making an Iphone, we are going to mass produce it and then iterate on it. Last year, Sternberg led his see. Membership lapse, he saw it as a largely New York fashion a week, centric institution evaded. Offer anything for what I'm doing, he said they should be trying to figure out what all this is and how they could supported. The sea FDA subsequently reached out to Sternberg. They were sort of lake. What are you doing? and I just said this is what I'm doing. What are you doing when you're in my zone? Let's talk when I asked cold. If the sea FDA could do more to support De Tc companies, he said, I think, that's a big John, that's not an answer. I have. It was ultimately up to the board. He added but I know we have those conversations all the time. Whatever tensions there may be

Everyone I spoke to praised Sternberg reinvention in the way that fashion people praise things, which is to say, with a tiny bit of shade love. Scott Anna Winter said It seems very honest to me and very realistic. I understand not everyone can afford. Mark Jacobs or Chanel cold. Told me. I think Scott is a brilliant marketer added, It works really well with the basics brand, but he also credited him with anticipating this moment. Whatever happened between him and the investors and, however, he got out of that. Maybe at the time was painful, but it enabled him to start over. I think and that are in it. Now it's much harder to make that change. Even Virgil Eyebrow, the designer of we tall men's. Where was excited when I brought up Sternberg name, I love

band of outsiders. He said my question is: where did he go by June? U S clothing sales bounded, but they were still down. Overall from the year before market analysts predicted that with infection, soaring again and stimulus money running out that uptake might be temporary The anomalies have been mostly at leisure companies like LULU, lemon, the purveyor of booty leggings, who shares have surged in recent months. Entire world is still tiny, but in its second ear, Sternberg says its revenue is already eight times that of band of outsiders by the same point and that's while selling much more product ten dollar underwear and socks. Thirty two dollar tease eighty eight dollars sweatshirts. Despite the recent good sales Sternberg has still had to scale back in February

he expected to get around to financing from investors in Korea, but then the virus hit their first and that evaporated the same week that the sweat pants were selling out. Laid off three of his nine employees and cut styles, he planned to add in the fall even before the pandemic, persuading and stirs to bet on clothing brands had become a drag. This is the small business. He told me it's no longer sexy. Investors want something disruptive when there Is there investor friends they want to say they invested in like flavoured water or an operating system? changes. The way we walk. Investors that do pump money into De Tc brands are, after swift returns, pushing companies to grow big and fast in a way that unsustainable one such casualty without door voice. Is the athletic apparel company that reportedly took in sixty million dollars of venture capital, money and faltered in February

with its c o ousted and its evaluation, plummeting after what happened to banned? The last thing Sternberg wants is to grow too fast for us good investors are only interested in like billion dollar company, Unicorns Sternberg said Sternberg doesn't want to be a unicorn. He just wants to be profitable by next year. The second band tried to grow. That's when we stopped being profitable he said. Sternberg wouldn't remember this, but we met briefly allow time ago, when I covered his spring show in September two thousand eight mere weeks before the financial crash, he seemed different now sort of softer around the edges, which also happens to be how he describes his new line. I much lighter as a person. He said. I know that whatever I'm doing for work is not the end all be all of my life that doesn't mean

don't emotionally invest in all this and wanted to thrive. But my identity and sense of self worth isn't tied to its success or failure. Would I like this to work sure Is it going to ruin me? No? The last week Sternberg admitted had been rough, though Schiff his managing director had recovered from Co. Nineteen, a billionaire seed investor, informed Sternberg that he would not be investing any more money? And it's not like me and hit our numbers? Sternberg said in a way if it weren't for the pandemic, this might have been the end of entire world. When the pandemic kid he had, maybe six weeks of runway left the sales boom has extended that to at least the end of the summer. Still he had to get more product up on the website and for that he had to pay. His factories

He found the whole thing depressing here. He was perhaps the only one in fashion who couldn't cell merchandise fast enough in a pandemic, and no one was listed in investing its slog. Sternberg said it's a constant series of disappointing conversations. He thought it was indicative of where the industry was now. Someone like Mark Jacobs would probably be ok because he was backed by El Vm age. But what would happen to the upstarts if the whole they'll model could no longer be relied on to fund young designers and private equity and venture capitalists pushed them to expand so quickly that they inevitably imploded with their any hope for brands to grow slowly and thoughtfully overtime, if not fashion, might go the way of other industries like film, in which there are the blockbusters

and the tiny indies and nothing in between band didn't need to be a one. Hundred million dollar brand Sternberg said, but is there a it's for a thirty million dollar brand that can self sustain and be around year after year, certainly not with big backers, because that's not interesting to them wholesale used to be able to support that, but it also ultimately killed it. Fashion is by definition and equitable people, buy clothes for illogical emotional reasons. The challenge, as Sternberg SOD, was to build it and they could be immune to trends and novelty and whatever DIS Toby in disaster was coming next, the trick with fashion, if that were not selling toilet paper, he said which, of course, during covered toilet paper sales go up, but ultimately it will level out, because there's only so many butts in the world that hasn't changed, people are just wording. Fashion is

really different. You have to assume the cycle will change even if you're doing commodity, and how will you keep up with that? How do you build a business that can sustain those fluctuations over time? That was his pitch anyway, but so far no one seemed to be listening. One investor suggested that may be Sternberg should turn entire world into a tv show that would advertise the clothes Burg sounds easy, another told him wow, it's great, that you're doing well, but I'm actually looking into distressed assets. Now, in of investing into a young business that was actually making money. The investor was looking to swoop in and pick off bigger brands.

There were now on the brink of bankruptcy. Reviving a corpse was easier than tending to a new born, as this investor saw it that, in the end held the promise of a bigger pay off. This was recorded by autumn autumn is an f. You can download to listen to lots of audio stories from publishers such as the New York Times, the new Yorker Vanity, Fair and the Atlantic. The following message is brought to you by Spotify Pie, I'm Michelle Obama and this

the Mitchell Bomb, a pot cats. I talked with people. I love about the relationships that comfort and challenge us and make us who we are. The Michelle Obama POD cast is a spot, a fight, original podcast, joy. And ass. You can listen to the series free only on Spotify