TT Vol. 41

NYFW & Gabriela Hearst, Instrmnt Dress Watch, Diet Prada vs GQ

Feb 21, 2021

Clockwise from Top.

Choose Your Fighter: Diet Prada vs GQ’s Rachel Tashjian

Lots of media drama this week on Instagram and Twitter, with fashion police account Diet Prada feuding with GQ writer Rachel Tashjian. On Wednesday, Tashjian posted product images of brands Bode and Stan to her Twitter account, calling out Stan for its striking similarities to cult NYC brand Bode. Tashjian then published an article in GQ detailing the same behavior. Diet Prada followed Tashjian’s Twitter post and GQ article with their own post, without any attribution to Tashjian:

diet_prada

A post shared by Diet Prada ™ (@diet_prada)

Things then went a little off the rails. Understandably, Tashjian felt it was hypocritical for a site like Diet Prada, which has been vocal for years in exposing copycats in the fashion industry, to write such a similar article to hers without any attribution. Tashjian and Diet Prada WENT AT IT, with a lengthy DM conversation that Diet Prada published to their Instagram Stories:

Diet Prada Rachel Tashjian — Peering into Diet Prada’s DMs

While the Diet Prada piece is a bit broader than Tashjian’s, in that it incorporates gender issues around DIY sewing and quilting, it’s hard to believe that Diet Prada had not seen Tashjian’s piece before publishing. In particular, the images Diet Prada posted are strikingly similar to those posted by Tashjian to her Twitter account and in her GQ story. For media watchers like us, we were eating up all the drama.

(Hit us up in the comments if you want to see the lengthy, juicy DM’s between Tashjian and Diet Prada, as they have now disappeared from Diet Prada’s stories. We saved the screen shots for our readers! :))

Adidas Auctioning Off Reebok

Adidas has decided to cut its losses and has put Reebok up for sale. It acquired the fitness brand back in 2006, but has seen it underperform relative to the Adidas business.

Despite releasing some decent product over the past few years, Reebok was never able to break through in a commercial way. Contrast to how well Converse has performed for Nike over the same period, and you can understand why Adidas is disappointed.

There is still a profitable business to be made off of Reebok’s back catalog, and it has had a steady stream of interesting collaborators. Rumors are that VF Corp. or Authentic Brands Group may be interested.

New York Fashion Week Is Back

Now that the shows in Europe have wrapped up, fashion industry eyes moved from Paris and Milan to New York. There was a mix of in person shows and presentations; Jason Wu created a grocery store catwalk, while Ulla Johnson showed at the NYC Ballet’s theater at Lincoln Center.

Indoor house dresses became popular during the pandemic, and now we are seeing them show up on the runways. Gabriela Hearst had plenty in her show held in an abandoned warehouse somewhere in NYC. It was relaxed, beautiful, and Phoebe Philo-esque. (Side note: from this recent photo, it looks like Phoebe is back in her London studio, hard at work on her own line.)

In other NYFW news, Kamala’s step daughter Ella Emhoff was in the Proenza Schouler show. The Parsons senior was recently signed to IMG Models after wearing Miu Miu to her step mom’s inauguration.

Instrmnt Dress Watch

I’ve been a huge fan of Instrmnt Watches since I started buying them for Steven Alan shops. I’ve worn their Everyday Watch constantly over the past 5 years. They make really excellent quartz watches, and I’m constantly getting questions and compliments when I wear mine out of the house. As Raquel loves to point out, I have very tiny wrists, and their Dress Watch is great because it’s a smaller 36MM size and is actually proportional for me. Ross sent me over a unit to wear around the home office:

Instrmnt Applied Design — Instrmnt’s beautiful packaging

They also make a really great 40MM Dive Watch that I absolutely adore, with a metal oyster bracelet available to purchase separately. We also hope they relaunch their Dual Aspect Clock, which sold out in 2019.

Retail Sales Rise

While unemployment numbers have been disappointing, the Census Bureau announced some huge retail sales numbers for the month of January 2021:

Consumers flocked to spend their stimulus checks in January, sending retail sales for the month up 5.3% in a blockbuster start to 2021, according to a government report Wednesday.

This was a huge beat to analyst’s projects, and the gains were fairly broad based, with many subcategories seeing strong growth in sales, including restaurants and home furnishings. E-commerce sales are up almost 30% compared to January 2020.

Forecasts continue to paint a rosy picture for the back half of 2021 as vaccination rates increase, and consumers spend some of their pent up savings accumulated over the past year of hibernation. Things seem to be turning around for fashion, with Hermès recently announcing blockbuster fourth quarter sales.