few things sexier than a brand showing DISCIPLINE!
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Skims is the new PINK—or at least they’re trying to be. I can’t imagine they’ll have a hard time getting there. Building on last year’s back-to-school push, they tapped real college influencers (SKIMS Class of 2025) for their new Campus Collection. Everyone loves an ensemble cast. It’s been a while since SKIMS did a big celebrity/influencer shoot; I wonder who’s up next.
Insightful conversation with Merit CMO Aila Mori from Vogue Business on slow and intentional brand building. Few things sexier than a brand in 2025 showing DISCIPLINE! I wish more of you would.
And on that note, Youthforia is shutting down. A stronger brand could have survived the jet black pigment mess, but alas, a stronger brand they were not.
Things are heating up in the fashion rental space, and I’m bullish. Long-beleaguered incumbent Rent the Runway reported a 2.7% year-on-year revenue increase in 2024, with subs nearing pre-pandemic highs. Gen Z favorite Nuuly hit profitability and seems on track for $500M in revenue. Investor confidence is back, and category segmentation is emerging: peer-to-peer player Pickle raised $12 million in Series A in March, luxury accessories membership club Vivrelle closed a $62 million Series C in June, and newcomer Bnto launched an AI-powered rental for Gen Z. Of course, fashion rental is mostly a logistics and inventory game, but the tailwinds of consumers becoming more price-conscious (see: ThredUp’s Q2 new buyer acquisition grew 74%) and people actually wanting to be outside again make for pretty favorable conditions.
I read this wrong and thought for a second that Rhode x Dairy Boy was happening. Now I’m thinking about it.
Pleasing might have finally found its lane, and by that I mean sex. After instantly selling out of its vibrators, the brand is launching the Pleasing Pleasure School, with Zoë Ligon hosting office hours in their Broadcast Channel. I’ve been writing about Pleasing for as long as I’ve been writing this newsletter. Mostly, my commentary has been along the lines of: great branding, but what’s the idea here?! Leaning into sexual wellness makes sense, especially considering that relatively new CEO Shaun Kearney was most recently Goop’s chief design and merchandising officer.
Are you even launching a fragrance if you don’t do the OOH scratch-and-smell?
Martha Stewart’s cofounder for her new skincare line, Dr. Dhaval Bhanusali, is also the dermatologist for rhode. The fact that it's called Em Biosciences (tagline: “rooted in science”) and that one of its two launch products is a supplement says a lot about the state of the beauty industry. “Natural” is out; medicalized beauty is in.
Perimenopause is shaping up to be the next big thing in women’s wellness, and Perelel is all over it. There are certain things the internet will suddenly decide you need to know about, and in the year 2025, perimenopause is one of them. Think egg freezing a few years ago, or this year’s protein and creatine boom. I first started following Perelel after they acquired Erica Chidi’s Loom last year, just months after closing a $6 million Series A round led by Unilever Ventures. If beauty is turning to medicine, one of the biggest trends I see in wellness is brands like Perelel and Julie stepping in where women’s public healthcare falls short. Last month, the OB/GYN-led vitamin brand launched a new community and campaign centered on perimenopause. I reached out to Perelel’s co-founder and Chief Brand Officer Alex Taylor to hear more about the brand’s latest focus:
“We need to start having more substantive conversations about the unique and complex demands of perimenopause, so we created a space dedicated to just that, offering not only resources, but community for women who have been putting the puzzle pieces together on their own until now. Perelel aims to be by women’s sides through all stages of life, and it was time to pay special attention to perimenopause, which has gone underdiscussed and underresearched for too long.”
I never skip a Pandora Sykes interview, but it’s an especially great day when your two favorite bookish creators are in conversation about…books. Literally no two other people have shaped my literary taste more, so this is fun. Speaking of, I might need to make my literary career a bit more than a side quest so that I too can partner with Rimowa.
Former X CEO Linda Yaccarino has a new job leading eMed Population Health, a digital health platform for GLP-1/GIP population health management.
Tinder saw a 7% drop in paying users, while parent company Match Group reported a 5% decline across its portfolio in Q2. Meanwhile, Hinge, also owned by Match, continued to post double-digit growth, with paying users up 18%—which makes me think this is a branding problem as much as a product one.
Instagram rolled out three new features on its app this week: Reposts, Instagram Maps, and a “Friends” tab in Reels—all of which signal a renewed desire to lean into the social side of media again, or at least better straddle the two.
Fox announced plans to launch new streaming platforms. A few thoughts: 1.) I don’t watch any sports I can’t find on YouTube, but I feel for sports fans. The fragmentation is wild—and expensive. The new Fox streamer will cost $19.99/month and include Sunday NFL games, postseason MLB, Fox News, and more. 2.) The timing is interesting, with the NFL just taking a stake in ESPN as part of a larger deal that gives Disney ownership of the NFL Network, and ESPN’s own standalone streaming service launching soon at $29.99 a month. 3.) RIP Venu. IYKYK.
Roku also announced a $2.99 ad-free streaming service. I’m not sure why.
Universal Pictures has started adding a legal warning at the end credits of its films stating that their titles “may not be used to train AI.”
Amazon’s Wondery Studio is cutting 110 jobs and may be shutting down.The studios’ narrative podcast slate will move to Audible, and top creators with video-focused podcasts will become part of Amazon’s new “creator services” team, home to personality-driven shows. A source told THR the majority of impacted employees were connected to the narrative podcasting division—another casualty of podcasting’s ongoing shakeout and YouTube’s dominance.
I’m always on the lookout for fun new perks Substack creators are offering their paid subscribers. Last week, Hannah Connolly introduced a monthly digital zine as a paid subscriber benefit. It’s pretty genius—on-brand, well-designed, and nostalgic in a 2000s magazine way. I asked Hannah what the inspiration was for the zine:
I was thinking about how much people want to get offline right now, and our collective nostalgia—not just for being teenagers, but for growing up in a time that felt, in some way, less complicated than today. I wanted to see if I could create something that taps into that nostalgia while also speaking to today’s culture—and giving my paid subscribers something beyond just a text newsletter. Also, I’m obsessed with making things beautiful, and there’s just something so cool about the aesthetics of Y2K mags.
The Times looks well on its way to reaching its 15M paid subs goal by 2027. It added 230,000 paid digital-only subscribers in Q2, bringing its total to 11.88M subscribers across digital and print. Print subs declined to 580K, from 630K a year ago. Wirecutter’s affiliate and licensing revenue rose 5.8% to $70.5M. Revenue jumped 9.7% from subscriptions and ads. Most notable, at least to me, is The Athletic finally turning a profit, reporting $5.8M in adjusted operating income—a major turnaround from last year’s $2.4M loss. The sports-media brand also announced two new podcast licensing deals, including Substack-native The Sports Gossip show. Congrats to them!
Beehiiv CEO Tyler Denk would like to distance his company from the Substack comparisons: “I actually see Substack as building more of a social network now, like Twitter, Threads, Bluesky, and LinkedIn. We play in that ecosystem, but we’re much closer to an email platform or a website platform. For forever we’re going to be linked to them—I think because we both came from newsletters around the same time—but their product direction is totally different.”
The New York Post is launching a California edition because Rupert Murdoch knows an opportunity when he sees one. The New York Post has been profitable for the past three years. Meanwhile, over in California, the LA Times is going to shit at a pace only rivaled by The Washington Post. Fun times ahead.
Former Kardashian COO turned actress Steph Shep is launching a sustainable pet care company. Creative direction so far is peak.
Bath & Body Works is rolling out displays and kiosks at 600 college bookstores this August—the first time its products will be sold outside its own stores. Smart. They just brought on Nike’s former Chief Strategy and Transformation Officer as their CEO so maybe now they won’t go the way of Claire’s.
Is thinking becoming a luxury good? Maybe. I’ve included a gift link to this NYT op-ed because I think it’s important—the comments section even more so. That smartphones and social media are making us dumber might seem like a trite assertion, doesn’t make it untrue. Neither due their vast benefits. AI is—and will—make things much, much worse.
I suspect the fashion rental sites may also be winners if GLP-1s end up being as mainstream as I suspect, not everyone can afford a whole new wardrobe to go with the body. Also, man, Pleasing: the nail polishes are packaged so beautifully but they’re not particularly good, glad they’re branching out.
Love these as always. And the part about AI and social media making us dumber. I think about it so much - related to work. I think the impact at work is more nuanced but based on my experience I’d say it’s led to lower levels of grit and resilience and a lower tolerance for (normal) conflict and friction.