#28 The Unbearable Lightness of Movie Production
"People who once upon a time handed out military command, high civil office, legions — everything, now restrains itself and anxiously hopes for just two things: bread and circuses."
Hiiiiii. Even as the world stands on the brink of a possible Cold War, here I am discussing long-term luxury brand strategies. Is it cognitive dissonance? Or the need to find beauty in the frivolous instead of focusing on the apocalyptic?
xoxo Esther 💋
Esther’s Buy/Sell List:
💰 What I’m investing in
🎞️ Universe-building. In my ins & outs list for 2025, I prescribed more universe-building, and less focusing on strict returns on investments.
I famously don’t go to the cinema very often. I however noticed that the last two films I saw—Emilia Perez, Parthenope—had something in common. Saint Laurent and its creative director Anthony Vaccarello were credited as producers in the opening credits.
Fashion houses have outfitted casts in the past. Famously, Hubert de Givenchy made gowns for Audrey Hepburn in Breakfast at Tiffany’s (1961). Yves Saint Laurent dressed Catherine Deneuve in the chic but provocative Belle de Jour (1967). I can’t help but notice they’re both prostitution-adjacent roles. Hot.
Besides Jean-Paul Gaultier for The Fifth Element (1997) and Prada for The Great Gatsby (2013), I can’t think of recent examples that have made a lasting imprint.
Under Anthony Vaccarello, Saint Laurent is not just dressing characters but producing films (Emilia Perez, Parthenope, Strange Way of Life). This implies creative control beyond costumes.
So why are they doing that now? It’s worth noting that Kering, Saint Laurent’s owner, hasn’t been in great shape for a minute:
No monetary returns? The association boosts brand equity ≠ direct sales. A trained eye (mine) could recognise the sharpness of a Saint Laurent stiletto worn in Emilia Perez and the precision of a shoulder on Parthenope’s blazers, but no stealth logo in sight.
Prestige play: Saint Laurent positions itself as a cultural curator, strengthening its standing in the luxury market. Despite the controversies, Emilia Perez was nominated in 13 categories at the 2025 Oscars and won 3 prizes at the 2024 Cannes Film Festival! Paolo Sorrentino, the director of Parthenope, has also won an Academy Award.
Myth-making: The industry is moving toward a fusion of content, lifestyle, and experience. Luxury brands want to own more of that narrative. Films offer a form of slow branding where the association lingers longer than an ad campaign. It mirrors how brands invest in art, architecture, and even hotels. A counter-example would be the collaboration between The White Lotus—a series where rich people do rich people things and wear expensive clothes—and H&M. A complete mismatch.
Have you been to the movies lately? And if so, have you noticed the luxury label? Does it influence your opinion of Saint Laurent?
Esther’s Dealsheet:
📈 Bullish news
Alix Earle is an investor in sparkling margarita brand SipsMARGS, which just relaunched with a $3M investment round led by Palm Tree Crew [Forbes].
BoF just unveiled Pulse, an “AI-powered social intelligence tool.”
Sophia Kianni and Phoebe Gates(Bill Gates’ daughter), the Gen Z founders of Phia, a to-be-launched secondhand shopping platform, are the newest podcast hosts signed to the Unwell network (Call Her Daddy/Alex Cooper).
Perelel, Ballerina Farm, and Ritual are all brands targeting the protein-hungry female market [Glossy]. You can read my newsletter on female-first fitness here.
YouTube’s Biggest Star MrBeast Makes More Money From Chocolate Than Videos [Bloomberg].
This week’s fashion roundup: 1. Frédéric Arnault was named CEO of Loro Piana, the cashmere brand that LVMH acquired 80% of in 2013 for €2B in real-life Succession news. 2. Demna will be Gucci’s next artistic director. 3. Donatella Versace is out as creative director of Versace, to be replaced by Miu Miu’s image director Dario Vitale. 4. Jonathan Anderson is out at Loewe after 11 years. Rumour has it he could become CD of Dior which would be GREAT NEWS.
📉 Bearish news
Y Combinator founders raising less money signals a ‘vibe shift,’ VC says [TechCrunch]. YC founders are now much more aware of the pros and cons of venture capital. Many startups that secured funding at inflated valuations in 2020 and 2021 were later forced to raise capital at significantly lower valuations, known as a down round. Perhaps more importantly, raising a lot of venture capital from elite VC firms is no longer the goal for some YC founders.
Better to be a trader than an investor in Trump’s economy [Axios]
30 Charts That Show How Covid Changed Everything [NYT]. From alcohol sales to time spent socialising.
Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent broke with orthodoxy yesterday when he said corrections in stocks were "healthy" and an antidote to "euphoric" market action [Axios]. Corrections, or a 10% decline in the market from its recent peak, are pretty common. Since WW2, such corrections have only deteriorated into bear markets (a 20% decline) about a quarter of the time, Ryan Detrick of Carson Investment Research noted on X. In a correction, on average the market takes five months to fall from peak to bottom, then four months to bounce back, per Clearnomics data shared by Covenant Wealth Advisors. After that, markets tend to rise strongly.
Shares of Pernod Ricard, LVMH, and other European alcohol stocks are down after Trump threatened to place 200% tariffs on all alcohol coming from the EU [QZ].
Larger stones aren’t the status symbol they used to be [Fortune]. More than half of millennials and Gen Z opt for engagement rings with lab-grown diamonds. Younger consumers (22% of Gen Z and 28% of millennials) prioritize price and size over origin, leading natural diamond producers, including De Beers, to slash prices by 10-15%. Revisit my newsletter on lab-grown stones here.
Stanford students used to chase jobs at Meta and Google. Now they want to work on defense [SF Standard].
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