YouSaid · the spoken record

Sarah Ball

lines on the record: 27
first: 2025-09-16
most recent: 2025-09-16
sittings or episodes: 1
sources: podcast

Every line below is reproduced as it was said and linked to the record it came from. Nothing here is summarised or generated. Directory · Search · Corrections

“I couldn't have predicted that we would whipsaw from talking about COVID recovery to talking about tariffs, to talking about AI. I think the climate is so uncertain. So I think my biggest prediction is that I think I know this is quite pat, but I truly believe it, that charm and creativity will kind of win the day. I think the customer is feeling a little jerked around and nervous and scared. And I think that the collections that we see, the more someone is able to kind of harness a positive outlook, beautiful and inspiring work, and not maybe your sort of Zulander cliche of the dark black austerity steering into the mood, I think that charm and covetability and that really classic sense is what the customer is craving, almost comfort, if you will, and that I hope it yields. Some sort of really frisky, creative, exciting work.”
2025-09-16 · Masters of Scale · Historic changes across high fashion, with WSJ. Magazine’s Sarah Ball · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Element and hotels. There's fragrance and beauty. And so it's just enormous. And I think this bidding were for kind of who gets the keys to the literal castle is going to be all I'm hearing about when we're over in Europe profession. We hearing sort of fashion gossip.”
2025-09-16 · Masters of Scale · Historic changes across high fashion, with WSJ. Magazine’s Sarah Ball · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“I think this is so fascinating and is going to be one of the most interesting stories in fashion over, I would probably guess, over the next year. So obviously he was CEO, sole shareholder, and creative director of the brand. It's not just even the ownership of such an enormous, again, multi-billion euro luxury brand that's up for sale. It's also its entire direction because he did not have any heirs. There was not this kind of sort of airtight succession plan that you maybe see over at LVMH with all of the Arno children taking bits and pieces of the brand and steeping themselves in how it's run with their father. This was not the case with Armani. So I think this will throw some chaos into the landscape. It's a huge prize. It has many, many businesses. There's, of course, the men's and women's businesses. There's Prive, which is the all of your Oscar dresses. There's Casa. There's a hospitality.”
2025-09-16 · Masters of Scale · Historic changes across high fashion, with WSJ. Magazine’s Sarah Ball · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“I think so, and I think that again, it challenges these traditional notions for luxury brands that are used to not only would you not necessarily be filming inside of the store, you still have people at the door gatekeeping who even gets in your store. And then in the case of some luxury brands, you know, you're limited on what product you can access unless you've kind of built up a history as a customer with that store. So I think the luxury industry is used to being sort of really closed off and dare I say gatekeepy, but the live stream shopping experience is radical, radical transparency. So I think you're going to see these forces at loggerheads for a little bit. But absolutely engaging younger customers in the fact that shopping can be an adventure and a journey. I think it could be net positive for luxury brands if they're able to kind of adapt to that”
2025-09-16 · Masters of Scale · Historic changes across high fashion, with WSJ. Magazine’s Sarah Ball · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“I think I absolutely think it will continue to grow. I think even just this isn't live stream, but even the rise of halls to go far beyond the small corners of YouTube to now, we had a story published this week about the ways in which back-to-school halls of tweens and teenagers showing their back-to-school shopping and taking you along for the journey of what they're shopping for back to school is now so much the norm that it's driving up the cost of going back to school for families and creating this whole subgenre of content that feels ubiquitous and inescapable and like you have to participate. So I think that's going to continue for sure.”
2025-09-16 · Masters of Scale · Historic changes across high fashion, with WSJ. Magazine’s Sarah Ball · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“I think it makes things more complicated for brands, as is it forces a ton of transparency from brands that they're not used to giving. I think there's the idea that customers don't want to know about how it gets to them. We're going to tell them it's sustainable and we're going to emphasize that we use the best materials, but there's a lot of nuts and bolts they maybe don't need to know. They just want to go in, have the glass of champagne, feel the bag, purchase the bag, and go home. I think that's out the window. I think the customer is really prizing traceability. These videos on TikTok that show, you know, super fakes being made easily in China, et cetera. I think that's given them a lot of fear that we have to emphasize how our products are so much better in order to justify these huge five-figure, if not six-figure prices.”
2025-09-16 · Masters of Scale · Historic changes across high fashion, with WSJ. Magazine’s Sarah Ball · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Remains to be seen incredibly interesting ways it's being applied, mining archives for new ideas that then can be riffed on by sort of human creativity, how they show up to the customer, and of course all of the data and logistics that AI will make a lot easier. So I think I'm sure net positive for efficiency, neutral on creativity.”
2025-09-16 · Masters of Scale · Historic changes across high fashion, with WSJ. Magazine’s Sarah Ball · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“That she's not necessarily forfeiting Anna's presence to help her with navigating the overall fashion industry. I think that's the right attitude. I think fashion is bigger and more challenging and more complex and more global than ever. And you need many hands make light work, I would say.”
2025-09-16 · Masters of Scale · Historic changes across high fashion, with WSJ. Magazine’s Sarah Ball · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“I love her. I'm very proud of her and very excited for her. She's an old friend and a dynamo, fiercely talented. And my favorite thing about her is her sense of humor. So I know that even the challenge of taking on this incredible job, she will bear with a lot of wit and playfulness, which is something that I think I hope to see expressed in her vogue. I've definitely seen it expressed in her vogue.com. I think Anna's reputation as a tastemaker, I think the Konde has been very strategic in underlining that Anna is still very involved as a tastemaker and not just over vogue, but I think over all of those brands. I think Anna's role as tastemakers still remains intact. And I think Chloe gets to kind of put her stamp on the execution and still set this sort of taste and agenda of what Vogue is. I know she has big ideas for how it shows up in the world. But I think, you know, she views it as an.”
2025-09-16 · Masters of Scale · Historic changes across high fashion, with WSJ. Magazine’s Sarah Ball · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Up to talk about the product and is much more speaking as proxy for the consumer in here I am, it's so fun. Oh my gosh, I'm seated next to Sophia Coppola at the Chanel Show. Look how beautiful she looks. You know, it's sort of, you know, it's the fan experience, I would say. It's obviously a huge part of fashion brands having them represented at shows and choosing who the right influencers are for your brand. I can't think of a single fashion brand that I whose show I've been to where there was absolutely zero presence from someone who would be considered a content creator or an influencer, even the sort of most elite and exclusive fashion shows.”
2025-09-16 · Masters of Scale · Historic changes across high fashion, with WSJ. Magazine’s Sarah Ball · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Press and influence in their mind are kind of joined, and that is external calms as furthered by inclusion in fashion press and media, as well as furthered by influencers. Now, how we work is very different. Fashion media as expressed now very robustly through digital, through site and app and social. We use the clothes, the accessories, the jewelry, the product. You're looking at a photo of Right behind me of Kylie Jenner and Martin Scorsese. They're wearing beautiful luxury fashion that we put on them and styled and shot them in incredible locations. So there is the side of fashion media that continues to profile designers. We have, you know, our September men's and women's issues that are outright now include these clothes and ambitious work talking about what they're putting out in the marketplace. An influencer is not doing that. An influencer is wearing the product, is showing.”
2025-09-16 · Masters of Scale · Historic changes across high fashion, with WSJ. Magazine’s Sarah Ball · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“That's a great question. So, I think this quote unquote democratization maybe of fashion shows started when a street style bloggers would set up outside of shows. This was, you know, at this point 15 years ago, at the rise of sort of fashion blogs, when maybe traditional glossy fashion media was on the slower side to embrace having a lively digital presence and then you saw some of those fashion bloggers become invited to shows and sitting in the front row and that represented at the time this great pearl clutching moment in fashion media that, oh my goodness, it's no longer closed to just editors and buyers and clients. I think today in my mind, even though they're quite different and working at the Wall Street Journal is so different than being a fashion influencer, I think that in the minds of these brands, it's now press and influence. You'll notice even people who work at fashion brands, vice president of press and influence.”
2025-09-16 · Masters of Scale · Historic changes across high fashion, with WSJ. Magazine’s Sarah Ball · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Correct, correct. And that buzz can translate into immediate covetability of items that come down fresh silhouette and new accessory or shoe that's shown. Like that buzz can translate into real commercial firepower for certain components. That buzz can translate into, okay, this collection was a designer finding their footing, but were overall really enthusiastic about it. It cankin to the way you might, you know, buy and sell stocks. You're hearing good things. You want to invest in this company. You can get a sense of how a designer is going to sort of match with the brand codes, with the house codes, how they might develop over time. Not every debut is a, you know, smash hit instantaneously. Sometimes it takes a few seasons. But by the same token, after a few seasons, if a sort of creative director hasn't found their footing or sales are struggling, you'll see them, you know, you'll see them replaced. And I think those cycles have gotten shorter as well. I think pain talk.”
2025-09-16 · Masters of Scale · Historic changes across high fashion, with WSJ. Magazine’s Sarah Ball · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Using to test success. But I would say the most instant assessment is frankly applause. You know, it's just that metric of, you know, huge enthusiasm.”
2025-09-16 · Masters of Scale · Historic changes across high fashion, with WSJ. Magazine’s Sarah Ball · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“As a sort of passionate collector, really, it's probably a better way to describe them a collector of this artist's work. And you can, of course, see in them a level of enthusiasm. And then how it's then shared out to the world is the collection immediately, you know, it appears on fashion news sites. It appears across social media, TikTok, vertical video, moments that happen. How are people sharing those? So it's a whole ecosystem of reaction. And then, of course, a few days after a show a designer and the brand are meeting with buyers and those buyers, again, who are present at the show are saying, we'd like to order, you know, these, we'd like these modifications or this is what we'd like what our customers want, how can we meet in the middle on this, and that you'll get a sense from those meetings and conversations, you know, the salibility, so to speak, to put it in like sort of less exciting creative terms. But, you know, how is this collection going to filter out through to the customer? I think there's a variety of metrics that companies are using.”
2025-09-16 · Masters of Scale · Historic changes across high fashion, with WSJ. Magazine’s Sarah Ball · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“It's a great, great question. I think that you can immediately usually feel the energy, right? So there's standing ovations, there's cheering, there's whooping. If it's a real triumph or success, usually it's quite a decorous crowd. Excuse me, lots of clapping and people take videos and, you know, immediately share snippets from the show. These shows are enormous productions. So they are five, six million euros to pull off for three to four hundred guests. You know, there's music, it's dark. sometimes transported in many cases you've been transported to a particularly magical setting just this real atmosphere that you're instantly you know aware of as a guess at a show those in the audience are not just editors or vip celebrity guests they're also clients very important vics very important clients who are there um kind of as a customer um”
2025-09-16 · Masters of Scale · Historic changes across high fashion, with WSJ. Magazine’s Sarah Ball · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Of talent and friends that he kind of brings with him. So I think he's going to build a whole new set of references for Dior. And I'm very excited to see what that yields.”
2025-09-16 · Masters of Scale · Historic changes across high fashion, with WSJ. Magazine’s Sarah Ball · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Men's show where he really dabbled in kind of 18th century motifs, if you can imagine sort of French Revolution frock coats and cravats, but married with slouchy jeans and a sort of really playful, humorous, very fresh modern look. And it's again a huge high-stakes position. This is an enormous business, and he'll be leading it forward through, again, tropes that he kind of has to pull for himself. Dior's actual fashion history is pretty brief. It was founded in 1946. It is not 400 years old. It didn't exist at the time of Lay Nizarab frock coat, so he's really pulling out of art and history as he's wont to do. He's got an incredible network, the filmmaker Luca Guadagnino, and really interesting actors and actresses and authors, Addie Smith and Greta Lee and Daniel Craig and Rachel Weiss. This is sort of his world from”
2025-09-16 · Masters of Scale · Historic changes across high fashion, with WSJ. Magazine’s Sarah Ball · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Looking with huge interest to Dior. Dior will be now run both the men's and women's sides of that business and couture will be run for the first time by one person. In the past they've been run by multiple creative directors. Now they're united under one person who is Jonathan Anderson. He is known for taking the kind of small, relatively inconsequential brand of Luevi at LVMH and growing it into a multiple, you know billion euro business for the Arnaud family. He's seen as such a superstar talent, very interested in sculpture and art and really grew that business into this massive, it is the cool kid. So he grew that into the cool kid of LBMH and then was given the crown jewel job of taking over Dor. He's had one collection already”
2025-09-16 · Masters of Scale · Historic changes across high fashion, with WSJ. Magazine’s Sarah Ball · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Yes, I think there's a couple. I am incredibly excited to see what happens at Chanel. Again, I think of an appointment, Matou Blazy was appointed. I believe he's 41 years old. He previously was the creative director at Batega Veneta, really revived that brand through craftsmanship, a sense of play, especially of using the house codes of leather. And it's very famous, as you may know, for like woven leather, sort of basket woven leather. He used that in sort of subverted that. It made incredibly interesting collections that were very sought after. And now he comes to a house with a ton of heritage and legacy in Chanel that has a ton of these house codes established in the 20s by Coco Chanel. It's considered, you know, maybe the biggest and highest pressure job in all of fashion is to run Chanel in Paris. So that's like got every Hollywood element to kind of be glued to what he'll do.”
2025-09-16 · Masters of Scale · Historic changes across high fashion, with WSJ. Magazine’s Sarah Ball · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“You know, much more expressive. We're showing what we're wearing. We're kind of always on camera at work. We're on camera off work, like in this vertical video world that we live in. And then there are important conversations that influence styles such as sustainability and people who want to reduce waste. So there's kind of all of this swirl of factors before coming to the Wall Street Journal. I worked for a long time at Konda Nesta. I worked at GQ, so I was very embedded in men's style discussions. And that really is a group that likes to just be told, how can I very seamlessly quickly?”
2025-09-16 · Masters of Scale · Historic changes across high fashion, with WSJ. Magazine’s Sarah Ball · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“I think they're both related, you know, and it all ties into consumer confidence and where consumers are going to spend their money now. I think you see some categories that are still sort of incredibly important and explosive in growth. Jewelry, accessories, these things have a resilience to them, especially through kind of up and down times. I think with pure fashion, with ready-to-wear, that can be more challenged. And I think you do see sort of brands trying to assess what the customer is going to want not only in a trend cycles have gotten so short with TikTok and social media. A trend cycle is really quite brief now. So it's like it's both become a more aggressive game of hopping lily pad to lily pad and also more consequential because, you know, there are, again, there is uncertainty in that pond to extend the metaphor. There's little white caps and waves. And then also to your point, style has become”
2025-09-16 · Masters of Scale · Historic changes across high fashion, with WSJ. Magazine’s Sarah Ball · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Decades. So it kind of has higher stakes than a simple You know, to use a sports analogy, the way that there's a head coach shuffle at the end of a season say this is a sort of a much higher stakes version of that to have so many changing over at one time and really rooted in fashion brands and to, and beyond that, fashion conglomerates, luxury conglomerates, trying to weather these sort of uncertain macroeconomic conditions.”
2025-09-16 · Masters of Scale · Historic changes across high fashion, with WSJ. Magazine’s Sarah Ball · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Correct, correct. We're going to see, I think close to a dozen collections as revamped through new Creative Director's eyes. And what that, again, what that means is that sort of brands are fine-tuning their market position. Who is the customer? What do they want right now? We're coming out of a bit of the, you know, quiet luxury emphasis on sort of inoffensive, expensive craftsmanship. We have returned to a sort of explosive creativity. We've returned to color. But kind of at the business level, I think what you're seeing is a true next generation, almost all of these new creative directors are in their early 40s, so they're older millennials. You have places like Chanel that have only had four creative directors in their entire history are trying in their appointment of Metou Blaze to have a sort of the next Carl Lagerfeld, someone who's going to be in that role for decades.”
2025-09-16 · Masters of Scale · Historic changes across high fashion, with WSJ. Magazine’s Sarah Ball · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Kind of alluding to changes that are ahead for all of those brands, those include Gucci and Valenciaga and Alexander McQueen and other caring brands. So it is a huge year, a huge month, and it's been on the calendar circled in red for at least nine months. So it's kind of that drum beat as well of anticipation of so many exciting debuts. And we'll see what's the sort.”
2025-09-16 · Masters of Scale · Historic changes across high fashion, with WSJ. Magazine’s Sarah Ball · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“There's a huge thing that makes this thing distinctive, and in fact, it's almost, I think, close to a dozen things that make this year distinctive, and that is the number of new creative directors that are being appointed at brands around the world. This is considered the quote-unquote September to remember in fashion, a huge sort of sea change of designers. And that's not just kind of, oh, they're sort of people are kind of sprucing creative and next gen is coming in. It really is a remarkable and historic number of changes of leadership that kind of represents fashion heading into ever more uncertain economic times and really making sure that creative is incredibly fine-tuned, caring in addition to having several new creative directors take over some of their brands, also has a new CEO who starts on Monday and who spoke this week for the first time officially in the capacity as CEO.”
2025-09-16 · Masters of Scale · Historic changes across high fashion, with WSJ. Magazine’s Sarah Ball · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“It is a huge month, and it's been on the calendar circled in red. I am incredibly excited to see what happens at Chanel. Also looking with huge interest to Dior. These shows are enormous productions. So they are five, six million euros to pull off for 300 to 400 guests if a sort of creative director hasn't found their footing or sales are struggling. you know, you'll see them replaced pain tolerance is low when there is an unstable overall economic environment.”
2025-09-16 · Masters of Scale · Historic changes across high fashion, with WSJ. Magazine’s Sarah Ball · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT