Back Row with Amy Odell

Superfakes have never been better and counterfeiters have never been smarter — so how can consumers buy secondhand luxury with confidence? Sarah Davis started Fashionphile on eBay in 1999, while she was in law school. Resale has exploded since: Her company now employs more than 350 people and authenticates roughly 1,500 luxury bags a day. Sarah reveals how she turned luxury authentication into an almost CIA-like operation, what gives away a fake Birkin bag, and how a $35,000 machine can tell if a Cartier Love bracelet is real or not. CHAPTERS 00:00 Introduction 02:00 Law school, eBay, and the Fashionphile origin story 15:00 A real Chanel, a fake one — can you tell? 21:00 Fake bags bought at real stores 23:30 "Your dupe isn't cute" 26:30 The $75 fee that killed the counterfeits 29:30 The $35,000 machine that catches fake Birkins 44:30 Where resale goes next Subscribe to the Back Row newsletter: https://www.backrow.net/subscribe Follow Back Row: @backrow · Follow Amy: @instamyodell · Follow Sarah: @justsarahdavis · Shop Fashionphile: @fashionphile Edited by Chrissi Harris. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

*SUBSCRIBE to the Back Row newsletter for more coverage like this: https://www.backrow.net/subscribe. Go Premium and save three months on an annual subscription.* Trend forecaster Sean Monahan coined the "vibe shift" five years ago to describe the unease millennials felt coming out of the pandemic. Of all the terms Monahan has coined — from "normcore" to the "boom boom aesthetic" — the vibe shift may have been the stickiest. He and Amy revisited his predictions from five years ago and discuss what he got right and wrong. Monahan offers predictions on whether smart glasses will take; where rage bait is heading; the future of "flexing"; where the Met Gala goes from here; and what luxury fashion has to do to recover. CHAPTERS 00:00 Introduction 03:00 The boom boom aesthetic and the '80s that weren't 06:00 Why crypto killed streetwear 08:30 Normcore, and the anxiety behind it 19:00 Did tackiness give way to taste? 24:00 Smart glasses, glassholes and surveillance 38:00 Rage bait and the clipping economy 47:30 'The Devil Wears Prada 2' and Jeff Bezos 1:04:30 How does luxury fashion recover? 📩SUBSCRIBE to the Back Row Newsletter: https://www.backrow.net/subscribe Back Row on YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@amy_odell 📷 Follow Back Row on Instagram: @backrow 📷 Follow Amy on Instagram: @instamyodell Follow Sean Monahan 📷 Follow Sean on Instagram: @8ghtb4ll 📩 Read 8Ball: https://www.8ball.report/ Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Amy Chozick has spent her career writing about polarizing women — she covered Hillary Clinton for The New York Times, profiled Elizabeth Holmes right before prison, followed Stormy Daniels for Vogue, and wrote the widely dissected profile of Lauren Sánchez Bezos. Her new novel, With Friends Like You (https://amzn.to/4yjRlvI), follows Emily, a broke new mom in Manhattan, who goes looking for the college friend who vanished — and finds her working as a high-end escort to billionaires. To write the book, she researched the world of the ultra-rich obsessively. She also reveals what surprised her about Lauren Sánchez Bezos, discusses the detail everyone rehashed from that profile, and more. CHAPTERS 00:00 Introduction 02:00 A new mother, a missing friend, and a billionaire's escort 4:00 Billionaires' Row and the empty towers 13:00 Covering Hillary Clinton, and what power does to people 17:00 Profiling Lauren Sánchez Bezos 23:00 "They stopped apologizing" — the new rich 30:00 Hillary's suits, Lauren's taped-up Vogue pages 41:00 Is fashion getting tackier? Subscribe to the Back Row newsletter: https://www.backrow.net/subscribe Buy With Friends Like You: A Novel: https://amzn.to/4yjRlvI Follow Back Row: @backrow Follow Amy: @instamyodell Follow Amy Chozick: @amychozick Edited by Chrissi Harris. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

This is a teaser of a paywalled episode. To listen in full, become a paid subscriber of Back Row at: https://www.backrow.net/subscribe. Or sign up in Apple Podcasts or Spotify. In a stunning move, the Metropolitan Museum of Art has cancelled "John Galliano: Horizons," the Costume Institute retrospective planned for May 2027. Galliano's biographer and fashion journalist Dana Thomas joined Amy hours after the Met made the announcement. They discuss what this means for fashion, for John Galliano, and for the Met Gala's planner and previously all-powerful architect, Anna Wintour. CHAPTERS 00:00 Introduction 00:30 Why Dana wasn't surprised 01:30 When you lose the politicians and the donors 03:00 "Not an aberration" — Dana's New York Times op-ed 05:00 The incidents that never got reported 06:00 The 2019 spa incident 07:30 What the comment sections revealed 11:30 Philippe Virgitti, still waiting for an apology Subscribe to the Back Row newsletter: https://www.backrow.net/subscribe Buy Gods and Kings: The Rise and Fall of Alexander McQueen and John Galliano: https://amzn.to/4cSeZHw Edited by Chrissi Harris. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

*SUBSCRIBE to the Back Row newsletter for more coverage like this: https://www.backrow.net/subscribe. Go Premium and save three months on an annual subscription and get access to 'The September Issue' Rewatch Bonus episode!* The September Issue is R.J. Cutler's 2009 documentary about the biggest issue of Vogue ever made up to that point — 843 pages, 13 million copies sold. Amy is joined by Kate Casey, host of Reality Life with Kate Casey and a documentary and reality TV expert, to rewatch it seventeen years later. They get into what Anna Wintour really thought of the film, why she and her Vogue team hated Sienna Miller's hair so much, how it all aged, and much more. CHAPTERS 00:00 Introduction 02:00 13 million copies sold — and what's left now 06:00 How Anna and Grace actually met 17:30 The retailers' breakfast, when Vogue set the trends 25:00 "Your girls always look the same" - Anna at her harshest 41:00 Anna at home, and the kids who didn't follow her 48:00 The Sienna Miller cover disaster 1:07:00 843 pages, and the era that ended 📺 SUBSCRIBE to the Back Row Newsletter: https://www.backrow.net/subscribe 📷 Follow Back Row on Instagram: @backrow 📷 Follow Amy on Instagram: @instamyodell Follow Kate Casey 🎙️ Reality Life with Kate Casey: Apple: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/reality-life-with-kate-casey/id1154758766 Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/7iZzKUbEWAsWVkFRebb9Gu 📷 Follow Kate on Instagram: @katecaseyca This episode was edited by Chrissi Harris. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices