Fashion’s Gossip Girl Has A Name. It’s Lauren Sherman.

One early evening, during New York Fashion Week way back in the winter, I’m standing near the door of a luxe, yet-to-be-opened members-only club situated precariously on the edge of Midtown. The occasion is a party held by the meticulously curated retail site Moda Operandi, and given the fact that it’s barely 6 p.m., it’s still in the very early stages of getting going. While most people are looking toward the door longingly for no one in particular, I’ve got one guest in mind: Lauren Sherman, the lead fashion columnist for the business newsletter Puck.

Since joining Puck two years ago, Sherman’s Line Sheet has become required reading for those in the fashion industry and those who orbit it. The newsletter has also made fashion more accessible, its juiciness turning previously fashion-agnostic consumers of media into rabid followers of the industry’s goings-on. Fellow newsletter darling Emily Sundberg, whose Substack, Feed Me, focuses on consumerism more broadly, has said that she’s noticed how everyone opens their phones simultaneously when Line Sheet drops. In Emma Rosenblum’s latest satirical novel Mean Moms, a Tribeca queen bee named Belle, who owns a home/fashion line called Pippins Cottage Home (and who sounds a little like Hill House’s Nell Diamond), has a mishap at a presentation — the samples gave guests hives — and her worst fears come true: a mention in Sherman’s “widely-read fashion newsletter,” the first line of which was the saucy: “Fashionistas, get your Benadryl ready!”

If you know anything about the dress codes of fashion media, you know that there are immaculately coiffed and peacocking market editors (aka the people who pick out the clothes and don’t deal with words or have inCopy logins) and there are capital-F, capital-R fashion reporters such as Cathy Horyn, Robin Givhan, and Rachel Tashjian — aka the ones who traffic in terms like “on deep background” and “for attribution” and measure success in Pulitzers rather than Instagram followers. These rare birds have historically dressed themselves in an almost anti-fashion way: little makeup and neutral basics as if to say, I’m a real journalist and I’m not part of the story. At least aesthetically, Sherman clearly sees herself as part of his camp. Tonight, when she arrives at the party just a few minutes after I do, she’s wearing a navy sweater from Charvet and black pants — a look that, to an extremely trained eye, could be interpreted as ultra-sophisticated anonymous luxury but to the casual observer could read as don’t-look-at-me wedding photographer.

Almost immediately, she scans the room with a reporter’s precision. “There are a lot of writers and editors here,” she narrates, half to me half to herself, “and a few designers.” (Becky Malinsky, a Sherman friend and another newsletter darling, is toward the back.)

I’d already spoken to Sherman, 43, at length a few weeks earlier over a late lunch at ABC Kitchen, and I’d asked Puck PR if I could tag along to an industry event with her, to observe her in action. In journalism jargon, this is called “getting color,” and as anyone who has written a magazine profile can tell you, attempts to get as much can be frustratingly hit-or-miss. If you’re lucky, you get some small kernel that you can weave into a coherent anecdote or scene that you can then, God willing and hopefully without too much heavy lifting and narrative gymnastics, hook into the larger point you’re hoping to make about the person. Sometimes, it can feel cringey and really forced. Almost never does it work out exactly how you envision it.

“Lauren’s able to tell the truth in ways that have not really been available.”

Almost. About 15 seconds after we make our way into the still-thin fray of the party, a man in his early 30s wearing a fashion-forward, geometric sweater approaches us — well, more precisely, Sherman. “Excuse me, are you Lauren Sherman?” he asks, in a way that might as well have been, “Excuse me, are you the Lauren Sherman?” Indeed, Sherman says, introducing him to me. (It’s a funny Russian doll experience being a reporter following a reporter.) He tells me he works in the advertising department at Moda Operandi, and explains that he recognized Sherman because of her hair — a distinctive, voluminous cascade of dark brown wash-and-go waves that appear in the thumbnail illustrated portrait that accompanies her Puck byline. He says he never, ever, ever misses Sherman’s column. Ever. That no one in Moda’s offices does.

What did he like about it so much? He looks at me for a split second in a bless-your-heart sort of way and then, with the conviction and urgency of Gwyneth Paltrow extolling the benefits of dry brushing, offers: “She’s the only voice that matters in fashion.”

If you didn’t know any better, you’d think Sherman or Puck PR had planted him — I did ask, only half-joking — but given the fact that some version of this interaction would occur roughly four more times in the next hour, it’s safe to say this is authentically how Sherman and her column are perceived within the fashion industry.

When Puck was launched in 2021 by Condé Nast alum Jon Kelly, it deftly capitalized on two distinct trends: one, a boom in newsletters (Substack caught fire around the same time) born in part out of fatigue for clickbait content and an attendant hope in a subscriber-sustained content model; and, two, a rapidly increasing social shift toward an oligarchy whereby the likes of Jeff Bezos and Warner Brothers Discovery poobah David Zaslav were increasingly being covered not just in the Wall Street Journal but also on Page Six. To be a part of its original murderers’ row of reporter-columnists, the outfit snapped up politics up-and-comer and Russia expert Julia Ioffe (The Atlantic, The New Yorker), John Heilman (Game Change author; New York mag and Vanity Fair favorite), Hollywood gossip king Matt Belloni (Hollywood Reporter), and media reporter Dylan Byers from the Washington Post. (Sherman, for her part, had been a longtime editor at Business of Fashion.)

“Even if it’s not true, even if it’s just speculation or if it’s just an idea, it does say something about the state of the industry.”

Originally, Puck covered five major spheres of power: Silicon Valley, Hollywood, D.C., media, and Wall Street. Two years later, in the spring of 2023, Sherman joined the company’s roster with her own subscriber-only “private email,” Line Sheet, which covers the fashion (and beauty) industry and, occasionally, the intersection of fashion and media — e.g., Condé Nast and Hearst magazine gossip.

In that time, Puck, which costs subscribers (or, as it prefers, “members”) upwards of $100 a year, has grown from 20,000 subscribers to more than 40,000. Accordingly, Line Sheet has increased in regularity from once a week to an almost daily output, plus a podcast, Fashion People. (Mercifully, Sherman’s gotten some extra help in the meantime — with retail reporter Sarah Shapiro and beauty reporter Rachel Strugatz joining the fold.)

One of the reasons Line Sheet is such a must-read for those in the industry is, naturally, the scoops big and small: She was the first to report that Lauren Sánchez would be wearing Dolce & Gabbana to her wedding to Jeff Bezos. In January, Sherman reported that Spanish luxury brand Loewe was considering hiring Proenza Schouler designers Jack McCollough and Lazaro Hernandez to replace Jonathan Anderson. In March, LVMH, which owns Loewe, confirmed that exact news.

An ingredient in Sherman’s secret sauce is her ability to take the reader behind the scenes on a story in close to real time and in an extremely conversational tone. In late June, hours after Anna Wintour announced that she was stepping back from her role as editor-in-chief of Vogue, Rick Owens — one of the few designers brave enough to openly snub the Met Gala — closed his Spring 2026 men’s collection in Paris to the beat of “Ding Dong! The Witch Is Dead.” Predictably, Sherman made note of the apparent grave-dancing in Line Sheet. The next week in Line Sheet, she wrote, “About 18 hours later, I heard from the Owens team, who insisted that the music had been chosen six months earlier and sent me some show notes as proof. I updated the piece and added a correction.” Then, “I heard from Rick, who seemed very upset! ‘Disappointed you would announce I changed music in response to Anna Wintour news,’ he wrote. ‘Malice is not my style. There is enough malice in the world and I suggest you consider your contribution to it.’ (Originally, this note was all in caps but we [the copy team at Puck] don’t do that.) Anyway, as I said to Rick, I didn’t take the rumored gesture as malicious, rather a tongue-in-cheek joke, and I feel bad he is so stressed about it.”

But the underlying appeal of Line Sheet — and the appeal of Puck in general — is its canny ability to talk about heavy-hitters in a knowing, gossipy way that’s slightly less snarky than Gawker but not any less loose-lipped. (System Magazine smartly described Puck’s tone as “just this side of libelous.”) “We’re hearing that…” and “names being thrown around” and “I wouldn’t be surprised” are often used when speculating on various industry hires and happenings.

It’s the kind of reporting that the fashion industry in particular hasn’t really had since the days of John Fairchild — the iconic editor of Women’s Wear Daily who made 1960s socialites like Nan Kempner and Mercedes Bass into personalities and once called Hubert de Givenchy and Cristóbal Balenciaga “Dullsville Boys”— resulting in a ban from the latter’s show. (He covered it with a telephoto lens instead.) Something “that has always bothered me about the fashion industry is everyone talks about [the gossip of the day], and even if it’s not true, even if it’s just speculation or if it’s just an idea, it does say something about the state of the industry. The thing I really hate to do is not say something,” Sherman tells me. “Why don’t people cover [fashion CEOs] the way they cover Elon Musk or Mark Zuckerberg?”

Puck boss Kelly puts it this way: “You can tell pretty quickly when you want to work with someone and I knew I wanted to hire her immediately. She views the world that she covers through an utterly unique prism. So many journalists look up in reverence at the people they cover… The truly great reporters view the world that they cover as a peer, which is what Lauren does. It’s just a much more effective and fluid dialog.”

“There’s a reason so many people talk to me: It’s when they love the company or they’re upset.”

Puck’s business model — subscriber-based and private equity-backed — allows Sherman a unique amount of latitude, especially compared to those who work in glossy mags. “When you’re at a legacy publication, your relationship with your advertisers is very, very particular. It’s a delicate dance. She’s able to basically tell the truth in ways that have not really been available,” says Sherman’s longtime friend and Harper’s Bazaar Executive Editor Leah Chernikoff, who worked with Sherman at Fashionista in the 2010s. “And it’s fun too. When you think about fashion, and you’re really in the weeds, the industry can feel very staid. But Line Sheet has a lot of swagger.”

That swagger is strong enough that in some executive and PR corridors, Sherman is more feared than revered. Like it or not, they’re having to learn to operate in her world — which has been unfamiliar territory for many PR people at fashion companies, where the bulk of their press has been overwhelmingly positive and soft-focus. Or at least that’s the way Sherman sees it. “I remember I was doing a story about a long-term brand,” she says, “and the comms person — a lovely human being — called me and said, ‘No, we’d prefer you not write anything until we’re willing to share.’ And I was like, ‘This isn’t how this works.’ But they don’t know that because they’ve never had to deal with that.”

Over that late lunch at ABC, I ask Sherman if she knows whether Anna Wintour reads her column. Even with the announcement that she’s stepping down from the day-to-day running of American Vogue, Wintour’s readership remains, at least for now, the ultimate litmus test for the importance of Line Sheet. Not only is Wintour still a power broker who has retained her not-insignificant perch as global chief content officer of Condé Nast, but she’s also a boomer who doesn’t tweet or run her own Instagram account, so if she reads it, you know it’s caught on.

Sherman doesn’t miss a beat. “Well, you know, she likes things that are very brief. I don’t know if she reads it always,” she tells me, adding, “I mean, she’s definitely aware of it.” Wait, how do you know that? “I know,” says Sherman, with a knowing curl of her mouth, as if to say, just take my word for it.

“She’s the only voice that matters in fashion.”

If Wintour is as “aware” of Line Sheet as Sherman says, then it follows that Wintour is also aware of Sherman’s reporting — and opining — on who should and who will get the new head of content role at Vogue, the media gossip story of the summer. (Contenders Sherman has identified have included The Cut’s Lindsay Peoples and Instagram fashion head Eva Chen as well as a handful of Condé long-timers.) Does the mere fact of a Line Sheet mention throw a candidate into the real-world ring? In classic Sherman style, she can’t help but hedge: “Whether or not these people are still in the running (or ever were) is not for me to say.”

When Sherman arrived at Puck, she had a fat Rolodex of well-placed sources cultivated from over two decades in the fashion reporting business. After graduating from Boston’s Emerson College in 2004, Sherman moved to New York, where she started her career in media in 2006 as an assistant editor at Forbes. A few years later, she made the move over to the industry blog Fashionista, where she served as executive editor before a brief stint at Lucky (she has been vocal about not being a good fit for the bureaucratic Condé). Before Puck, Sherman was the long-serving chief correspondent for Business of Fashion, a digital-only trade rag for the rag trade.

But since joining Puck, her web of sources has grown exponentially. She shoots down the often-whispered notion that her main sources are her close friends like Chernikoff. “It’s complicated being friends with these people but what it comes down to is I have to tell the story in the best way I can,” Sherman admits. (Chernikoff puts it this way: “We keep our friendship and what she does separate.”)

“Why don’t people cover [fashion CEOs] the way they cover Elon Musk or Mark Zuckerberg?”

Sherman insists many sources come to her — and not because they know her personally. “There’s a reason so many people talk to me: It’s when they love the company or they’re upset.” The way Sherman says she’s gotten some sourcing from Condé Nast executives surprises me. “A PR person who is friends [with the source] is the go-between sometimes,” she says. “That’s the only company that has that kind of influence.”

At the same time, Sherman is careful about a source who is a little too eager to spill: “People will tell me stuff all the time that they want out there just to bother another person. You just have to be smart.” She says she’s gotten good at vetting sources — an essential skill for someone who once estimated she’s “texting with at least 20 different people every day” (she publishes her email and her cell number regularly). For example, she says, “There was someone who texted me from Milan and he’s like, ‘I’m hearing that Federico Marchetti, the founder of YOOX, wants to buy [this company].’ It was 99% not going to happen. I asked a couple people if they’d also heard it. I messaged Federico and he didn’t write back to me — sometimes he does.”

Though she’s been in the fashion business her whole career, Sherman insists that she’s an outsider and that this perspective has been helpful to her success. Sherman lives not in New York but LA, with her 4-year-old son and her husband Dan Frommer (whose consumer newsletter was indirectly responsible for temporarily canceling Alison Roman during the pandemic). Sherman grew up “very poor” in Pittsburgh and fashion was an afterthought at best. “There was nobody at my high school that was into clothes. I had a Kate Spade bag that I’m sure was a knockoff that I bought on eBay,” she says.

Almost everyone I speak to about Sherman makes mention of her indefatigable ability to generate scoops. “You won’t find someone harder working. She inspires that kind of passion and wanting to get the story up faster, wanting to be first, wanting to scoop everyone else. That’s evidenced from her output, which is just absurd. She doesn’t believe in burnout,” adds Chernikoff.

Sherman agrees with the assessment. “I’m not a pretty enough writer — I’m not — I just have a very fast metabolism to be able to write,” she says. (Indeed, she took three months between BoF and Puck to co-write the first draft of last year’s Selling Sexy: Victoria’s Secret and The Unraveling of An American Icon, an inside look at the embattled lingerie brand with Cut reporter Chantal Fernandez, which came out last year.)

Back at that Moda party in Midtown, the room is starting to fill up, and Sherman’s got column inches to fill. I ask what she’s got next on her docket. Dinner, then the Christopher John Rogers show. Well, dinner and the Christopher John Rogers show, but first, a quick drink. With… a source? “I’m not telling you that,” she shoots back, with a knowing smirk.