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Harry and Meghan are back in the UK, six years after leaving the royal family. In the first part of Back Row's deep dive into Meghan Markle, Amy and former Us Weekly and Hello! editor Justin Ravitz — who has interviewed Prince Harry and worked with the couple's team — trace Meghan's story from her Los Angeles childhood to the night she met Harry. Part two is available to Back Row Premium subscribers. CHAPTERS 00:00 Introduction 09:00 Meghan's Los Angeles childhood 12:30 Age 11: taking on Procter & Gamble 16:15 Briefcase No. 24 on Deal or No Deal 22:45 Landing Suits 30:00 The Tig blog and Meghan's Goop dream 35:30 Social climbing and Soho House 43:30 Humanitarian ambitions and meeting Harry Subscribe to the Back Row newsletter: https://www.backrow.net/subscribe Buy The Palace Papers by Tina Brown: https://link.amazon/B02EAsx6X Follow Back Row: @backrow · Follow Amy: @instamyodell · Follow Justin: @jaydubargh Edited by Chrissi Harris. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Part two of Back Row's Meghan Markle deep dive picks up the night she met Prince Harry. We discuss the glamping trip in Botswana; the tabloid coverage that upset Meghan; the storied alleged spat over the Queen Mary Bandeau tiara; the flower-girl-tights standoff with Kate; and why the palace and Meghan never understood each other. Also, leaving the firm, the $100 million Netflix deal, "Duchess Difficult" headlines, Justin's own experience working with their team and interviewing Prince Harry behind the bleachers at the Invictus Games — and why they've moved back to the UK. Thank you for supporting independent media with your Back Row Premium subscription. CHAPTERS 00:00 Introduction 02:30 Botswana and falling for Harry 11:00 The tabloids turn 28:00 Tiara wars and flower girl fights 38:30 Royal life and the Commonwealth tour 42:30 Leaving the firm 56:30 Netflix, podcasts and Hollywood flops 1:05:00 Justin's inside look and the Harry interview 1:12:45 Why they're back in the UK Subscribe to the Back Row newsletter: https://www.backrow.net/subscribe Buy The Palace Papers by Tina Brown: https://link.amazon/B02EAsx6X Follow Back Row: @backrow · Follow Amy: @instamyodell · Follow Justin: @jaydubargh Edited by Chrissi Harris.

PJ Smith, director of fashion policy for Humane World for Animals (formerly the Humane Society), has spent almost 20 years getting companies from Gucci to Net-a-Porter to go fur-free. Now that most top fashion brands have sworn off fur, is wool the next big target for animal welfare activists? PJ talks about why, thanks to LVMH, the fur fight isn't quite over, how he got brands to change their mind about fur, and what's next. CHAPTERS 00:00 Introduction 02:30 Why fur-free NYFW is historic 08:00 How Humane World actually changes brands' minds 18:30 Fur farming down 85% — the numbers 22:30 PETA vs. H&M: the wool protests 25:30 Is wool humane? Mulesing explained 46:30 Exotic skins: the next target 52:00 PJ's biggest lesson after 20 years Subscribe to the Back Row newsletter: https://www.backrow.net/subscribe Follow Back Row: @backrow · Follow Amy: @instamyodell Edited by Chrissi Harris. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

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

Amy's husband Rick is back as the voice of Retail Confessions! Back Row's most popular series, in which luxury retail workers talk about what selling the world's most expensive fashion is really like. This installment from the archive talks about the aspirational shopping boom that occurred during the pandemic, which trend forecaster Sean Monahan discussed in this week's episode. Also discussed: the men who lie about their shoe size; the sugar daddies getting swindled by their mistresses; and the worst customer behavior this source ever experienced. Get a Premium subscription to Back Row through BackRow.net and you'll get access to all paywalled podcasts plus the newsletter: https://www.backrow.net/subscribe

*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

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. And most importantly: will anyone take the fall? CHAPTERS 00:00 Introduction — fashion's myopic little world 03:00 The Zara collaboration lands this week 05:00 Can Galliano get his name back from LVMH? 09:00 Anna Wintour's waning influence 12:30 The press release — and who takes the fall 19:00 The Netflix doc filming her swan song 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/3T9Ea1A Edited by Chrissi Harris.

*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

Anna Wintour's Netflix documentary — by the same director of the Beckham docuseries — is in the works. But after so many docs, what's left to say? Kate Casey of 'Reality Life with Kate Casey' joins Amy to speculate why this is happening and what we know about it. CHAPTERS 00:00 Introduction 05:00 "People say you are an ice woman" - Anna and the media 07:30 What can the next documentary possibly say? 📺 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 📷 Follow Kate on Instagram: @katecaseyca 🎙️ Reality Life with Kate Casey on Apple: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/reality-life-with-kate-casey/id1154758766 🎙️ Reality Life with Kate Casey on Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/7iZzKUbEWAsWVkFRebb9Gu This episode was edited by Chrissi Harris.

Back Row is on vacation this week, so we're revisiting one of the most popular episodes of the year: a two-parter on Mary-Kate and Ashley Olsen, in honor of The Row's 20th anniversary. Mary-Kate and Ashley Olsen were on television before they could talk and millionaires before they could read. Former Us Weekly editor-in-chief Dan Wakeford, author of the new ⁠Celebrity Intelligence newsletter⁠, joins Back Row to break down the Full House casting story, the Dual Star empire, the billion-dollar licensing machine, and the NYU years that changed everything. Part Two — revealing the secrets behind The Row — is available to Premium subscribers. Sign up at ⁠Back Row⁠ (https://www.backrow.net/subscribe) to get newsletter access included with your subscription, or in Apple Podcasts or Spotify. ⁠Find Part Two in Apple Podcasts here⁠ ⁠Find Part Two in Spotify here⁠ Chapters 00:00 Introduction 01:40 Dan Wakeford and Celebrity Intelligence 02:47 Why the Olsens are a unique case study 07:50 The Full House casting story 10:07 The reality of child stardom 16:22 How their personalities diverged early 19:49 From pennies to $80,000 an episode 26:27 The home video empire begins 33:28 The billion dollar licensing machine 48:00 Turning 18 and taking control 53:41 NYU and the paparazzi years 57:47 How everything changed Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

The Olsens were the most overexposed child stars in America. Then they disappeared — and built one of the most exclusive luxury brands in fashion. In Part Two, I talk to former Us Weekly editor-in-chief Dan Wakeford about how they launched The Row while hiding their names from it, what it's actually like to work for them, why their prices are so high, and what a billion-dollar valuation means for where they go next. CHAPTERS 00:00 From overexposed to exclusive 01:00 The NYU paparazzi years 04:54 How The Row began 09:19 Why they hid their names from the brand 14:36 Barneys buys the whole first collection 23:40 Inside The Row office 26:36 Mary-Kate, Ashley, and their private lives 30:13 The pandemic and the stealth wealth explosion 34:45 The billion-dollar valuation 39:23 The $600 Hamptons grocery run

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. Is everything on social media — even lifestyle content — just rage bait now? New York Magazine features writer Rebecca Jennings joins Amy to unpack her hit Vulture piece on the "influencer recession," when aspirational content no longer works and creators have to come up with "brand-safe rage bait." What does this mean both for the content landscape but also, for rage itself? CHAPTERS 00:00 Introduction 02:00 What is the "influencer recession"? 02:45 The clipping economy & fake virality 05:15 Audrey Peters & the $25 DoorDash coffee 10:30 Why the Alo yacht flopped 14:35 Why Birkins are embarrassing now 19:30 The OpenAI influencer farm trip 24:00 Brands manufacturing their own rage bait 30:00 How Substack changed the game 34:30 Is rage bait losing its power? Read Rebecca's story: The Influencer Recession — https://www.vulture.com/article/influencer-recession-audrey-peters-interview.html 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.* Is fashion in the throes of a total creative collapse? Critic Eugene Rabkin — founder of StyleZeitgeist and author of the new book Torn: Fashion and Postmodernism — joins Amy to make the case. He argues luxury has "devolved into a consumerist spectacle," its lack of ideas papered over by relentless marketing. They get into the greedflation behind a $140,000 Dior dress, why "craftsmanship" is the industry's greatest con, the Italian sweatshop scandals that never seem to stick, how Bernard Arnault turned the fashion world into the fashion industry — and the death of criticism, and why nobody seems to care. CHAPTERS 00:00 Introduction 02:30 Fashion's creative collapse: the thesis 08:30 Greedflation & the $140,000 Dior dress 13:00 The craftsmanship con 15:00 Sweatshop scandals: Dior & Loro Piana's vicuña 23:30 The death of fashion criticism 32:00 Bernard Arnault & how he industrialized fashion 📺 SUBSCRIBE to the Back Row Newsletter: https://www.backrow.net/subscribe 📷 Follow Back Row on Instagram: @backrow 📷 Follow Amy on Instagram: @instamyodell Follow Eugene Rabkin 📷 Follow Eugene on Instagram: @eugenerabkin 📚 Buy the book: Torn: Fashion and Postmodernism This episode was edited by Chrissi Harris. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices