What's on Your Mind?

Andy Hunter decided something needed to be done about the endless rise of Amazon in 2018—the year that the e-commerce giant surpassed 50% of book sales in the U.S. market. “I was concerned at that rate of growth,” says founder and CEO of Bookshop.org. Hunter did a back of a napkin projection and figured that by 2025, Amazon would have secured an 80% share of the U.S. market. That worried Hunter, who had long worked in the publishing industry, especially when paired with stats showing half of all independent, local bookshops in the country went out of business at the same time as Amazon became ascendant. “I felt very strongly that books are too important to our culture…

Recently, I saved a major exclusive story from nearly getting killed at the eleventh hour. After developing the communications strategy, writing several versions of a pitch that a broader team of external partners would use over the course of the campaign’s phases, and personally intervening when the opportunity was nearly lost after one of the parties involved fumbled, that same party later said to me, “Thanks for your help.” Help. Twenty years in public relations, including over a decade running a successful consultancy, and my strategic leadership was reduced to “help”—a word that carries centuries of loaded meaning for Black women in America. It’s a word that seems …

It’s hard for a designer to get the world’s attention at fashion week. But a year ago, the Maison Margiela show went viral thanks, in large part, to Pat McGrath’s makeup, which made models’ skin look like it was made of glass. The show was theatrical. Creative director John Galliano conjured a dark, ethereal universe apparently inspired by the Belle Époque of the late 1800s, when women had tightly cinched corsets, and voluminous dresses with padding that accentuated their busts and hips. Models, including Gwendoline Christie (second from right), walk the runway during the Maison Margiela Haute Couture Spring/Summer 2024 show as part of Paris Fashion Week, January…

Most upstart companies prepping a new product launch would probably not be thrilled to receive a cease and desist letter from an established giant of their field. But as is readily apparent from its insane packaging (not to mention its insane name), the gummy candy purveyor Rotten is not most companies. Last May, founder and CEO Michael Fisher had his signature gummy worms on hand at the industry’s Sweets & Snacks Expo—and a flyer for a new product: Rotten’s Gummy Cruncheez, which launch today and bear resemblance to Nerds’s uber-popular Gummy Clusters. [Image: Rotten] “Nerds and their parent company Ferrara got wind of the product, took a photo of the flye…