Amy recently joined The Sam Sanders Show to talk about the rise of AI slop in fashion. Thank you to Sam and his team for allowing Back Row to republish the interview here! ------- Even the fashion industry can’t escape AI slop. Fast fashion brands are using AI to pump out new looks and trends, and speed up production at unsustainable rates. It’s a business model that relies much more on algorithmic data than human design. Chances are you’ve even seen plenty of these products in your social media feeds. Sam chats with fashion journalist Amy Odell, host of the ‘Back Row’ podcast, about AI’s influence in the industry and how we can all be better consumers. Plus, is high fashion on life support? Amy also breaks down the perils of luxury shopping today. The Sam Sanders Show is a production of KCRW and Sam Sanders Productions. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Jonathan Van Meter spent five years inside Kim Kardashian's world for his new biography, Citizen Kim: The Woman Who Created the Future. He talks about what her rarefied world of fame and wealth is really like, her childhood front-row seat to the O.J. Simpson trial, and how Kanye West got her into the Met Gala. Plus: what Jonathan could and couldn't learn about how the sex tape was released, and whether Kim is laying the groundwork to run for political office. CHAPTERS 00:00 Introduction 02:00 How Jonathan Got Five Years of Access 05:30 Inside Kim Kardashian's House (and Her 24 Staffers) 12:00 Kim Air: Kim's Private Jet 30:30 Kim and the O.J. Simpson Trial 40:30 The Kim Kardashian Sex Tape 45:30 The Paris Robbery 48:00 Kanye, Anna Wintour & the Met Gala 55:00 Will Kim Run for Office? Subscribe to the Back Row newsletter: https://www.backrow.net/subscribe Buy Citizen Kim: The Woman Who Created the Future: https://link.amazon/B0cKsNzKY Follow Back Row: @backrow · Follow Amy: @instamyodell · Follow Jonathan: @jonathanvanmeter 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.* Referenced in this episode: Facelift confessions, part 1: https://www.backrow.net/p/facelift-confessions-part-1-the-brutal-realities-of-getting-work-done Facelift confessions, part 2: https://www.backrow.net/p/facelift-confessions-part-2-expect-an-emotional-toll In 2004, Fox turned plastic surgery into primetime entertainment. The Swan reality show gave contestants about $200,000 worth of surgery each, put them on crash diets, banned mirrors for three months, and then put them in a beauty pageant. Nine million people watched. Erin Lee Carr, director of 'Mommy Dead and Dearest' and 'Britney vs Spears,' goes back to the women 20 years later in her hit Hulu documentary, The Swan: Behind the Mirror — and tells Amy what the documentary couldn't. CHAPTERS 00:00 Introduction 04:45 Getting the Swans to talk again 10:00 "I almost died for reality television" 19:30 How much choice did they have? "1%" 22:45 Starvation diets and spoonfuls of peanut butter 26:00 The nude photos Dr. Haworth kept 28:50 The $5 million contract 36:50 "Would you do it again?" 40:00 A classic Anna Wintour story Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

SUBSCRIBE to the Back Row newsletter for the FULL Fashion Month Awards podcast and get more coverage like this: https://www.backrow.net/subscribe. Save three months on an annual subscription. For pod ONLY, sign up in Apple Podcasts (https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/back-row-with-amy-odell/id1843400835) or Spotify (https://open.spotify.com/show/0wpDOgcuWKjpH9WxklNqI4). The spring 2027 shows just wrapped in Paris, a year after the "Great Reset" brought new creative directors to Chanel, Dior, and many more. Amy is joined by Dana Thomas, New York Times bestselling author of Deluxe, Gods and Kings and Fashionopolis, to hand out Fashion Month Awards. They get into John Galliano's PR rehab after the canceled Met show, who's having the biggest sophomore slump, and more. The full episode for Premium subscribers includes awards for Best Runway Stunt and Best Overall, plus analysis of John Galliano's weak Zara launch and Virginie Viard's explosive book. CHAPTERS 00:00 Introduction 04:30 Biggest sophomore slump 10:45 Best show nobody talked about Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Mrs. Dow Jones (Haley Sacks) on how to stop impulse buying and why fashion month keeps you broke. Part One of two. For part two — about Birkins and fashion's play to woo the wealthiest shoppers — get a Premium subscription to Back Row: https://www.backrow.net/subscribe. Save three months on an annual subscription. Or sign up in Apple Podcasts (https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/back-row-with-amy-odell/id1843400835) or Spotify (https://open.spotify.com/show/0wpDOgcuWKjpH9WxklNqI4) Haley Sacks, aka @MrsDowJones, joins Amy to break down how fashion month keeps us stuck in a cycle of broke. Every season the same trend gets planted on the runway, in your feed, and on influencers, and within two weeks a cheaper version shows up at Zara. Haley talks about how to stop impulse buying, why luxury goods are so expensive, and what it was like to grow up in one of the world's wealthiest neighborhoods. CHAPTERS 00:00 Introduction 01:30 How fashion month keeps us in a cycle of broke 04:00 From the runway to Zara in two weeks 08:00 Buy fewer, better things 10:00 How to stop impulse buying 16:00 The luxury pyramid and the $690 keychain 20:00 Is any luxury actually worth it? 22:00 Hunting a sold-out clutch with an AI agent 25:30 Haley's years as an Upper East Side nanny 📺 SUBSCRIBE to the Back Row Newsletter: https://www.backrow.net/subscribe 📷 Follow Back Row on Instagram: @backrow 📷 Follow Amy on Instagram: @instamyodell Follow Haley Sacks 📷 Follow Haley on Instagram: @mrsdowjones 📖 Buy Haley's book, Future Rich Person: https://link.amazon/B07xqeKEx🎙️ 🎙️Follow Haley's Financial Tea podcast on Apple: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/financial-tea-with-mrs-dow-jones/id1860939850 🎙️ Follow Haley's Financial Tea podcast on Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/58anKIbkGzd5MkI3v0BjY2 Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

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

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

*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