Retail Revenge I Part 3

I'm going to show you the next podcast of Anschlach. So, I'm going to show you the next podcast. I'm going to show you the next podcast. I'm going to show you the next podcast. I'm going to show you the next podcast. I'm going to show you the next podcast. I'm going to show you the next podcast. I'm going to show you the next podcast. I'm going to show you the next podcast. Campsite media. So, Chris Birch loves China. That much we've established. His brother Chip once told me about a time he and Chris went to Chris's favorite massage place in Shanghai. They line you up in lazy boys. Somebody's working on your hands. Somebody else is working on your feet. You're getting your ears done. You're getting your nose cleaned out. You're watching a video. Chris is holding a meeting on his phone and he's just never coming up once for air. Chris, for his part, says that he's been flying over a million miles a year, mostly to Asia for years. An associate of his told me that when he was in Asia, he'd meet with factories that worked for major brands. And Chris would typically ask them, who do you make for? What are you making for them? Show me what you make for them. And everything they show him, he says, you can make that for $2. This is what I was told. He says he can make anything for $2, anything he sees, whether it's a tote or a necklace. From Campsite Media and Sony Music Entertainment, this is Infamous and I'm Vanessa Grigoriatus. I'm Gabe Sherman and this is the third part of our three part series on Chris and Tori Birch. It's called Retail Revenge. So where did we leave off last time, Vanessa? Well, we met Tori Birch and her glamorous mom, Reva, who those shoes were named after. We also met her husband, Chris Birch, who started Tori Birch, the business with her, and it grew into this really big brand really quickly. They had a huge hit with the ballet flats, the Reva flats. What are those again? So those are the flat little shoes like ballet slippers. Justin Harmon describes them as almost looking like condoms, right? But they have this big gold medallion on the toe and it has these two teas that are carved into it, which is tea for Tori. You know, they're iconic shoes. And those are the ones that Chris wanted to make knockoffs for cheap. That's right. So at this point, what's going on in Tori and Chris's marriage? Well, they're not divorced, but they are separated. The marriage is pretty much over and Chris has a new girlfriend. In fact, he's backing a new fashion line from his girlfriend, Monica Chang. She's a bit of a fashion New York fight. This is your second time showing at New York Fashion Week. What do you think you've learned this time around? Oh my gosh. Well, at least I know how the venue looks. She used to work as a manager at a nightclub. Of course she did. Bottles and models, man. I love fall because you can do the high boots. You can do the long coats. You can do many more things and layering. So I don't know. Also, it comes spring. I'll probably say the same. Chris likes anointing women as the new Tori, perhaps. He's also invested in a line from Kelly Catrone, who burst into national consciousness as a judge on Tyra Banks' show. America's next top model. Your walk is not happening. Okay, I'm done talking to you now. I feel like you're from an elf tribe and you lost your plan. So Kelly is the bitchiest of all bitchy fashion publicists. And by that, I mean, she is the funniest. She starts a line with Chris that specializes in sportswear for empowered women. I mean, talk about pressing it. This was back over a decade ago. And now you can't go to a five-star event without seeing people in athleisure. But to do all of these different ventures, Kelly's venture, Monica Chang's venture, and of course, his own store, Sea Wonder, Chris needed money. So he started looking into selling his stake in Tori Birch to private investors. He even allegedly began agitating for it to go public, which Tori was not pleased about. Let me just remind you, Tori and Chris did not comment for this story. In any case, we know that Chris really wanted to make his own store work. The line that he was the star of, the flower in bloom. Sea Wonder though, it wasn't chic in the way that Tori Birch was. It was greeting cards, blacker boxes, some clothing, bright colors. I remember blue and green, kind of saccharine. The fitting room have cushions, like a kind of preppy stripe, navy and white thick stripes. The Hamptons meets Target. That's Amy Haudel, a longtime fashion journalist and the author of Anna, The Biography. It's about Tori's friend, Anna Wintor. It was one of those stories that you would casually kind of walk into on a Saturday if you were out shopping with your friends. When Sea Wonder launched, Chris Birch leaned on his fashion contacts to get people like Amy Haudel writing about the store. I feel like I did write about the store, but it wasn't ever going to compete with Tori Birch in terms of being ready to wear a brand that you see at Fashion Week. In fact, when Chris told Tori about Sea Wonder initially, he gave her a pitch book. That's a document with a bunch of pictures in it and information about what you're going to make in your fashion line. So in that pitch book, it didn't even seem like Sea Wonder was much of a fashion line. The pitch book said 50% of Sea Wonder's product was devoted to home goods, washers and dryers, motor scooters, refrigerators, other unusual items. The kind of stuff that Chris finds for cheap at Chinese trade fairs. But when Amy went to Sea Wonder, there weren't a lot of washers or dryers or refrigerators for sale. I really thought more of like a kind of a hodgepodge of souvenirs, greeting cards and clothing. And Chris's selling clothing wasn't okay with Tori. Actually, nothing about Sea Wonder was okay with Tori. What's Birch's secret is he a copycat? Everybody interprets things from fashion from the past and the beginning. But I wouldn't say copycat. There's nothing actually in fashion that hasn't happened before. It's just the way you twist it. You know, superficially, it 100% looked like, okay, Chris Birch has made like a diffusion line of his X-Wave brand. It looked very much kind of like a screw you to his X-Wave. And not only that, Chris opened Sea Wonder's stores in retail spaces near Tori Birch. Even this YouTuber noticed that. I think the owner of Sea Wonder is actually Tori Birch's ex husband. So it's funny because Tori Birch is right across from this store, like a couple stores down in right across. It's hard not to see that as a big screw you. And that is allegedly how Tori Birch saw it. More after the break. This is the best lifestyle I've ever seen. The latest online dating zone and online business. Idi Alapardna, Shopify. The 1000-dollar-chief film and photo of the YouTube platform. The Alapardna's channel is the best. The telemedian. Eco-merced. Test the Shopify Cost and Loss on bring Danny Geshfty to the next video. The Shopify Bonti. The podcast is very fun. The world is very fun. It's very fun. It's really fun. I think the podcast is very fun. The next podcast is the next podcast. The next podcast is the most fun. The next podcast is the most fun. The next podcast is the most fun. The next podcast is the most fun. The next podcast is the most fun. The next podcast is the most fun. The next podcast is the most fun. The next podcast is the most fun. The next podcast is the most fun. The next podcast is the most fun. The next podcast is the most fun. The next podcast is the most fun. The next podcast is the most fun. The next podcast is the most fun. The next podcast is the most fun. The next podcast is the most fun. The next podcast is the most fun. The next podcast is the most fun. The next podcast is the most fun. The next podcast is the most fun. The next podcast is the most fun. The next podcast is the most fun. The next podcast is the most fun. The next podcast is the most fun. The next podcast is the most fun. The next podcast is the most fun. The next podcast is the most fun. The next podcast is the most fun. The next podcast is the most fun. The next podcast is the most fun. The next podcast is the most fun. The next podcast is the most fun. The next podcast is the most fun. The next podcast is the most fun. The next podcast is the most fun. The next podcast is the most fun. The next podcast is the most fun. The next podcast is the most fun. The next podcast is the most fun. The next podcast is the most fun. The next podcast is the most fun. The next podcast is the most fun. The next podcast is the most fun. The next podcast is the most fun. The next podcast is the most fun. The next podcast is the most fun. The next podcast is the most fun. The next podcast is the most fun. The next podcast is the most fun. The next podcast is the most fun. The next podcast is the most fun. The next podcast is the most fun. The next podcast is the most fun. The next podcast is the most fun. The next podcast is the most fun. The next podcast is the most fun. The next podcast is the most fun. The next podcast is the most fun. The next podcast is the most fun. The next podcast is the most fun. The next podcast is the most fun. The next podcast is the most fun. The next podcast is the most fun. The next podcast is the most fun. The next podcast is the most fun. The next podcast is the most fun. The next podcast is the most fun. The next podcast is the most fun. The next podcast is the most fun. The next podcast is the most fun. The next podcast is the most fun. The next podcast is the most fun. The next podcast is the most fun. The next podcast is the most fun. The next podcast is the most fun. The next podcast is the most fun. The next podcast is the most fun. The next podcast is the most fun. The next podcast is the most fun. The next podcast is the most fun. The next podcast is the most fun. The next podcast is the most fun. The next podcast is the most fun. The next podcast is the most fun. The next podcast is the most fun. The next podcast is the most fun. The next podcast is the most fun. The next podcast is the most fun. The next podcast is the most fun. The next podcast is the most fun. The next podcast is the most fun. The next podcast is the most fun. The next podcast is the most fun. The next podcast is the most fun. The next podcast is the most fun. The next podcast is the most fun. The next podcast is the most fun. The next podcast is the most fun. The next podcast is the most fun. The next podcast is the most fun. The next podcast is the most fun. The next podcast is the most fun. The next podcast is the most fun. The next podcast is the most fun. The next podcast is the most fun. The next podcast is the most fun. The next podcast is the most fun. The next podcast is the most fun. The next podcast is the most fun. The next podcast is the most fun. The next podcast is the most fun. The next podcast is the most fun. The next podcast is the most fun. The next podcast is the most fun. The next podcast is the most fun. The next podcast is the most fun. The next podcast is the most fun. The next podcast is the most fun. The next podcast is the most fun. The next podcast is the most fun. The next podcast is the most fun. The next podcast is the most fun. The next podcast is the most fun. The next podcast is the most fun. The next podcast is the most fun. The next podcast is the most fun. The next podcast is the most fun. The next podcast is the most fun. The next podcast is the most fun. The next podcast is the most fun. The next podcast is the most fun. The next podcast is the most fun. The next podcast is the most fun. The next podcast is the most fun. The next podcast is the most fun. The next podcast is the most fun. The next podcast is the most fun. The next podcast is the most fun. The next podcast is the most fun. The next podcast is the most fun. The next podcast is the most fun. The next podcast is the most fun. The next podcast is the most fun. The next podcast is the most fun. The next podcast is the most fun. The next podcast is the most fun. The next podcast is the most fun. The next podcast is the most fun. The next podcast is the most fun. The next podcast is the most fun. The next podcast is the most fun. The next podcast is the most fun. The next podcast is the most fun. The next podcast is the most fun. The next podcast is the most fun. The next podcast is the most fun. The next podcast is the most fun. The next podcast is the most fun. The next podcast is the most fun. The next podcast is the most fun. The next podcast is the most fun. The next podcast is the most fun. The next podcast is the most fun. The next podcast is the most fun. The next podcast is the most fun. The next podcast is the most fun. The next podcast is the most fun. The next podcast is the most fun. The next podcast is the most fun. The next podcast is the most fun. The next podcast is the most fun. The next podcast is the most fun. The next podcast is the most fun. The next podcast is the most fun. The next podcast is the most fun. The next podcast is the most fun. The next podcast is the most fun. The next podcast is the most fun. The next podcast is the most fun. The next podcast is the most fun. The next podcast is the most fun. The next podcast is the most fun. The next podcast is the most fun. The next podcast is the most fun. The next podcast is the most fun. The next podcast is the most fun. The next podcast is the most fun. The next podcast is the most fun. The next podcast is the most fun. The next podcast is the most fun. The next podcast is the most fun. The next podcast is the most fun. The next podcast is the most fun. The next podcast is the most fun. The next podcast is the most fun. The next podcast is the most fun. The next podcast is the most fun. The next podcast is the most fun. The next podcast is the most fun. The next podcast is the most fun. The next podcast is the most fun. The next podcast is the most fun. The next podcast is the most fun. The next podcast is the most fun. The next podcast is the most fun. The next podcast is the most fun. The next podcast is the most fun. The next podcast is the most fun. The next podcast is the most fun. The next podcast is the most fun. The next podcast is the most fun. The next podcast is the most fun. The next podcast is the most fun. The next podcast is the most fun. The next podcast is the most fun. The next podcast is the most fun. The next podcast is the most fun. The next podcast is the most fun. The next podcast is the most fun. The next podcast is the most fun. The next podcast is the most fun. The next podcast is the most fun. The next podcast is the most fun. The next podcast is the most fun. The next podcast is the most fun. The next podcast is the most fun. The next podcast is the most fun. The next podcast is the most fun. The next podcast is the most fun. The next podcast is the most fun. The next podcast is the most fun. The next podcast is the most fun. The next podcast is the most fun. The next podcast is the most fun. The next podcast is the most fun. The next podcast is the most fun. The next podcast is the most fun. The next podcast is the most fun. The next podcast is the most fun. The next podcast is the most fun. The next podcast is the most fun. The next podcast is the most fun. The next podcast is the most fun. The next podcast is the most fun. The next podcast is the most fun. The next podcast is the most fun. The next podcast is the most fun. The next podcast is the most fun. The next podcast is the most fun. The next podcast is the most fun. The next podcast is the most fun. The next podcast is the most fun. The next podcast is the most fun. The next podcast is the most fun. The next podcast is the most fun. The next podcast is the most fun. The next podcast is the most fun. The next podcast is the most fun. The next podcast is the most fun. The next podcast is the most fun. The next podcast is the most fun. The next podcast is the most fun. The next podcast is the most fun. The next podcast is the most fun. The next podcast is the most fun. The next podcast is the most fun. The next podcast is the most fun. The next podcast is the most fun. The next podcast is the most fun. The next podcast is the most fun. The next podcast is the most fun. The next podcast is the most fun. The next podcast is the most fun. The next podcast is the most fun. The next podcast is the most fun. The next podcast is the most fun. The next podcast is the most fun. The next podcast is the most fun. The next podcast is the most fun. The next podcast is the most fun. The next podcast is the most fun. The next podcast is the most fun. The next podcast is the most fun. The next podcast is the most fun. The next podcast is the most fun. The next podcast is the most fun. The next podcast is the most fun. The next podcast is the most fun. The next podcast is the most fun. The next podcast is the most fun. The next podcast is the most fun. The next podcast is the most fun. The next podcast is the most fun. The next podcast is the most fun. The next podcast is the most fun. The next podcast is the most fun. The next podcast is the most fun. The next podcast is the most fun. The next podcast is the most fun. The next podcast is the most fun. The next podcast is the most fun. The next podcast is the most fun. The next podcast is the most fun. The next podcast is the most fun. The next podcast is the most fun. The next podcast is the most fun. The next podcast is the most fun. The next podcast is the most fun. The next podcast is the most fun. The next podcast is the most fun. The next podcast is the most fun. The next podcast is the most fun. The next podcast is the most fun. The next podcast is the most fun. The next podcast is the most fun. The next podcast is the most fun. The next podcast is the most fun. The next podcast is the most fun. The next podcast is the most fun. The next podcast is the most fun. The next podcast is the most fun. The next podcast is the most fun. The next podcast is the most fun. The next podcast is the most fun. The next podcast is the most fun. The next podcast is the most fun. The next podcast is the most fun. The next podcast is the most fun. The next podcast is the most fun. The next podcast is the most fun. The next podcast is the most fun. The next podcast is the most fun. The next podcast is the most fun. The next podcast is the most fun. The next podcast is the most fun. The next podcast is the most fun. The next podcast is the most fun. The next podcast is the most fun. The next podcast is the most fun. The next podcast is the most fun. The next podcast is the most fun. The next podcast is the most fun. The next podcast is the most fun. The next podcast is the most fun. The next podcast is the most fun. The next podcast is the most fun. The next podcast is the most fun. The next podcast is the most fun. The next podcast is the most fun. The next podcast is the most fun. The next podcast is the most fun. The next podcast is the most fun. The next podcast is the most fun. The next podcast is the most fun. The next podcast is the most fun. The next podcast is the most fun. The next podcast is the most fun. The next podcast is the most fun. The next podcast is the most fun. The next podcast is the most fun. The next podcast is the most fun. The next podcast is the most fun. The next podcast is the most fun. The next podcast is the most fun. The next podcast is the most fun. The next podcast is the most fun. The next podcast is the most fun. The next podcast is the most fun. The next podcast is the most fun. The next podcast is the most fun. The next podcast is the most fun. The next podcast is the most fun. The next podcast is the most fun. The next podcast is the most fun. The next podcast is the most fun. The next podcast is the most fun. The next podcast is the most fun. The next podcast is the most fun. The next podcast is the most fun. The next podcast is the most fun. The next podcast is the most fun. The next podcast is the most fun. The next podcast is the most fun. The next podcast is the most fun. The next podcast is the most fun. The next podcast is the most fun. The next podcast is the most fun. The next podcast is the most fun. The next podcast is the most fun. The next podcast is the most fun. And a few days after the hearing, she files a counterclaim. But then everything goes quiet. Hanukkah, Christmas, Kwanzaa, they all come and go. Crickets. And then suddenly on January 1st, 2013, Torian Chris announced they have finally done the wasp thing. They have settled the case privately. If the discovery came out, it would have been. The board meetings were, were Chris and Toria were both present, emails, text messages, like any snipey thing that they would have said behind each other's backs would have been made public, which Toria Birch would not have enjoyed. Chris Birch sells off his steak in Toria Birch for $65 million. Like good wasps or not, they handle the details behind closed doors. And what about Toria Birch? Toria Birch is not a billionaire, but she's also worth $900 million. That's Denise Chum, a former financial journalist who wrote a Forbes cover story on Toria Birch in 2012. We wrote at the time that the company's revenues were about $1.5 billion, and we also estimated a profit margin at 11%. So everything is pretty okay for Toria, but there is going to be a casualty. Chris's dream. Toria Birch will move on, but will see wonder. More after the break. We all have questions that keep us up at night. The self-help industry tells us they have answers. As a journalist and a skeptic, I'm not so sure. So I've set out to talk to people who have gone to radical links to find answers. I'm Katherine Rowland. From something else and Sony Music Entertainment, this is Seeking. On season one, we're diving deep into the portal of plant medicine and psychedelics. Coming April 3, listen to Seeking, wherever you get your podcasts. Remember when, at the beginning of the pandemic, President Donald Trump suggested disinfectant might cure COVID? It just seemed nuts. Like no one would do that, right? Turns out, in the dark corners of the internet, a radical group made a fortune doing just that. They called it Miracle Mineral Solution. Join me for Smoke Screen Deadly Cure. I'm Chris and V Brown, your host and a reporter for Bloomberg. From Neon Hum, Sony Music Entertainment, and Bloomberg, Smoke Screen Deadly Cure is available now. Subscribe on Apple Podcast to binge all episodes now or listen weekly wherever you get your podcasts. This is Infamous from Campside Media. So it's January 2015, cold Monday morning, first of the New Year. But inside Sea Wonders Flatiron office, the mood may be darker than New York's gray clouds. Cardboard boxes litter the room all around the office. About a hundred shell-shocked employees are packing up their desks. Today is their last day. Sea Wonders stores across the U.S. have been shuttering, and now, at an 11 a.m. town hall, Sea Wonders corporate office just found out they're being laid off. A bare-bones staff will stay on for a few more weeks to handle the wind down, but Sea Wonders remaining shops will close in a few weeks. And after that, the brand is toast. Chris is nowhere to be seen. He recently relocated his office to Miami, but the business has been far from sunny. Chris's baby is hemorrhaging money. In fact, it's estimated that Chris lost $70 billion of his own cash on Sea Wonder. So how does a loss that big happen? The answer is lots of little mistakes. They expanded their footprint too quickly, opening in cities without the customers to support it. There were forced to sell a lot of items at steep discounts. That happened at an outlet mall that this YouTuber visited in North Carolina. I went to Tanger Outlets a couple of, actually over a week ago, and Sea Wonder just opened up there. They are a final sale only outlet. Basically, it was buy two get one free, and then it was like 40% off the jewelry. But like a Phoenix, Sea Wonder rose again. Or at least it kind of limped onto QVC. We love our Sea Wonder t-shirts, and what do you wear over? Your slummit t-shirt? You wear your Sea Wonder denim jacket. In 2015, Chris Birch sold Sea Wonder for just $12.5 million. And its new owners struck a new deal to hawk clothes on air. Now, QVC is hardly a high fashion. But the funny thing is that in some ways Chris Birch and this whole idea, it was actually ahead of his time. That's what Emil Del thinks. If you think now about Instagram and TikTok and home decor and Spo and all of that, sure. I think there's probably a huge market for little economics. But now people will probably buy them from urban outfitters and Amazon and other stores that have influenced our affiliate program. And see what would have been too early. Today, the former Sea Wonder store in Soho, the one I described at the beginning of these episodes, is an Amazon store. The brand Sea Wonder now, it does still exist, and you can buy it at Walmart. But Chris seems like he realizes how badly this whole episode ended up. You've started two businesses with family. Right. A lot of people say you shouldn't start a business with family or it's difficult. Looking back, it was the right choice. It's kind of like that analogy is for me, the business I started with family turned out to be extraordinarily successful businesses. But it causes a lot of pain and consternation. I would suggest not starting a business with a family member. I think the best business can be with friends. These days, over a decade later, friends of Tori and Chris actually say they're on pretty good terms. When I ask them for a comment for this story, they sent me a joint statement. It says, we have a close and positive relationship, especially around our children. We strongly believe the past is the past and we feel fortunate to have each other's support and friendship. As for Tori Birch LLC, not long ago Tori stepped down as CEO of her company to focus on designing. But she's close with the new CEO, because he is, actually, her new husband. Back in 2014, Pierre Yves-Risele was the CEO of LVMH, Louis Vuitton, Moé, Hennessy. It's the world's largest luxury company. And that is pretty much the biggest job in fashion. Tori was fresh from the C-wonder fight. Here's Denise Chum, the former Forbes reporter. They met and they started doing long distance. Obviously, he was in Paris and she was in New York. And after a certain point, they were like, hey, how are we going to make this work? Like, let's get married and be in the same place. As the relationship was beginning to get more serious, perhaps Tori was also tiring of running her own business. She wanted to focus on the bit she loved, and she loved designing clothes. In other words, she was in the market for a successor. So they got married and shortly after Tori Burch, the brand, announced that Tori's new husband, Pierre Yves, will be running the business alongside Tori. Anna Winter told me was that Pierre Yves himself was very hesitant. So my understanding is that Tori completely trusted him and she thought that it was going to be okay. And I asked her, I was like, you had a business with your previous husband and there were lawsuits involved like weren't you scared? And I think according to Anna Winter, Tori did not really think that that would be an issue. She just really trusts Pierre Yves and he was convinced. To Tori, it was all so simple. That was what she said. Pierre Yves was the best person for the job and the best person for the job ended up being her husband. She said a bunch of stuff that actually makes you think, but weren't you once married to someone who ran the business with you? I've been a CEO and doing the creative for 15 years and it is such a relief to be able to have someone you trust and know that he has all good intentions and will be taking the business to the next level. And we fundamentally see business in the same way. Pierre Yves was basically Mr. Fashion. But it also does seem that being married to Tori Birch is the same as being married to Tori Birch LLC. He's the new Mr. Birch. Next week, we're taking you to Dubai, where Princess's Golden Cage is still a cage. I'm a hostage and this villa has been converted into a jail. Every day I am worried about my safety in my life. Don't really know if I'm going to serve out of the situation. He's the most evil person I've ever met in my life. He's pure evil. Infamous is executive produced, created and hosted by Gabriel Sherman and me, Vanessa Rivoriotis. Natalie Rovamed wrote and reported this episode. Our managing producer and editor is Shoshi Schmolovitz, Heather Schrowing and I edited the episode and Natalia Winkleman, Grace Heerman, Derek Graham and Lily Hucin Smith produced. David Devaro is our sound designer. Voices by David Eigler and Mark McGatam. E. One lie, Tremuin is our recordist. Some of this reporting appeared in Vanity Fair magazine. Thanks so much. See you next week. ♪ .