Open Tabs #85

Week of 6/15: Influencer Happenings across the Internet

Sending Open Tabs from the train from Paris to Cannes, which might be the most peaceful Sunday writing experience. I’m traveling to Cannes Lions with Fohr this week as they host a few panels at COLLINS House with guests like Sai De Silva from RHONY, Alan Bersten and Emma Slater from DWTS, and the teams behind Aerie and The RealReal’s influencer strategies. Following Up will have more sends than normal this week to cover what I’m seeing on the ground in Cannes, with a larger roundup in Open Tabs next Sunday, 6/28. Comment if you have any specific requests on what you’d be most interested in hearing from CMOs, creators, specifically the people/brands mentioned above, and everyone in between.

I’m sure AI is going to be the most mentioned word and topic of conversation at Cannes this week. This past Tuesday, Adobe released its 2026 Creators’ Toolkit Report, which looks at the next phase of creative AI adoption. The report focuses on how creators are using AI to grow, but not to replace who they are, because their influence still comes from their voice and POV. Adobe interviewed 16,000 global creators for the report, and I’ve enjoyed hearing more influencers be transparent about how they’re using AI to improve their businesses. Most of the examples I’ve seen are less about replacing creativity and more about making the business side of being a creator more efficient: digging into data across affiliate platforms, figuring out how to optimize links so they live longer, better tracking where clicks are coming from, organizing content calendars, and managing invoices. Grace Atwood and Julia & Thomas Berolzheimer are two great examples of creators sharing helpful tips while also clarifying how they are not using AI to replace their voice.

Julia Berolzheimer x Tuckernuck launched an edit last week, and it felt bigger than just an online edit because of the marketing and naming behind it. I saw it everywhere (especially this beach bag). They seeded influencers pieces from the edit, sent an email to tease the launch, and had Julia post both a teaser and launch content. I thought this was a smart way to make a site edit feel like a larger brand moment and drive traffic to shop the brand’s summer travel capsule.

I want to be an influencer who stays in Europe all summer traveling from one brand trip to the next! Last week, I mentioned Marine Layer’s brand trip in Spain, and since then, I’ve seen Lilly Sisto and Melanie Masarin travel to Italy with AERIN Beauty (with other influencers in attendence, of course). I love the way AERIN is bringing its Mediterranean-inspired scent to life by taking its community to the Amalfi Coast.

Similarly, I mentioned Ref in Residence located in Italy last week, and now Sara Walker and Coco Schiffer are in France with Jimmy Choo with other influencers. The boat day looked dreamy.

Ref in Residence is also continuing, this week with a house of VIP talent from Alexa Chung to Rumer Willis. I loved that they included pieces from Courtney Grow’s recent collab to keep the excitement going.

In September, Sephora announced that they were releasing storefronts, similar to Amazon’s creator affiliate model, to compete with successful third-party platforms and take more ownership over their data. Since the press release, I’ve barely seen anything. I even consulted with a skincare brand in Q1 that felt unclear on the launch and how to incorporate it into their marketing strategy. This week, I saw that Sephora hosted an event with Makeup by Kelli Anne to share more about her storefront and provide a moment to celebrate and educate. I’m curious if we’ll continue to see more of these events. Let me know if you have more information around Sephora’s storefronts and how they’ll play with ShopMy. Will the brand stay on the platform?

Talbots co-hosted an event with Grace Atwood and Erika Veurink in New York to celebrate Chassity Evans’ new book. All attendees were dressed in Talbots and Grace and Erika created additional content on how they were styling their looks. I typically associate Talbots with my grandma, so I think it is smart to reposition the brand with younger influencers and modern styling. They should repurpose more of this content on their site and bring the dresses worn to the top or in a separate edit to easily find. It influenced me to download the book on my Kindle for my next summer beach read!

Speaking of books, I loved 831 Stories mailer this week for their new book, Down to Earth!

Saie Beauty is launching a new product in August that is currently under embargo. The team kindly invited me to their event at Colbo this week to test out the product and get a sneak peek at the campaign. I loved getting an early look, and of course, the product is just as good as the rest of their line. I’m intrigued by the long lead tease with an event two months before launch, and I’ll be watching how content rolls out ahead of the release.

Lilly Pulitzer hosted a brand trip in Cape May, with everyone arriving to a closet full of their bright summer prints. There were painting events on the beach, a beautiful dinner on a local farm to highlight their new corn print, and beachside Lilly-branded meals to go.

Vin Store hosted an event with FWRD to celebrate their summer collection, with influencers styling their unique bags, from gold seashells to crab and fish clutches. I loved this post from Jess Graves documenting the ‘summertime silly little bags.’

Chanel Beauty celebrated its new Beauty Magazine at Airmail this week, taking over the West Village shop with the colorful magazine. So many influencers documented pages from the magazine, including many in-feed posts, which is of course a brand’s dream when hosting an event. I also love that Chanel Beauty has a separate account, @welovecoco, for its community content.

Tacori hosted an event with denna over lbreakfast at Saint Ambroeus with diamonds passed around the table.

The RealReal hosted a conversation with Lena Dunham in-store, following their recent partnership with her around her favorite brands to shop on The RealReal. I love when partnerships extend beyond the initial content and come to life through in-person events. It keeps the conversation going and gives the partnership another moment to build.

NBC and Peacock hosted creators at the U.S. Open, and Malbon Golf also had an activation on the ground with plenty of creator crossover. I first discovered Malbon through their partnership with Gap last year, and they continue to stand out as a brand innovating within golf. They are showing up in a way that feels bigger and more culturally relevant than many of the heritage brands in the space.

Other Things I Saw This Week: I had multiple people ask me my thoughts on ShopMy’s new boosting tool, Spotlights, and I think I’m going to write a deeper essay on boosted content in general and my POV, Celisse launched the cutest GWP this week!!, Grace Atwood announced a jewelry collaboration launching in December, though the brand hasn’t been released yet, Trader Joe’s released a striped mini tote that went viral on TikTok (I was wondering why people were lining up outside my neighborhood TJs at 7am this week), Dôen x The Science Library collaborated on a mini dress, Stuart Weitzman opened a pop-up in the Hamptons where Sézane was last year, Mytheresa hosted a party on its Maison Mytheresa yacht in Monaco as part of a two-week experience along the French Riviera, Erika Veurink co-hosted an event at the DS & Durga Williamsburg store, and I’ve been loving the Sézane summer influencer content.

Things I’ve Been Influenced By: I’ve been reading blogs, Reddit threads, watching Casey Lewis’s packing reels, and texting friends about what to wear this week. The most important advice is to wear comfortable shoes, which is always the challenge when you also want to feel put together. The Margaux team kindly gifted me a few sandals, so I brought the Palermo Wrap, Fisherman Sandals, and these kitten heels, which I already wear-tested around the city. I also swear by these Mary Jane sneakers from Loeffler Randall for travel.