Dior and A24 signed a two-year partnership across film, theater and live events on September 10. Dior becomes premier partner of Cherry Lane Theatre, the Off-Broadway house A24 bought in 2023 and reopened last September.

Jonathan Anderson, Dior's creative director, explained: "This is the start of an exciting partnership built around artists and storytelling. Putting two creatively driven worlds side by side, you start to see what they pull out of each other that neither could've found alone. That's where the interesting stuff happens."

The partnership opened with a short film in which five actors prepare for a part. Sabrina Carpenter, Camille Cottin, Josh O'Connor, Drew Starkey and Sophie Wilde are each credited as Anderson. The part turns out to be Anderson's own bow at the end of a runway show, and he walks out to take it himself. The closing dialogue is "film, fashion, film, fashion." Cherry Lane made its name on Absurdist plays, and the Dior film winks at the reference.

Ariana Grande's Eternal Sunshine Tour closed on September 1 after 41 shows, and twice a night she stopped to redo her makeup onstage with r.e.m. beauty products. Ulta says the run sold out two of them. Twitch and YouTube streamer Kai Cenat walked his own label, Vivet, onto the official New York Fashion Week calendar on Saturday, built over nine months away from streaming with no outside investors.

Below: what Grande's 41 nights did to Ulta's shelves, what Cenat gave up for a runway slot, what Pacsun found about the behavior that actually gets a creator unfollowed, and Europe's first creator upfront, on Wednesday in London.

— Jeff

Dior and A24 signed a two-year partnership across film, theater and live events on September 10. Dior becomes premier partner of Cherry Lane Theatre, which A24 bought in 2023 and reopened last September. It is the oldest continuously operating Off-Broadway house in New York.

Anderson commented: "This is the start of an exciting partnership built around artists and storytelling. Putting two creatively driven worlds side by side, you start to see what they pull out of each other that neither could've found alone. That's where the interesting stuff happens."

Theatre of the Absurd took root at Cherry Lane in the 1960s, and the Dior meets A24 film echoes the same absurdist themes of Ionesco’s The Bald Soprano, which played there during that period. The short film brings together actors practicing for a role that becomes the bow Anderson takes at the end of every Dior runway show.

"Both Ends," the first production under the partnership, is a one-off by Justin Vivian Bond. Bond opened by reading Edna St. Vincent Millay, the poet who helped found Cherry Lane in 1924, and took the title from her best-known line: "My candle burns at both ends." Bond paused for the laugh, then explained it. "It's about the past and the future, because Dior and A24 are doing this beautiful thing for the arts and the future." Anderson designed the costumes, and Bond wears an archival Paul Poiret, the designer who dressed Millay and whose work drove Anderson's Dior Winter 2026 collection.

Grande's Eternal Sunshine Tour closed on September 1 after 41 shows. Twice a night, she stopped to redo her makeup with r.e.m. beauty products. Ulta says the run sold out the Plumping Lip Gloss and the Essential Drip Glossy Balm. Pop-ups in 10 cities drew 15,000 guests, and Grande's posts from the road drew 260 million views. None of it went through a media buy, because she owns the brand and headlines the show.

Vivet showed at Cipriani in Lower Manhattan on September 12. Cenat spent nine months off Twitch building it, including a trip to Italy to learn denim manufacturing. He turned down early investors and owns the company outright. Select pieces went on sale on Vivet's site right after the show. Talent agencies send dozens of creators to sponsored dinners and brand suites during Fashion Week. Cenat filled his own slot on the Fashion Week calendar.

Pacsun ran its 2026 Youth Report with GlobalData across 6,126 U.S. respondents aged 11 to 24. TikTok organic content leads new brand discovery at 27.8%, ahead of TikTok Shop at 18.6% and Instagram ads and sponsored posts at 7.5%. Asked who they trust for style, 10.8% named creators they follow, compared with 34% for friends and 27% for family. The report also asked what gets a creator unfollowed. Failing to disclose a paid partnership came in at 22.6%, roughly half the rate of bullying at 49.5%.

Arcade, the management company behind The Sidemen, holds what it calls Europe's first creator media Upfront in London on September 17, and expects more than 150 advertisers, brands and partners. The session previews creator content slates alongside audience data. Attendance is invite-only, and the event runs through Creator Access, Arcade's ad sales division, which holds a YouTube Partner Sales license covering its talent. Joe Lamb is commercial managing director, and Adam Smith runs Creator Access. Arcade signed six new acts ahead of the event, including comedian Max Fosh and the restaurant duo Fallow Chefs, and its commercial arm already runs partnerships with Unilever, Lego and Virgin Media O2.

Dior and A24 arrived at their deal with similar cultural standing, so two years of association compounds what each had on its own. Anyone buying Dior is buying into culture and refinement as a status symbol. Grande and Cenat are building their own brands as extensions of themselves.

This week's radar: 20 creator and content roles posted. 8 sit in-house at brands, 9 at agencies, 3 at platforms. 3 are director level or above. 12 disclosed a salary band; the median is $86,250.

Why it matters: Dior took a named partner position at a venue A24 owns outright. Jonathan Anderson describes it as a partnership built around artists and storytelling, which is a different structure from commissioning a production company. Both sides arrived with similar cultural standing, so the association compounds what each had on its own. Cherry Lane is the oldest continuously operating Off-Broadway house, opened by Edna St. Vincent Millay in 1924, and it seats under 200. Terms were not disclosed.

Why it matters: ShopMy president Tiffany Lopinsky calls the event an experiment in moving affiliate recommendations off the feed. She says it may lead to a ShopMy retail concept of its own. Gucci Westman has used the platform since its 2020 launch.

Why it matters: Grande owns the brand and headlines the venue, so r.e.m. bought no media for the placement. Ulta reports sell-outs on two products and says it debuted a mobile point-of-sale system at the pop-up.

Why it matters: Cenat financed the label himself and kept the whole company. Creators usually work the sponsorship economy around Fashion Week; this one took an official calendar slot. Streamers Duke Dennis and BruceDropEmOff walked the show.

Why it matters: Audacy takes ad sales and distribution for Smosh Mouth, Smosh Reads Reddit Stories, Assumptions and URL, with video opportunities named as a follow-on. Leah Reis-Dennis, Audacy's head of podcasts, frames it as expanding the company's video capability. Terms were not disclosed.

Why it matters: Arcade sells its roster through Creator Access, which holds a YouTube Partner Sales license, so it can transact against its own inventory. CEO Matt Elek came from Vice EMEA in July. Deal values for the signings were not disclosed, and the upfront attendance figure is the company's own projection.

Why it matters: Content Partners holds rights to more than 800 films and over 3,000 hours of television, including the CSI library. President John Mass applies the same repeatability test to a YouTube channel that he applies to a film catalog. He names topical and news-driven material as the category that fails it. The purchase price was not disclosed.

Why it matters: The platform is free to join for creators and fans, and the revenue share runs on advertising. That gives a creator an income line independent of brand deals and paywalls. Raptive cites Emplifi data, putting Instagram's 2025 organic reach decline at 30% to 40% as the reason. Community counts come from the company's release.

P.S. If your consumer brand is ready to go beyond one-off campaigns, I can help your team develop a consistent content strategy and the infrastructure needed for branded entertainment. Schedule a 30-minute call with me for actionable insights on using your audience data effectively.

Jeff Hallstead, brand strategy consultant and fractional CCO. Based in Los Angeles. jeffhallstead.com