Morning Brew Daily - Americans Are Suiting Up Again & Ferrari’s Mocked First EV is Selling Fast

Episode Date: August 17, 2026

#912: Suits are making a comeback as more Americans are returning to the office…in style! AI riches are pushing policymakers to create wealth sharing proposals for the communities housing data centers. Ferrari’s Jony Ive-designed EVs were mocked but turns out, everyone actually wants them. Fancy interior designs for dorms are popping up all over TikTok, but is that really the reality? Finally, what you need to know in the week ahead. Learn more at https://www.rubrik.com/mb Grab tickets to our Performance Revue show! https://www.morningbrew.com/events/brew-performance-revue-2026?utm_campaign=performance_revue_2026&utm_source=mbd Subscribe to Morning Brew Daily for more of the news you need to start your day. Share the show with a friend, and leave us a review on your favorite podcast app. Listen to Morning Brew Daily Here:⁠ ⁠⁠https://www.swap.fm/l/mbd-note⁠⁠⁠ Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Are you sucking wind from trying to keep up with AI and its impact? Take a breather and tune in to the Intelligence Shift. Morning Brew's new podcast with PWC. It bridges the gap between big picture AI concepts and what it actually means in practice. Host Dan Priest is joined by expert guests to discuss AI's role in sports, music, HR, and more. Listen to the Intelligence Shift wherever you get your podcasts. Good morning, Brew, Daily Show. I'm Neil Freyman.

And I'm Keel Lopez. Today, ABC pants are out and suits. are back in. And would you pay a professional to design your dorm room? It's Monday, August 17th. Let's ride. You might know Toby Howell as a pretty good podcast host. Well, I'm pleased to report he is an even better wedding host.

It was spectacular. The venue and the people stunning. The speeches left not a single dry eye, including my own. And the party honestly didn't know Toby had moves like that. One of the best weekends ever for sure and made even more special by having our whole podcast squad to celebrate our favorite Toby and his wife. That also means he's out until Friday. So I'm excited to bring you all the news with excellent guest hosts, including Kayla Lopez today through Wednesday.

Kayla, thanks for being here. Yeah, so excited. I have definitely watched the Instagram stories of Toby's wedding, and it seemed amazing. I also need you to confirm on some, like, hard-hitting journalism here. I heard Toby paid an Etsy witch to make sure the weather was good. Is that real? And it worked perfectly. He did.

And I think it was the best weather day of the year. Like, it was absolutely beautiful, no humidity. And you never know with an outside wedding in the summer. So the Etsy, which, I mean, we will be using your services for more weddings to come. Even if he was going to do the podcast today, I don't think Toby could do it because I called him yesterday morning after the wedding. And he just goes, I mean, I couldn't hear him. He was just whispering. His voice was completely gone.

So if you think mine's a little raspy, Toby was just like, we were like that was such a fun when he goes it was outrageous it was so funny so toby congratulations again on your wedding was so much fun kala i'm excited to do the the podcast with you this week and now we're from our sponsor rubric cala what do you know about cyber security well just that chris from it says i'm considered a monumental risk that too but the truth is the old model of cybersecurity was built on protection safety nets recovery plan systems designed to withstand the last era and maintain the status quo. It can't hold up in the present day.

The AI era demands confidence that you can secure and accelerate your business operations, so nothing stops your momentum. Rubrik can give you that confidence. Their platform helps you keep going by securing your data, controlling your AI, and protecting your identity built as one architecture, not stitched together after the fact. To learn more about how Rubrik rewrote the industry rulebook, head to rubric.com slash mb. That's rub, rik, dot com, slash. step aside don draper this new era of madmen comes with a little more linen suits are making a comeback as people start dressing up again the pandemic era of work from home brought sweats and at leisure and more formal wear companies definitely felt the pain but that trend seems to be reversing while some of the resurgence is due to employees returning to office a large part of it is simply because people want to wear more suits brooks brother's CEO

Ken Ohashi said they're seeing double-digit growth in suits this year, largely due to fashion suiting or more fun and colorful fabrics than your average gray three-piece. Other tailors are also seeing an increase in experimentation and personalization, and this is playing out in the numbers. Last week, Ralph Lauren reported a 13% revenue increase for Q2, in part due to strong performance from its inclusive luxury products. Another success tailored brands, parent company of Men's Warehouse, actually files for bank, actually filed for bankruptcy in 2020 and closed over 400 stores. But since then, the company

has grown as interest in suits has increased, with the company filing to go public in July and reaching sales of $2.5 billion last year. Neil, it sounds like now might be the right time to invest in a pocket square. I could have used one before this weekend, certainly. I'm interested in why people are dressing up again, because we're seeing all these companies like Ralph Lauren and Men's Warehouse just report booming sales, double-digit growth. And it seems to be a few factors. One of them is people are going back to the office more. I know it's 2026 and the pandemic seems in the rear view, but every year, that number inches up from 2025 to 2024. The average number of days required in office nationwide was up 9%. We had big employers like Amazon and JPMorgan call workers

back to the office last year. And another factor that some people are pointing to, I know this doesn't sounds so exciting, but it might be a recession indicator because everything's a recession indicator these days, but dressing up is seen as maybe the job market isn't as strong as you want. So you have to really put out your best self to the labor market, to future employees, employers, to other people you're networking with as jobs are more scarce, then typically maybe people dress up more. That's one particular theory. Yeah, you know, they always say dress for the job you want, so it makes sense.

Another driver of this formal wear resurgence could be the use of GLP1 drugs for weight loss. So about 11% of Americans use GLP1s for weight loss specifically, and more than two-thirds of those consumers using GLP-1s say that sizing changes have made them more likely to shop in store, according to Reuters. So that could be another boon for these custom clothing providers, as people perhaps want to either tailor their existing clothes or refresh their wardrobes. as their appearance maybe shifts. It's crazy to think about the boom and the bust of athleisure, too.

So as we're seeing the rise in more formal wear, and I can speak to this, I mean, I had three different out. My soup bag this weekend was so heavy. And I was like, I'm holding together this industry by myself. Athleisure has just gone, it went parabolic in 2020 to 2023, and then it's fallen completely back down to earth. Like, I don't even know if it's acceptable to wear Lulu lemons out of the door anymore. You have to put on actual tailored pants at leisure.

The entire industry was up 40% in terms of sales from 2022 to 2020. But then the bottom has completely fallen out from 2023 to 2025. Growth in active wear was down 7%. I just looked at the Lululemon stock chart. I mean, yes, it goes way up at the beginning of the pandemic. But then it falls way back down starting in 2024. The stock is down 75%. We're right now basically at baseline before the pandemic happened.

So even as we're seeing the rise in formal wear and people starting to dress up the era of at leisure and people wearing sweatpants to work, I am guilty of this, has maybe fallen off as people go back to work. People go to more weddings and events because that is the number one driver of the formalware industry. It's weddings, is number one, back to work, number two. So it looks very interesting trend. It's benefiting a lot of companies like coach, like. Ralph Lauren, but it's pretty interesting to see the bifurcation because not all of the preppy retailers are doing that well. J.Crew is not having a good year. Gap shares are down 18%. So people as they go shop for nicer clothes aren't exactly doing it at all the places they're being

picky and choosy. And maybe that has to do with some of the marketing and the inventory that these brands are laying out. Moving on, as AI companies and their employees get hell of rich from surging valuations, everyone else is going, wait. What about us? A growing number of cities, states, and federal lawmakers are making a push this summer to force the AI industry to distribute some of its outside profits with a broader American population. The epicenter is northern Virginia, home to Data Center Alley, the world's biggest collection of data centers. As the New York Times reports, Virginia in June, became the first state to slap a small tax on data centers based on their electricity consumption. Because of how many data centers there are, that small tax translates to $600 million.

in revenue for the upcoming year. Others have floated more extreme ideas like Senator Bernie Sanders proposing the U.S. government take a big stake in the major AI firms and distribute the profits to Americans in the form of $1,000 checks, and it's not just Democrats floating more radical concepts.

President Trump, a Republican, has also mused about the government buying a stake in an open AI. Chief among the concerns is that AI companies are not paying their fair share when building data centers. Critics say they burdened small communities with higher power bills, due to their electricity-guzzling ways without providing sufficient economic benefits.

That's led some cities and states to reevaluate or pause entirely tax-incentive schemes that lured big tech companies into town. Kayla, the pie is growing, but like me with a pizza cutter, it's not being divvied up into equal slices. Yeah, there's definitely a lot of AI anxiety that's driving this. And at the heart, there are really two potential outcomes. The first outcome is that AI creates a huge economic boom. It supercharges, valuations for a country, companies and has an estimated $15 trillion of economic output. The flip side of that argument is that if AI doesn't live up to these super high expectations, you could see another dot com style bubble burst that could have ripple effects across the global economy. Or it does live up to its expectations and it comes at the expense of potentially millions of jobs and industries that are inevitably going to be replaced by the technology. So while we've seen a lot of hype about AI's potential, I really feel like the full impacts of the tech may not be felt for some time, but we're still definitely going to be anxious about it while it's while we're waiting. Yeah, I think the main concern here is what

you're seeing politicians respond to is that a ton of people, not a ton of people, a small amount of people are getting very rich off of this in Silicon Valley. These are the employees of OpenAI and Anthropic and Google and these places that are just, the valuations are soaring because of AI. But then when it comes to the normal people who fear that their jobs might be taken, that data centers are coming into their communities. They're saying, everyone, people are getting so rich, but like, what about us? And this has precedent, actually, many times over. I'm thinking one example is Alaska.

So a few decades ago, they struck oil riches in Alaska, and that made the state extremely wealthy. And then they decided, okay, let's actually create a wealth fund that will actually pay out a dividend to the entire population of Alaska because we just had dumb luck here. and found oil, and we think we wanted to redistribute the profits of this oil wealth to Alaskans. And so they do have this thing called an Alaska Permanent Fund dividend. It pays $1,200 for eligible resident in Alaska. So there's precedent. There's history. There are examples of states and communities seeing huge revenues, like they are, some of them with AI, and distributing

it back to the people. Not everyone thinks is a good idea, but proponents of more recent redistributive mechanisms, I can point to certain examples in history and say, look, when we found huge wealth, when we generated huge wealth, there is a precedent of us divving it up to the people. Yes, and although that feels like maybe a very far-fetched or long process to create something like a sovereign wealth fund, there have been more smaller efforts to, you know, potentially impact regulation, specifically of data center development. So over the past two years, about 120 communities have considered or adopted data center moratoriums, including New York, which in July was the first U.S. state to enact a one-year pause on permits for facilities that consume more than

50 megawatts of power, specifically for AI data centers. So it does seem like although there are these big, you know, idealistic solutions that are on the table, there are also smaller things that companies are that communities are doing now to try and be a little bit more in control of where and how AI is developed. Right. Well, there's one thing to tax a data center and generate $600 million as Virginia did, or it's to pause it entirely. And some proponents of AI and economic development say, guys, what are we doing here? Like, this is a huge economic boon to your region. Why don't you recruit tech companies, build data centers, create jobs, and then tax them, and then you will get rich, and then you can redistribute it to your population.

There was a very funny exchange on Twitter that I saw. So the former DNC co-vice chair, David Hogg said against data centers, he said, if data centers are so essential to our national security and economy and have such amazing benefits, they should prove it by building them in the richest zip codes in America first. There was a community note on this by saying the richest county in the U.S. by median household income is Loudoun County, Virginia, which is also. the home to the world's largest concentration of data centers. So a little pushback to the criticism of data centers there.

And some states have done certain things like Louisiana, a parish there, gave a big bonus to public teachers in a particular parish, there of counties there, and a parish where there was a lot of data center riches. So this is a complex issue that's going to be only more relevant as we head into the midterm elections. It's not just at the federal level, but it's mostly at the local and community. level about how do we extract more well from all the AI companies that are getting rich from putting data centers in our communities to uncertain economic benefits. Welcome to winners of the

weekend, this segment where Kayla and I picked two things that would have torn up the dance floor at Toby's wedding. My winner is Ferrari, whose electric vehicle everyone made fun of, is getting the last laugh. Over the weekend of a spoke model of Ferrari's luce, its first foray into EVs, sold for $40 million at a charity auction event, making it the most expensive vehicle ever sold. The ultra-wealthy buyer identified as billionaire investor Herbie Wertheim isn't the only one who wants this car in their driveway. A few weeks ago, Ferrari said that it had already hit its sales goal for the luce this year, selling 500 of the cars in less than a month. Maybe these snanky Italians do know what they're doing.

In May, Ferrari announced its first EV, the $640,000 luce, which was the brainchild of Johnny Ive, the former head designer at Apple. Excitement quickly turned to horror when it was revealed, bearing little resemblance to other Ferraris and generally getting roasted across the internet. I mean, it has four doors that's basically treason. But turns out online mockery didn't extend to the real world where the luches are being gobbled up, particularly by buyers in China. Kayla, I'm trying to think of another example of a product so widely mocked upon release that proved social media wrong in the end. Maybe it was another Johnny I design Apple's AirPods. Yeah, I mean, this really just goes to show that no matter how many people hate on you online, there's probably somebody willing to spend $40 million on your product. So perhaps it's just a different market.

But this really does come amid a pretty tough market for EVs generally. after President Trump eliminated the federal tax credit for EV purchases last September, new EV sales have slowed dramatically. And just this last month in June, new EV sales fell 28% versus last year. And EVs accounted for only 5.4% of total new vehicle sales in the U.S., which is down from May, according to Cox Automotive. However, I don't know if the introduction of this new Ferrari model is going to impact the market too much. The average electric vehicle price is currently $55,000. So a car priced at more than 10x, the average probably won't make a dent. They're selling 500 of these. And they're like mission accomplished. It's a very, this is Ferrari's business model. We're going to sell just a few hundred

cars at an insanely high price point. And that's enough because this is just for collectors. But I know it's worth going back to May when they introduced this car. And I've never seen something that was so widely panned online. Maybe the last thing I can think of is the Jaguar rebrand. But the stock actually fell 8% on that day. You had the former president of Ferrari coming out and basically disowning it. He's saying they should take that prancing horse off the car. This is definitely a car that at least the Chinese won't copy. So it was a huge fiasco. Then you have a few weeks ago them coming on saying, we're actually hit our goal of 500 cars sold this year. We're on pace to hit our 2030 goal. It's definitely an interesting realization that the online mob is not necessarily reality, especially when you only need 500 people to buy your car for it to be a success.

And I think you got to look at who was Ferrari marketing this to. It's not to the chattering classes on social media. It's to high net worth buyers in China for new millionaires and billionaires in Silicon Valley who have gone rich off of AI. these are people who like EVs. Their first car was an EV, and they want to show and display their wealth. Instead of getting a traditional Ferrari or traditional Lamborghini, they just have different sensibilities. And I think Ferrari really understood this well.

And you have a lot of analysts like Scott Sherwood, who's an independent analyst of luxury car brand saying Ferrari's marketing and customer insight are on another level versus a lot of their competitors. So a lot of cars are not going to sell, actually. It's the only car that has ever sold for $40 million, dollars, but it looks like it's proven the haters wrong. Yeah. And thinking about designer Johnny I've obviously best known for his time at Apple designing the iPod, the iPhone, and as you mentioned, the AirPods. But what's he really been up to since leaving the tech giant in 2019? Well, he's not only

worked on this new Ferrari car design, but has also reportedly been working with OpenAI to create an AI hardware device. And some new information just came out about that this month. Supposedly, it looks like a donut the size of a hockey puck. Not sure exactly what that's going to look like or what it's going to be, but let's see what the reception of that product is. And maybe let's wait a little bit before we judge. Good point. All right. Up next, dorm rooms get a glow-up. Neil, let me tell you something about bond markets. I'm all ears. They are confusing. Insightful as ever. But yes, capturing value in fixed income is not easy. Thankfully, Vanguard bonds are institutional quality. That means top-grade products across the board. Vanguard is able to invest

across all kinds of sectors, maturities, and geographies, which means they can spot and act on opportunities that others might miss. So check out vanguard.com slash audio. That's vanguard.com slash audio. All investing is subject to risk Vanguard Marketing Corporation distributor. Neil, do you have any idea how expensive the housing market is? You're just finding out about this? Yes, but thankfully there's Bilt. Built is the membership. for where you live that rewards you with points on every housing payment. Renters and owners can earn points to use toward flights with United and Hyatt, lift rides, Amazon.com purchases, and so many more.

Built members also get access to a neighborhood concierge. It can make restaurant reservations, book fitness classes, and find new local spots. Check it out at joinbilt.com slash MBD. That's join b-yltte.com slash MBD. Neil, when you need new running sneakers, is an AI agent placing an order for you're the Gen Z one here, Liv. Wouldn't you be more likely to do that? Fair point, but it is becoming increasingly common. Agents are comparing products, evaluating inventory, and completing purchases for customers. An IDC study sponsored by WooCommerce found that open source platforms give

e-commerce brands more freedom than SaaS to optimize for agentic commerce. That can mean more sales, whether the buyer is a person or a bot. Check out the study at WooCommerce.com slash trends. That's WooCommerce.com slash trends. My winner of the weekend is dorm room designers who are charging parents as much as $20,000 to turn shabby dorm rooms into personalized havens. If you've ever stepped into a college dorm, you know that there's room for improvement. But these over-the-top interiors range from monogrammed bedding and wallpaper to chandeliers and custom wardrobe buildouts.

While this trend may feel like it's right out of the Bama Rush documentary, this is hitting all across the country. One dorm designer in the Northeast said that almost all of her clients are from out of state, preferring to pay their team to outfit a room instead of shipping items to campus or figuring where to park their rented van on cramped streets. While some say this is a great way to show new college students a place that they feel is their own, others feel like this is capitalizing on the emotional moment when parents drop kids off at college and that roughing it is actually a part of the college experience.

Neil, my dorm had a framed photo of a shirtless George Costanza, so I'm not exactly the arbiter of taste here. But would you spend $20,000 to get the dorm room of your dreams? I will say, thinking back on it now, I probably could have used a professional. Yeah, I didn't have a shirtless George Costanza, but I did have that, you know, John Bolushi in a college sweatshirt, drinking whiskey, like a Jimmy Hendricks poster, Dave Matthews poster, Muhammad Ali standing over Sunny Liston. And so, I mean, you're 18 years old. You're going to college for the first time. The part of this is understandable. But there was a lot of backlash to this online.

Not backlash, but some haters got going. One said the best business model going on in this country in any industry is convincing people with disposable income that they need something that is completely unnecessary. And then another said, if you aren't sending your kids to college with a used futon, a hamper, and a few posters, then you aren't preparing them for real life. So that's maybe the more salient criticism is that you got. to go to college. You got to figure things out for yourself. And one of them is designing your dormant. Even if it looks bad when you're 18 or 19, that's okay because perhaps you're learning

something. Obviously, there is a market for this. So you see a lot of moms especially who went through this with their own children saying, whoa, my stuff got a lot of buzz online when I posted it on Instagram. Why don't I become a dorm influencer? Start selling packages for $25 that you can download and here's a blueprint. Or you can be like Shelley Gates who was in this viral TikTok that went all over the internet saying, okay, actually, I will do everything for you. You want more of the upscale version. I'm going to charge up to $20,000. She has about 35 dorm rooms this fall going on. So just do the math, 20K times 35 dorm rooms. That's a lot of money for just designing someone's college dorm. Honestly, not a bad business model. And when you think about this

in the context of the actual price of university, the average public in-state tuition last year hit a little over $11,000 and out of state for public universities 25K, and private universities are nearly $45,000. And this is even before factoring in housing, food, and other costs. So adding a ton of costs on top of an already costly experience, I think, is pretty mind-boggling to me. Also important to note, trends change. And I cannot imagine that the people that are spending $20,000, even though Shelley Gates of this design firm does say

it's a four-year investment. I have a hard time believing that these kids are going to use all of this stuff for all four years. But it is a trend that is only increasing. We had task rabbit data reported by Axios that dorm room move bookings were up 36% in May

nationwide. And I know you said this is happening nationwide and it is, but it is hard not to think of rush talk at Alabama and dorm room designs in the same sentence. Feels like this is really concentrated in the South, in those SEC schools who, with their rush talk videos and with their fancy dorm designs

are kind of driving a lot of the college culture right now, which has been pretty interesting to watch a lot, like the center of gravity of what is the quintessential college experience in America has maybe moved from the northeast to the southeast. All right, it's Monday, so here's what you need to know to stay ahead in the week ahead. the United States and Canada are locked in tense negotiations to avoid a tariff deadline early Wednesday. At midnight, the U.S. will impose 50% tariffs on Canadian goods like hockey sticks, wine, and cement unless a deal is reached.

It looks like a deal could be reached with Canada reportedly set to offer trade concessions in exchange for Trump not going through with the tariffs, which he said was in retaliation for Canada's unfair treatment of American goods. Yeah, and if this sounds familiar, it's because it is. In the past 18 months, there have been many rounds of tariff negotiations. between the U.S. and Canada, with the U.S. imposing tariffs on industries like auto, timber, semiconductors, steel, and then Canada imposing retaliatory tariffs back on the U.S. But, I mean, hockey sticks and wine, it sounds like this is a pretty good opportunity to binge heated rivalry before it gets a little more expensive. Yeah, I actually haven't seen it.

I need a person to watch it with. I don't think I'm going to watch it with myself. Fair enough. I have seen it. Okay, so maybe you're not the best thing. Okay, moving on, the stars of this week's earnings slate are retailers. The biggest big boxers in the country, Home Depot, Target, Lowe's, Walmart will step up to the plate

to deliver highly anticipated reports on the health of the American consumer who's been dealing with inflation above Target for more than five years now. A bad omen might have come Friday when a report showed retail sales falling 0.6% last month, which is the biggest drop in over a year.

Yeah, and hopefully some of that drop in July sales can be explained by Amazon moving Prime Day from July to June. So we'll see how those retailers fared in Q2, but maybe mixed results. In sports, we've got NFL preseason action kicking off. And far more importantly, the Little League World Series begins in Williamsport, Pennsylvania, which has always been an indicator to me that the summer is slowly but surely winding down.

I have to admit, it was a sad day in my household on Saturday when I realized that the Jags game was on and that football is back. But I do love that it means we're one step closer to fall. And finally, got to save the most important event of the week for last. my birthday is on Friday. Yeah, your boy is turning 35. In lieu of gifts, please make a donation to the Human Fund. Happy birthday. Thank you, Kayla.

Well, we still have a few more days. I'm not like one of those birthday week kind of guys, even though I kind of just announced my birthday. On Monday for Friday, but it just felt a part of the week ahead, and I want everyone to know that. But thank you. That is all the time we have. Thanks so much for starting your morning with us.

Have a wonderful start to the week. To share your thoughts on the episode or anything else, send an email to Morning Brew Daily at Morningbrew.com or DM us on Instagram at MB Daily Show. Let's roll the credits. Emily Milliron is our supervising producer. Raymond Loo is our senior producer. Our producer is Olivia Graham and our associate producer is Olivia Lake. Technical direction by Nina Miller. Hair and makeup is loving this new dressing up era. Devin Emery is our president and our show is a production of Morning Brew. Great start of Aneal. Let's run it back tomorrow. Hey y'all. It's Kelly Clarkson with Wayfair. Ever order furniture online and wonder what if, like what have

doesn't hold up. That sofa was four days old. You should have ordered from Wayfair. With Wayfair, there's no what if. Just style you love and quality you can trust. Visit Wayfair.ca.