THE WALL STREET JOURNAL. Monday, February 24, 2020 |A
THE CONCEPT sounds straightfor-
ward: Al Pacino plays the leader of
a secret squad of Jews hunting
down Nazi officials living under-
cover in America circa 1977 and
plotting a comeback.
But the streaming TV series
“Hunters”—landing Friday on Ama-
zon Prime Video—takes a risky ap-
proach in executing the idea. Its dis-
parate ingredients include a revenge
fantasy with bursts of stylized vio-
lence, homages to comic-book my-
thology and ’70s action cinema, and
World War II flashbacks that pres-
ent harrowing (yet fictional) con-
centration-camp atrocities.
To pull off this blend of social
commentary and sometimes lurid
drama, the producers of “Hunters”
followed the lead of Jordan Peele,
an executive producer of the TV se-
ries and filmmaker whose own
works have been described as social
thrillers. As a writer and director,
he constructed hit horror movies
around allegories about racism (the
Oscar-winning “Get Out”) and iden-
tity in America (“Us”).
“Hunters” joins a series of proj-
ects that use alternate or height-
ened realities to reexamine the
scars of World War II history, in-mother’s role in the Hunters, a co-
vert team meting out vengeance
against Nazi leaders who melted
into U.S. society after the war. The
vigilante group uncovers a plot by
the Nazis to establish a Fourth
Reich in America.
Mr. Pacino’s character, Meyer Of-
ferman, is a survivor of Auschwitz,
where he forged a deep bond with
Jonah’s grandmother. He is the
Hunters’ “bankroller, master plotter
and chief vigilante.” After he dis-
patches one covert Nazi with an or-
namental knife to the neck, he says:
“The Talmud is wrong. Living well
is not the best revenge. You know
what the best revenge is? Revenge.”
In Mr. Weil’s view, Jewish vigilan-
tes don’t have much precedent on
screen. Referring to famous Holo-caust-related dramas such as
“Schindler’s List,” he says, “They’re
all about non-Jewish protagonists
who are in some way saving the
Jews, right? It was important for me
in ‘Hunters’ to have Jewish heroes
who are deciding their own fate.”
However, the fight of good
against evil in “Hunters” comes with
moral dilemmas, he says. “I’m trying
to show the fallibility of heroes and
ask the question: ‘If our heroes hunt
monsters in the dark, do they risk
becoming monsters themselves?’ ”
Amazon has emblazoned Jordan
Peele’s name on posters and trail-
ers for the series. His production
company, Monkeypaw, helped
make the show, but Mr. Peele
didn’t write or direct any of it. In-
stead, he played an advisory role,A crew, left, styled the recent shoot
of the Proenza Schouler collection,
which included faux-leather boots
and a bright double-breasted coat.ADRIENNE GRUNWALD FOR THE WALL STREET JOURNAL (3); KATHY WILLENS/ASSOCIATED PRESS (RUNWAY)
Luxury Rivals Seek an Edge
High-end fashion retail sites such as Moda Operandi emphasize exclusivity and early access
LIFE & ARTS
trying to help calibrate scenes
with such questions as, “How far
do you push? How far do you pro-
voke? Where does the violence line
feel acceptable and why, or why
not?” Mr. Peele says.
Borrowing from the “blaxploita-
tion” genre of the 1970s, one episode
uses funk music to introduce the
Hunters. Each member of the team
gets a faux ’70s-style movie poster
and a punny tagline, like the “couple
of Chabad-asses” and weapons ex-
perts played by veteran character
actors Carol Kane and Saul Rubinek.
In a sharp contrast, flashbacks
set in concentration camps include
fictional scenes of Nazi sadism.
At an advance screening of
“Hunters” at the Museum of Jewish
Heritage in New York, 65-year-old
Rachel Neumark Herlands gasped
during a scene in which a Nazi
henchman shoved a bowling ball
into the face of another character.
Afterward, she described such im-
agery as jarring and disturbing, but
felt that “Hunters” might engage
with the legacy of the Holocaust in
a different way. “How are we going
to reach the next generation and
have them want to even learn about
what the Holocaust was? I think it’s
important to find any which way to
tell the story,” she said.
Mr. Weil acknowledges that his
series will be divisive. “It was im-
portant to justify and explain and
have the audience understand why
our Hunters are seeking justice
and bending the way that they
are,” he says. “We had to show
where that pain came from.”cluding “The Man in the High Cas-
tle,” a popular Amazon TV series
that reversed the outcome of the
war, and “Jojo Rabbit,” the recent
Oscar-winner about a boy whose
imaginary friend is Adolph Hitler.
In “Hunters,” history is a depar-
ture point for a tale that features a
fantastical conspiracy and puts
survivors and their allies in a role
similar to comic-book heroes.
David Weil, the creator of
“Hunters,” says its pulp style and
satire are intended to deliver seri-
ous ideas about anti-Semitism and
empowerment. “Being Jewish is so
much about horror and about hu-
mor,” he says, adding that he tried
to sustain a feeling of “off-kilter
anticipation” in viewers.
Though he has sold eight movie
and TV scripts in recent years,
“Hunters,” with 10 episodes in its
debut season, is his first project to
hit the screen. He says the show
wasinspiredbystoriesfromhis
grandmother, Sara Weil, a Holo-
caust survivor. A Polish Jew, she
was shipped from the Lodz Ghetto
to Nazi-run concentration camps.
Her parents and three brothers
were killed during the war.
In the TV series, Logan Lerman
plays Jonah Heidelbaum, a young
man who discovers his grand-BYJOHNJURGENSENIn‘Hunters,’aRiskyTake
On Scars of Holocaust
Levato, a partner at consulting firm
Bain & Co. In the increasingly com-
petitive realm, the sites are trying
to distinguish themselves by pro-
moting exclusive merchandise and
being the first to offer it to custom-
ers online. They are also aiming to
specialize.
Like all high-end fashion retail-
ers, Moda Operandi has to per-
suade shoppers who value experi-
ences over things to pay three or
four figures for a dress or a bag.
Retailers also are grappling with a
glut of merchandise, sustainabil-
ity concerns, and consumers turn-
ing to secondhand shopping or
pouncing on discount sales of de-
signer goods.
Online sales of personal luxury
goods rose 22% in 2019 to an esti-
mated $35.9 billion from $29.5 bil-
lion in 2018, according to Bain. On-
line sales are expected to
represent 25% of total spending onpersonal luxury goods world-wide
in 2025, up from 12% in 2019.
Moda Operandi was founded in
2010 by Lauren Santo Domingo, a
former editor at Vogue, and Aslaug
Magnusdottir, an alum of Gilt
Groupe, a designer discount-sale
site. Their seed money came from
friends and relatives; the company
since has raised $345 million in fi-
nancing from venture capital and
private equity firms.
To stand out from the competi-
tion, Moda Operandi offers many
items months before they appear on
rival sites, through exclusive deals
with designers. The site showcases
entire collections—not just some
items, like other retailers—and sells
them at full price. Such arrange-
ments appeal to designers, who are
spared discounting. Those custom-
ers like pre-ordering clothes just
days after they appear on the run-
way—a shift from the usual retailcess “does make you feel like
you’re part of the gang,” she said,
referring to fashion insiders who
are the first to wear new looks.
Sales associated with trunk
shows represent two-thirds of to-
tal revenue, according to Moda
Operandi, which declined to pro-
vide revenue figures. Deborah
Nicodemus, who stepped down as
chief executive in 2018, predicted
in 2016 that revenue would reach
about $165 million in 2017.
Ms. Aiken and her team decide
whom to feature in trunk shows.
During the month of fashion weeks
in New York, London, Milan and
Paris, Ms. Aiken hits 101 shows,
snapping pictures with a Leica dig-
ital camera, and blitzes through
100 showroom appointments.
After the recent Monday night
Proenza Schouler show where Ms.
Aiken spotted the necklaces, she
and members of her team identified
pieces to highlight on social media
and their site. To prepare the digi-
tal trunk show, they headed to
Proenza Schouler’s Manhattan
showroom on Wednesday. Ms. Ai-
ken and her colleagues jotted notes
on orders and examined clothes,
jewelry, bags and shoes. They also
selected a number of items that
weren’t on the runway—known as
“commercial” styles—for the trunk
show. Sales of the commercial
pieces help Moda Operandi decide
what kinds of styles to offer outside
trunk shows.
Shortly after 11:00 a.m. on Fri-
day,theshowwentlive.Aweekin,
the company said, sales are ahead
of their expectations, thanks in
part to brisk demand for Proenza
Schouler’s thigh-high boots in faux
leather, going for $975 a pair.calendar in which
collections typically
don’t arrive in
stores until at least
six months after
shows.
The site sells
runway collections
through digital
trunk shows, which
consist of runway
shots, photographs
and descriptions of
items that shop-
pers can scroll
through. Tradi-
tional trunk shows,
a mainstay of high-
end boutiques and
some department
stores, are exclu-
sive, in-person af-
fairs where customers can preview
and order items months before the
general public.
Ms. Aiken described the re-
tailer’s customer as “very fashion
forward.” The company said trunk
show shoppers spend, on average,
$2,000 per order.
Patti McGuire, a 66-year-old for-
mer hospital co-owner in Anchor-
age, Ala., became a Moda Operandi
trunk-show shopper in late 2016, af-
ter spotting a Brandon Maxwell
outfit in a magazine. Ms. McGuire,
who also was a model and televi-
sion reporter, attends many charity
galas. Moda Operandi’s trunk shows
introduce her to newer designers
like Mr. Maxwell, Gabriela Hearst
and Peter Do, who was born in Viet-
nam and is based in Brooklyn.
Pre-ordering, Ms. McGuire says,
lets her keep pace with stylish
women in fashion capitals such as
New York or Paris. The early ac-W
hile Issa Rae and
other celebrities
were watching
the Proenza
Schouler show at
New York Fashion Week this
month, Lisa Aiken, an executive at
online retailer Moda Operandi ,al-
ready was thinking about getting
her hands on the jewelry on the
runway—and dangling it before
her customers in a matter of days.
Ms. Aiken, Moda Operandi’s wo-
menswear fashion and buying di-
rector, wanted to be the first re-
tailer to have the chunky
aluminum coil necklaces, and lob-
bied Proenza Schouler’s account
executive Alexandra Cook for them
at the Monday night show.
However, it wasn’t clear
whether Proenza Schouler planned
to produce the jewelry and sell
it—or just use it in the show. But
Ms. Aiken pressed Ms. Cook hard
and the fashion house came
through. The gold and silver neck-
laces from the Monday night show
were online Friday—for $
apiece—exclusively from Moda
Operandi, along with much of
Proenza Schouler’s Fall 2020 run-
way collection. Ms. Aiken’s lobby-
ing and the subsequent three-day
sprint from runway to online
sale—which included a seven-hour
photo shoot in Brooklyn that
ended at 3 a.m.—demonstrates the
lengths to which high-end online
retailers will go to get an edge on
the competition.
Online-only luxury retailers such
as Moda Operandi, Net-a-Porter and
Farfetch make up more than 40% of
online luxury sales, said FedericaBYRAYA.SMITHAl Pacino and Logan Lerman star in Amazon’s new streaming series ‘Hunters.’AMAZONModa Operandi’s Lisa Aiken, left, and Jana Hofheimer, center, at Proenza Schouler’s showroom.