The Distillation of Bernard Arnault: Inside The Mastermind of LVMH

Bernard Arnault, the mastermind behind LVMH Moët Hennessy Louis Vuitton, stands as an unparalleled figure in the world of luxury goods and fashion. As the founder and chairman of the world’s leading luxury conglomerate, Arnault has orchestrated a remarkable journey of success, innovation, and creativity. This Distillation is a  deep dive into the business principles that guide him, the wisdom encapsulated in his quotes, and some of his most exceptional ideas that have propelled LVMH to become an iconic global force in the luxury industry.

At the time I’m writing this Bernard Arnault is the world’s second richest man with a net worth of $237 billion dollars. How’s that for a guy who runs a company that sells products that no one really needs! He’s been named “the Pope of Fashion” and responsible for the LVMH fashion empire that oversees over 75 brands including Louis Vuitton and Sephora. 

So how did he take his father’s extremely successful construction business and turn it into a global powerhouse of fashion? Get ready to find out!

***Even though I’m doing a Distillation on Bernard it does not mean I agree with all of his approaches or ways he conducts his life but I do believe there is a tremendous amount of good we can learn from him. “Absorb what is useful, discard what is useless and add what is specifically your own.” – Bruce Lee

“Our business model is based on CREATIVITY, INNOVATION AND QUALITY.” – Bernard Arnault 

Guiding Principles 

Buying & Developing Star Brands

Creativity

Fusion of Tradition & Innovation

Quality

Pursuit of Excellence

Creating Desire 

Seize Opportunities

Timelessness 

Star Brands 

The LVMH process has one goal: star brands. According to Arnault, star brands are born only when a company manages to make products that “speak to the ages” but feel intensely modern. 

• The fact is, star brands take time to grow. 

4 Characteristics of a Star Brand:

• Timeless
• Modern
• Fast Growing
• Highly Profitable

Can a brand be all four at once?

• “It is rare. In my opinion, there are fewer than ten star brands in the luxury world. It is very hard to balance all four characteristics at once—after all, fast growth is often at odds with high profitability—but that is what makes them stars. If you have a star brand, then basically you can be sure you have mastered a paradox.

Can any brand become a star?

• “No, I ’m afraid not. That is like asking, ‘Can any human being become a genius?’ You cannot become Vladimir Horowitz, even if you can play piano and you practice ten hours a day. You need something more to be a star brand—you must have a gift. Many brands have the potential to be stars, but they are poorly managed. That’s too bad for them. But there are more brands that are as well managed as can be, and they will never be stars. They will never be successful the world over. They don’t have that something—that magic that you really can’t explain.”

“Sub specie aeternitatis” in view of eternity -Baruch Spinoza

Timeless:

• It means the brand is built, if you wish, for eternity. It has been around for a long time; it has become an institution. 
• Dom Pérignon is a perfect example. I can guarantee that people will be drinking it in the next century. It was created 250 years ago, but it will be relevant and desired for another century and beyond that. It is for the ages—just like certain pieces of luggage that you buy for your entire life.
  • “You know Bernard, I don’t know if in 50 years my iPhone will still be a success but I can tell you, I’m sure everybody will still drink your Dom Pérignon.”- Steve Jobs 
• The problem is that the quality of timelessness takes years to develop, even decades. You cannot just decree it. A brand has to pay its dues—it has to come to stand for something in the eyes of the world. But you can, as a manager, enhance timelessness—that is, create the impression of timelessness sooner rather than later. And you do that with uncompromising quality.
  • “Quality is remembered long after price is forgotten.” -Aldo Gucci
• That paradox, to be successful, you have to have the combination between modernity and timelessness. That is a combination that we try to keep, and to have a product from Louis Vuitton, which was started in the middle of 19th century, some products are the same for many years. But also, they should present the utmost modernity. That’s the combination, and that is what is fun and key to success. 
• “I prefer the expression ‘product of high quality’. What matters most is that in 10 years’ time our brands are as desirable as they are today. Profit is a consequence of what we do well; it should never become a goal.”

Modern 

• A star brand is current—or you could call it fashionable. It is edgy, it has sex appeal, it is modern.
•  In some way, it fulfills a fantasy. 
• It is so new and unique you want to buy it.
• You feel as if you must buy it, in fact, or else you won’t be in the moment. You will be left behind.

Fashion, of course, comes from innovation—the creativity of the designers. That is sometimes harder to guarantee than quality, which you can actually build into a product, but just as important. The hard truth is, you must be old and new at once. In a star brand you honor your past and invent your future at the same time. It is a subtle balance.

“He’s always thinking about the future.” – Anna Wintour 

Fast Growing

• Without growth, it is not a star brand, as far as I am concerned. In 2000, Louis Vuitton, which is by far the largest luxury brand in the world, had 40% growth in sales, which makes it a superstar, no? Growth shows the shareholders that you have struck the right balance between timelessness and fashion and that you have been able to charge a premium price because of that correct balance.

Now, growth is not just a function of high price. You also grow when you move into new markets, such as those in developing countries. But mainly, growth is a function of high desire. 

• Customers must want the product. That sounds simple, I am sure, but to get advertising right is very, very difficult—it’s difficult to get advertising to represent the true brand. Most companies think it is enough to use advertising to present a picture of the product. That’s not enough. You need to project the image of the brand itself.
• You would know this was an ad for a Dior product even without the name of the company there. 
• The last thing you should do is assign advertising to your marketing department. If you do that, you lose the proximity between the designers and the message to the marketplace. At LVMH, we keep the advertising right inside the design team. With the Dior campaign, John Galliano himself did the makeup on the model. He posed her. The only thing Galliano did not do himself was snap the photo.

Highly Profitable

• It is true that the front end of a star brand—the innovation, supporting the creative process, the advertising, and so on—is very, very expensive. High profitability comes at the back end of the process, and behind the scenes. It comes in the atelier—the factory. 
• Our products have unbelievably high quality; they have to. But their production is organized in such a way that we also have unbelievably high productivity. The atelier is a place of amazing discipline and rigor. Every single motion, every step of every process, is carefully planned with the most modern and complete engineering technology. 
• It’s not unlike how cars are made in the most modern factories. We analyze how to make each part of the product, where to buy each component, where to find the best leather at the best price, what treatment it should receive. 
• A single purse can have up to 1,000 manufacturing tasks, and we plan each and every one. In that way, the LVMH production process is the exact opposite of its creative process, which is so freewheeling and chaotic.
• If you walk into a Vuitton factory, you will see very few machines. Almost every piece is made by hand. Usually, piecework is the most inefficient operating system in the world, but for us it is different because we give our craftsmen and women fantastic training. They are trained for months before they touch the products, and then, every task they do has been studied and refined for many years, so we know precisely how to arrange the atelier. No moment or motion is wasted in there. And that allows us to offer a very high quality product at a cost that makes our business very profitable.
• The one catch to this system is that it takes time. But once you get the elements of a star brand aligned, they last for a long time. They stay and stay, and they deserve to.

Creativity 

• “Our whole business is based on giving our artists and designers complete freedom to invent without limits.” Bernard understands that for creativity to flourish it needs space. 
  • “Fear of failure destroys creativity.” – Bob Iger
• Bernard realizes that part of his job is to make and turn his creative genius’s ideas into functional products that are out in the world. This doesn’t happen without execution.  
  • “What I have fun with is trying to transform creativity into business reality all over the world. To do this, you have to be connected to innovators and designers, but also make their ideas livable and concrete.” 
• In his approach to creativity, Bernard encourages cross-disciplinary collaborations between luxury brands and artists, architects, and designers. He believes that such collaborations infuse fresh perspectives and artistic inspiration into the luxury products, captivating consumers with unique and imaginative offerings.

Innovation and Creativity

• His approach to creativity and innovation has been pivotal in catapulting LVMH to the pinnacle of the luxury industry. With a profound understanding of the interplay between tradition and modernity, Arnault has nurtured a culture of creativity that continues to redefine the essence of luxury.
• Arnault has an innate ability to anticipate trends but more importantly he understands what will endure. Because of this he’s able to embrace innovation that is developed through creative thinking, cultivating an environment that nurtures cutting-edge ideas and design concepts.
• At the heart of Bernard Arnault’s approach to creativity is a deep appreciation for artistry and craftsmanship. He firmly believes that luxury products should be an embodiment of artistic vision, meticulously crafted to perfection. Arnault’s unwavering commitment to preserving traditional skills and savoir-faire has resulted in timeless creations that resonate with discerning consumers worldwide.
• However, Arnault’s approach to creativity is not confined to the confines of the past; it extends to embracing innovation and staying ahead of evolving consumer preferences. He understands that luxury is a dynamic and ever-changing landscape, and successful brands must adapt to contemporary trends while remaining true to their core values. This fusion of tradition and innovation is evident in LVMH’s portfolio, where each brand retains its unique identity while remaining relevant to modern consumers.
• One of Bernard Arnault’s most significant contributions to the luxury industry is his unwavering support for artistic directors and designers within LVMH’s brands. He recognizes that creativity flourishes in an environment that encourages risk-taking and grants creative minds the freedom to express their artistic vision. Arnault empowers these creative leaders to push the boundaries of design, resulting in groundbreaking collections that captivate the world of fashion and luxury.
• Arnault fosters cross-disciplinary collaborations between LVMH brands and artists, architects, and designers. This approach injects fresh perspectives and artistic inspiration into the creative process, leading to innovative and imaginative luxury offerings. Such collaborations have reinforced LVMH’s reputation as a trendsetter and a pioneer in the luxury industry.
• Innovation, for Arnault, is not just about introducing new designs or products; it is a mindset that permeates every aspect of LVMH’s operations. He encourages a spirit of experimentation and risk-taking, allowing the group’s brands to push the boundaries of creativity. Arnault’s long-term vision for innovation involves continuous investment in talent, research, and development.

Fusion of Tradition and Innovation

• For Bernard, creativity is not just about embracing contemporary trends but also about harmonizing tradition and innovation. He recognizes that successful luxury brands must strike a delicate balance between honoring their rich heritage and adapting to the modern world’s rapidly changing tastes and preferences.
• His vision successfully established a dynamic ecosystem where innovation, tradition and collaboration thrived, and the pursuit of excellence became the cornerstone of his luxury group’s enduring success.

Pursuit of Excellence

• At the core of Arnault’s philosophy lies an unwavering commitment to excellence. He believes in setting uncompromising standards and striving for the utmost quality across all aspects of his business ventures. 
  • “High standards are contagious.”- Jeff Bezos
• Bernard targets timeless brands that embody excellence in every capacity, have proven themselves in different economic cycles and remained pinnacle through changes in consumer preferences. 
• Bernard Arnault’s pursuit of excellence is the cornerstone of his leadership at LVMH. Bernard is worth $200 billion dollars and can still be found visiting stores on Saturday’s to make sure everything is displayed properly. 

• He believes that every touchpoint with consumers should reflect the brand’s commitment to excellence, leaving a lasting impression and fostering brand loyalty.
  • Similar to Bob Iger and his Relentless Pursuit of Perfection–  
    • His mantra was simple: “Do what you need to do to make it better.” Of all the things I learned from Roone, this is what shaped me the most. When I talk about this particular quality of leadership, I refer to it as “the relentless pursuit of perfection.” It’s a mindset, really, more than a specific set of rules. It’s not, at least as I have internalized it, about perfectionism at all costs (something Roone wasn’t especially concerned about). Instead, it’s about creating an environment in which you refuse to accept mediocrity. You instinctively push back against the urge to say “There’s not enough time, or I don’t have the energy, or This requires a difficult conversation I don’t want to have, or any of the many other ways we can convince ourselves that “good enough” is good enough.

“A master in the art of living draws no sharp distinction between his work and his play, his labour and his leisure, his mind and his body, his education and his recreation. He hardly knows which is which. He simply pursues his vision of excellence through whatever he is doing and leaves others to determine whether he is working or playing. To himself he always seems to be doing both.” — L. P. Jacks

Quality 

• A lot of companies talk about quality, but if you want your brand to be timeless, you have to be a fanatic about it. 
• Before we launch a Louis Vuitton suitcase, for example, we put it in a torture machine, where it is opened and closed five times per minute for three weeks. And that is not all—it is thrown, and shaken, and crushed. You would laugh if you saw what we do, but that is how you build something that becomes an heirloom. By the way, we put some of our competitors’ products through the same tests, and they come out like bouillie—the mush babies eat. 
• Quality also comes from hiring very dedicated people and then keeping them for a long time. We try to keep the people at the brands, especially the artisans—the seam-stresses and other people who make the products—because they have the brand in their bones—its history, its meaning. 
• At the stores, too, many of the salespeople have the brand in their bones. Most companies clean house when they acquire a new brand. We don’t do that because we have found it hurts quality terribly. When you clean house, you usher out the people who respect the brand the most and who contribute to its longevity—its timelessness, its authenticity.

Luxury

• “Luxury is combination of quality and creativity. It’s how I define what we do. The reality is really behind the appearance, behind the price, it’s the quality and the innovation that people are looking for. 
• The creators, or the scientists that work with us in the many laboratories we have, they have complete freedom to express new ideas. And after that, we have to transform them in reality, all of us, all over the world. LVMH only hires managers so respectful of the creative process that they will endure its necessary chaos.
  • “Rules, by their nature, are limitations…Rules direct us to average behaviors. If we’re aiming to create works that are exceptional, most rules don’t apply. Average is nothing to aspire to. The goal is not to fit in. If anything, it’s to amplify the differences, what doesn’t fit, the special characteristics unique to how you see the world. Instead of sounding like others, value your own voice. Develop it. Cherish it… It’s a healthy practice to approach our work with as few accepted rules, starting points, and limitations as possible. Often the standards in our chosen medium are so ubiquitous, we take them for granted. They are invisible and unquestioned. This makes it nearly impossible to think outside the standard paradigm.” – Rick Rubin 

Marketing 

• “We don’t do marketing. Because marketing is against what a company like us should do.
• What is marketing? Marketing is to analyze what the customer wants, and then try to follow what the customer is looking for, and test what you create following these trends, and try to do it. We do completely differently. We create new products. And sometimes it fails. But when it’s successful, the customers follow.”
• What if the marketplace is screaming for one kind of product or another—should that factor into the creative process?
• “ Some companies are very marketing driven; they follow the consumer. And they succeed with that strategy. They go out, they test what people want, and then they make it. But that approach has nothing to do with innovation, which is the ultimate driver, we believe, of growth and profitability. You can’t charge a premium price for giving people what they expect, and you won’t ever have break-out products that way—the kinds of products that people line up around the block for. We have those, but only because we give our artists freedom.”
• Our strategy is to trust the creators. You have to give them leeway. When a creative team believes in a product, you have to trust the team’s gut instinct. 
  • “Customers don’t know what they want until you show it to them.” – Steve Jobs

“Growth is a function of high desire.” 

The most important question you can ask yourself as a luxury brand is, “How do you create desire?” 

Create Desire

• Arnault recognizes the uniqueness of luxury products, emphasizing the importance of exclusive offerings that evoke desire and emotion, setting them apart from standardized goods.
• “Luxury, for me, is how you can create desire.”
• “The most important word in our business is desire, how to create desire. And when you have the product, then you have to create good environments in the shops, and you have to present it well. You have to do well… good films, if it’s a perfume, good advertisement, either in the magazine or in the internet, if it’s a product. That’s the way I see it, we see in the group as a way to put product in contact with the consumers.”

“Luxury goods are the only area in which it is possible to make luxury margins.”

“Family business is extremely important for success in the luxury world. When you have a family business, you have two major advantages. One is you can think long term. I’m not interested by the next six months. What I am interested in is that the desire for the brand will be the same in tens years as it is today. The second advantage of being a family business is to hire people because when people come to envy the image, they do not come in a group with some anonymity, they come in the family.. You are not just a little person in a big thing, you are a member of the family and you will be taken care of as such.” 

“A lot of people see him as a great financier, a great strategic mind in terms of how to build an empire. That’s not at all how he thinks in my opinion. I think his big strength is actually to speak to creative people and to make them thrive under his management.” – Antoine Arnault

Managing The Creative Process 

• Arnault does not believe in managerial limit setting. Artists must be completely unfettered by financial and commercial concerns, he insists, to do their best work. 
• You don’t “manage” John Galliano, the wildly iconoclastic head of the House of Dior, just as no one could have “managed” Leonardo da Vinci or Frank Lloyd Wright.
• “I don’t have alarm bells when it comes to creativity. If you think and act like a typical manager around creative people—with rules, policies, data on customer preferences, and so forth—you will quickly kill their talent. Our whole business is based on giving our artists and designers complete freedom to invent without limits.”
• Our philosophy is quite simple. If you look over a creative person’s shoulder, he will stop doing great work. Wouldn’t you, if some manager were watching your every move, clutching a calculator in his hand? So that is why LVMH is, as a company, so decentralized. Each brand very much runs itself, headed by its own artistic director.. I assure you, we do not lurk around every corner, questioning every creative decision.
• The responsibility of the manager in a company dependent on innovation, then, very much becomes picking the right creative people—the ones who want to see their designs on the street. And that desire inside them is something that you, as a leader of a company, can only sense. After all, most artists don’t go around proclaiming, “I want to be a commercial success.” They would actually hate to say that. And frankly, if you asked them, they would say they don’t actually care one way or another if people buy their products. But they do care. It’s just buried in their DNA, and as a manager, you have to be able to see it there. I know you are going to ask, “How can I see into a person’s DNA, to know if he is an artist with commercial instincts?” So I will answer, it just takes experience. Years of practice—trial and error—and you learn.

If you deeply appreciate and love what creative people do and how they think, which is usually in unpredictable and irrational ways, then you can start to understand them. And finally, you can see inside their minds and DNA.

• The important point is, you cannot compromise creativity at its birth.
• Now, that does not mean that you shouldn’t make suggestions during the creative process. Not long ago, I said to one of our designers, “Why don’t you take a trip to Japan and see what the teenage girls are wearing on the streets at night?” These girls are very leading edge in fashion; they create trends years before they hit the mainstream, like with those very high shoes, and it makes very good sense to watch them. I did not say to the designer, “Go and see what kinds of shoes they are wearing and copy them,” although I was hoping he would notice their shoes. I just suggested, “Go look.” And in fact, he came home very inspired. That’s all a manager can hope to do, or should do, in my opinion.

Early days 

• Bernard was born in 1949 in Roubaix France where he family owned a civil engineering company. After graduating from École Polytechnique and immediately began work for the family firm. 
• When Bernard took over his father’s company (at the age of 25) they were not in luxury goods at the time but real estate. He started looking for things that were undervalued and hasn’t stopped ever since! 

AHA Moment 

• In 1971 Bernard was visiting New York and struck up a conversation with his cab driver who was a fan of France. Bernard asked the cab driver who the French president was. The cab driver said he didn’t know who the French president was but he knew Christian Dior. 
• The seed was planted in that cab and in 1984 Dior went up for sale and Arnault purchased their struggling parent Boussac which Bernard lobbied the French government to let him take control of the company for $15 million dollars. At the time Boussac was 20 times the size of his family’s business. You could say the rest is history. 

‘Risk-taking is the cornerstone of empires.” – Estee Lauder

• “The foundation of risk-taking is courage, and in ever-changing, disrupted businesses, risk-taking is essential, innovation is vital, and true innovation occurs only when people have courage.”- Bob Iger

Bernard had faith in no one but himself. “He had such an appetite for victory and such a capacity for work that he was bound to succeed.”

“What I always say to my team is I am not that much interested by the numbers for the next six months. What I am interested in is that the desire for the brand will be the same in 10 years as it is today.” -Bernard Arnault 

The Wolf in Cashmere 

• Owning Dior is great, but a man like Arnault had much grander aspirations than that. During this time Louis Vuitton was in the middle of a merger with spirits company Moet Hennessy to form LVMH. LVMH owned Dior’s perfume business and Arnault didn’t like that, he wanted it all. 
• Arnault took off the boxing gloves and pitted the leaders of Louis Vuitton and Moet Hennessy off of each other and actually got asked to come in as an investor for Moet. “I fear you are underestimating the sneakiness sir...”- Mr. Deeds  
• Arnault ended up putting up 42% of Dior to the public and used the $520 million in cash he generated to by 20% of LVMH. 

“In business, the secret is to seize opportunities.” – Bernard Arnault

• Then in 1989 Bernard purchased the controlling stake in LVMH for $1billion. 
• Since then Arnault hasn’t stopped buying:
  • 1996: LVMH acquired fashion house Marc Jacobs.
  • 1999: LVMH acquired fashion house Givenchy.
  • 2001: LVMH acquired fashion house Emilio Pucci.
  • 2006: LVMH acquired watchmaker Hublot.
  • 2011: LVMH acquired Italian jeweler Bulgari.
  • 2012: LVMH acquired Italian cashmere brand Loro Piana.
  • 2013: LVMH acquired French luggage maker Rimowa.
  • 2017: LVMH acquired French perfume house Maison Francis Kurkdjian.
  • 2018: LVMH acquired luxury hotel chain Belmond.
  • 2020: LVMH announced plans to acquire American jewelry company Tiffany & Co., which was completed in 2021.

“I hate the past… What interests me is the future.”

Success Takes Time

• “We have learned so much from Lacroix. It has been like a laboratory for us where we have learned how to start a brand from scratch. I mean, at the beginning, we thought, ‘Okay, we have a genius here with Christian Lacroix,’ but we learned that genius is not enough to succeed. It was something of a shock, to be honest, to discover that even great talent could not launch a brand from zero. A brand must have a heritage; there are no shortcuts.”

Competitive Dreamer 

“He’s a dreamer. He has big dreams and then he has the guys to go after those dreams. Sometimes I try to tell him the dreams too big, but of course he’s always right. The dreams are never big enough.” -Michael Burke, President CEO Louis Vutton 

• “If you want to build a ship, don’t drum up people to collect wood and don’t assign them tasks and work, but rather teach them to long for the endless immensity of the sea.” -Antoine de Saint-Exupery

“He sparks ideas.” 

“Arnault is an iron fist in an iron glove.” 

“He did not stray from his path. Relentlessly he pursued his ascent and seized every passing opportunity.”

“He does not compromise. He overturns everything in his path. It is totally foreign to his nature to compromise his beliefs.” 

His eldest child Delphine Arnault, the executive vice president of Louis Vuitton, told Forbes that Bernard Arnault works 24 hours. “When he sleeps, he’s dreaming of new ideas.”

“He has no interest in standing still.. He has no interest in repeating himself. He has no interest in anything remaining the same. He is a man that is intrigued by what can happen, not by what has happened.” Anna Wintour 

Age has clearly not mellowed his desire to win. The 70-year-old has a compulsion to possess beautiful brands and transform their creativity into profits. He has over the past four decades built LVMH from a near-bankrupt French textile company to a global group…

“I always liked being number one,” Arnault says simply. “I did not succeed at the piano, I did not succeed at tennis. I consider that success is to arrive at a point where all my teams, the group is the number one in the world.” 

-Harriet Agnew 

Vision 

“I told my team we will build the first luxury group in the world… Obviously it was very ambitious, but it galvanised the team and we started to build.”

• Bernard’s visionary outlook can be encapsulated in his resolute declaration to build the world’s first luxury group. Undeterred by the audacity of his ambition, Arnault’s unwavering determination galvanized his team into action, laying the foundation for his grand vision. 
• His foresight revolved around creating a unique structure where individual luxury brands thrived on creative freedom while simultaneously benefiting from the financial backing and synergies offered by a robust conglomerate.
• Arnault recognized that nurturing creative independence within each brand was crucial to their long-term success. By preserving their distinct identities, these brands could continue to resonate deeply with consumers, maintain their unparalleled heritage, and craft exceptional luxury products. 
• Simultaneously, Arnault understood the power of collaboration and shared resources within a larger group. This structure ensured that each brand received the necessary support to flourish and innovate, while also creating opportunities for cross-disciplinary collaborations, fostering a sense of community, and encouraging the exchange of ideas.
• The financial backing provided by the luxury group not only secured the brands’ stability but also offered them the liberty to dream bigger and reach higher. It enabled them to invest in research, development, and technology, pushing the boundaries of creativity and craftsmanship to new heights. 
• Arnault’s vision to hire the best talent further fortified the luxury group’s competitive edge. Access to exceptional minds and skillsets allowed the brands to continuously innovate and deliver products that set new standards for the luxury industry.
  • “The vision became so clear in my mind that I felt like it had to happen. There was no alternative; it was this or nothing.”- Arnold Schwarzenegger

We Can Go Further

“We are still small. We’re just getting started. This is very fun. We are number one, but we can go further.” – Bernard Arnault 

• “Day 2 is stasis. Followed by irrelevance. Followed by excruciating, painful decline. Followed by death. And that is why it is always Day 1.” – Jeff Bezos 
• “Puff told me the key to stayin’ on top of thing is treat everyhin’ like it’s your first project… like it’s your first day back when you was an intern…” – Notorious B.I.G
• “There’s a lot of people in the world who would take the challenge to climb the mountain. But when you get to the top of the mountain you become the mountain because everyone’s shooting for you. The great one’s get to the top of the mountain and say they can become even better.” – Nick Saban 

“If you control distribution, you control your image.” – Bernard Arnault 

Key Dates in LVMH’s History

1987: LVMH luxury goods conglomerate is formed by merger of Louis Vuitton with Moët et Chandon and Hennessy.

1993 – 1997: Kenzo is acquired by LVMH for $80 million, and Céline for $540 million), followed by Loewe and Marc Jacobs in

1997. (Simultaneously, Marc Jacobs is appointed as Louis Vuitton’s creative director of womenswear. His tenure lasts until 2013 when he leaves to focus on his eponymous label.)

1999 – 2001: LVMH – spearheaded by Arnault – attempts a takeover of Gucci by buying every buyable Gucci-share in short succession, until becoming Gucci’s largest single shareholder. (Gucci at the time one of the most in-demand fashion houses, much thanks to its star designer Tom Ford.)

After many back and forth with Gucci’s CEO Domenico de Sole, no agreement is met, and de Sole in a surprise move turns to prime opponent PPR (today Kering) as a way out, selling a 42 percent stake in the Italian fashion house for $3 billion, to undermine LVMH’s efforts.

What unravels in the span of a few years has been described as “one of the most bitter fights in corporate history” – a face-off between the two biggest luxury tycoons in the world vying for ownership of Gucci – which included filing several lawsuits against each other.

In September 2001 an agreement is met between the three parties, and LVMH agrees to sell their shares in Gucci to PPR for $806 million dollars.

2001 – LVMH covertly acquires shares in Hermès. After intervention by a French court LVMH announces that it will distribute its 23 percent stake in Hermès amongst its shareholders. Since 2015 LVMH holds no shares in Hermès.

2013 – The prestigious LVMH Prize is created to support young fashion designers around the world.

In 2017 LVMH gains ownership of Christian Dior haute couture, ready-to-wear, leather and footwear. The same year Kim Jones’ seminal Supreme x Louis Vuitton collaboration drops, which ushers in an era of cross-genre brand collaborations.

In 2019 the world is shaken by the tragic passing of fashion legend, and creative director of Fendi, Karl Lagerfeld. LVMH annonces a new annual fashion prize in honour of Lagerfeld where an up-and-coming designer will win 150,000 euros and a one-year mentorship program with LVMH.

Rihanna announces her new partnership with LVMH with fashion label Fenty, and Stella McCartney joins the group after 17 years with rival Kering. This is also the year when LVMH enters into a partnership with UNESCO. Following the news of the Notre Dame-fire in April, Kering pledges to donate €100 million to help finance renovations of the 13th century medieval Catholic cathedral. The Arnault family and LVMH group announces that they will donate €200 million to the effort.