Luxury brand Chanel [IG] delivers a fresh and modern summer Coco Beach 2024 campaign starring Danish model Olivia Vinten lensed by Cass Bird [IG].
At Chanel, Let the Good Times Roll
Chanel is riding high off a 16 percent revenue increase in annual sales over 2023. Price increases alone drove up sales by around 9 percent, according to BoF.
Chanel CFO Philippe Blondiaux praised Virginie Viard’s contributions to Chanel’s major growth in his BoF interview. Days later, the artistic director was escorted out the door.
With Viard seeming out-of-touch with the world at large at times, and given Coco Chanel’s own delicate political history in Europe, AOC is on the record saying we’re watching the brand like a hawk. We continue to write today from that updated perspective.
Louis Vuitton French-Belgian creative director Nicolas Ghesquière carried the celebration of his 10 years in the role into the April 2024 Archives issue of W Magazine China [IG]. Vuitton muse and Ghesquière’s close friend Rianne van Rompaey joins him in a fashion story highlighting the iconic looks from more than 30 collections.
Marie-Amélie Sauvé styled the spare and crisp presentation lensed by Alasdair McLellan [IG]./ Makeup by Hiromi Ueda; hair by Damien Boissinot
Louis Vuitton is in Olympic Games Paris 2024 countdown, as a lead brand in LVMH’s role as a top sponsor of this summer’s games.
Dropping the new Louis Vuitton Nautical Capsule 2024 this weekend reminds us that some fashion trends truly possess heritage status — in the way that the Olympics are heritage.
Women, Sailing and the Olympics
The world has changed almost beyond recognition since the summer of 1924 — the last time Paris hosted the summer Olympics. One simple statistic grabs our attention immediately: 2954 men competed in the 1924 games and 135 women. AOC digs deep into women in competitive sailing a century ago.
Louis Vuitton's foray into the prestigious realm of sailing and its premier position in the LVMH sponsor umbrella of the Paris 2024 Summer Games spills next into Barcelona, where Louis Vuitton hosts in late August 2024 the America's Cup Challenger Selection Series. Hosting the event since 1983 and subsequently renamed the Louis Vuitton Cup, it culminates in the race for a new America’s Cup Winner.
Coco Chanel's connection to Villa Noailles [IG] is a fascinating chapter in fashion history. That unique relationship is expressed in the Chanel [IG] Spring 2024 ad campaign and also in lush floral prints inspired by the villa itself, located in Hyères, in the heart of the South of France.
This year, the campaign stars actor Riley Keough, named days ago as Chanel’s new ambassador, alongside longtime Chanel muse, supermodel Rianne Van Rompaey.
Villa Noailles was celebrated at Chanel’s Spring 2024 PFW runway show last October. The new campaign by frequent Chanel collaborators Inez and Vinoodh [IG], unfolds in the villa’s garden and its iconic pink room, envisioned as sanctuaries of creativity and happiness for the Chanel woman.
WWD shared the unconfirmed rumor that Louis Vuitton hopes to take over the defeated proposal for a 109-key Cheval Blanc hotel on the 50,000 sq foot property on Rodeo Drive in Beverly Hills.
Weekend Paris Protests at New Louis Vuitton Hotel Site
The circumstances of the 2023 Cheval Blanc Beverly Hills no-vote is even more relevant today, after protesters took over the Paris construction site of the new Louis Vuitton hotel and store in Paris this weekend.
Italian Maison Acqua Di Parma, a member of the LVMH family of artisans and artists-inspired maisons, brings its Italian heritage and Milanese creativity to Seoul with the Acqua di Parma Yellow Café. The design by Dorothée Meilichzon fuses Italian charm with the dynamic spirit of Seoul.
Located at Lotte Avenuel Jamsil B1F, Acqua di Parma Yellow Café is much more than a café, proposing an immersion into the Maison’s unique aesthetic and heritage.
Indeed, you are seeing a ‘wavy plate’ on a shelf [below] in Seoul’s new Acqua di Parma Yellow Café. If you seek a concrete signal about the hoped-for evolution of the new cafe in Seoul, recall the March 2022 pop-up in Milan for the brand’s new fragrance Colonia CLUB.
The more AOC studies LVMH from every angle, the more impressive the organization becomes. I’ve been researching ways in which LVMH has addressed the philosophy of humanism. The concept flourishes across the maisons, and it seems that great care is given to developing both the executives and the artisans.
Fundamental to the maisons is a similar vision for how the brands interact with their clients — and not only their elite-class clients. LVMH plants deep, dynamic forests for their brands.
As everyone says, LVMH moves fast, but it’s also the case that huge mistakes are avoided because of a culture of deep roots and also deep knowledge about the humans who work in their businesses.
Louis Vuitton, Moët & Chandon and Hennessy [LVMH] reported 2023 year-end sales of 86.15 billion euros [$93.46 billion], representing a 10% organic increase in fourth quarter and a 13% organic growth yearly increase against 2022.
Profit from recurring operations stood at €22.8 billion for 2023, up 8%. The current operating margin remained stable with respect to 2022. In addition, LVMH has advised the markets that it anticipates no further price increases across its business units in 2024.
Now that he is back to being the richest man in the world, thanks to a 12% rise in LVMH’s stock price on Friday, Arnault’s practice of engaging his children in collective conversations around every aspect of the entire LVMH business over Zoom lunches — early breakfast in New York — reminds us that the family is not a Rupert Murdoch-like clan of cannibals.
Historians estimate that in the latter half of the nineteenth century, one in four American cowboys was black. Anne of Carversville seriously doubts that this reality is taught in the history classes of American schools. Additionally, an estimated 12% of cowboys were Mexican.
Thanks to the January 18th Louis Vuitton Fall-Winter 2024 Men’s Collection show at the Jardin d’Acclimatation in Paris, this historical lens of exploration is opened wide. AOC is both incredulous and excited to tell this story. But first — a look at the highly-praised, Louis Vuitton Men Creative Director Pharrell Williams Fall-Winter 2024 show.
Black Cowboys and Slavery
The history of black cowboys in America is deeply intertwined with the legacy of slavery and the Civil War. Prior to Emancipation, many enslaved African Americans were forced into labor on plantations, including working with cattle. Other African Americans went west to California as slaves of gold miners and to Utah as slaves of Mormons.
Chinese New Year arrives mid-February, resulting in the Louis Vuitton Men Pop-Up in Hong Kong being open only until February 15. Might we see an extension later in spring?
The South Korean girl band LE SSERAFIM were the stars at the after party following the Pre-Fall Louis Vuitton show in April, 2023. Today they are ambassadors for Louis Vuitton, the largest, most dynamic and culturally-engaged luxury brand in the world.
Their debut act places LE SSERAFIM in a campaign for a bag capsule exclusive to the South Korean market, against a visual backdrop of Jamsugyo Bridge.
Vuitton enlisted"Squid Game" director Hwang Dong-hyuk to help build the scenography for the April 2023 show, the first-ever fashion production on the landmark Jamsugyo Bridge in Seoul.
Knowing Seoul as well as Anne does, the Louis Vuitton fashion show on the iconic bridge was surely was a landmark event and source of enormous cultural pride and good will for Louis Vuitton in South Korea.
“Men used to wear a lot of jewellery, and it’s now finally turning around,” Francesca Amfitheatrof, Artistic Director for Watches and Jewellery at Louis Vuitton, tells Vogue Business. “Men are much more adventurous and interested in jewellery.”
The men’s fine jewelry market remains a fraction of the women’s business, boasting revenues of about $7.3 billion in 2023 compared to an estimated $44 billion, according to Euromonitor. Its annual growth rate is 7.3 percent, however, compared to 7.3 percent for women.
The acquisition of Tiffany & Co by LVMH in 2020 and the arrival of jewelry-loving Pharrell Williams as the new creative director of Louis Vuitton Men in 2023 created a major appetite for the spectacular entrance of Louis Vuitton into Fine Jewelry for women, followed now by the introduction of a Louis Vuitton men’s [or unisex] 18 piece fine jewelry collection called ‘Les Gastons Vuitton’.
The Louis Vuitton machine is in high gear for the release of the first Pharrell Williams Louis Vuitton Men collection and these new lookbook images lensed by Amit Israeli [IG] and AOC tag and also Gabriel Moses [IG]
Models include Awwal Adeoti, Dara Gueye, Ridzman Zidaine, Teo Abihdana and Thatcher Thornton styled by Matthew Henson. / Hair by Christian Eberhard; makeup by Christine Corbel
Creative Direction for the shoot is credited to Pharrell Williams [IG] and Lina Kutsovskaya [IG].
The world’s largest luxury brand Louis Vuitton is opening a hotel in Paris in 2026. Located at 103-111 Avenue des Champs Élysées, the 6,000 square metres property will be located next to — and will absorb — the brand’s largest shop on the world-famous boulevard.
Instead of an ugly scaffolding construction site, the new Louis Vuitton’s hotel’s façade will be disguised as one of the brand's legendary trunks during construction. That is SO Louis V.
The Chanel Cruise 2024 Campaign travels to LA, home to its May 10, 2023 cruise show. The new cruise collection marries the reverie of glamorous Hollywood film figures with Los Angeles’ active lifestyle pursuits: board sports, aerobics, roller skating and more.
In the new Chanel Cruise campaign, models Anna Ewers and Loli Bahia capture the cinematic side of the LA vibe of the 1960s in images and film by Inez & Vinoodh [IG] [Inez van Lamsweerde and Vinoodh Matadin]. The film is fabulous imo.
