Pharrell Williams Heads to Rome with Voices of Fire for Vatican City Unity Concert
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2024 Rumor Confirmed: Louis Vuitton Is At Bat for Beverly Hills Cheval Blanc Axed Property
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2024 Rumor Confirmed: Louis Vuitton Is At Bat for Beverly Hills Cheval Blanc Property
California Dreamin’ . . .
There are many reasons why Louis Vuitton adores America and has an extra deep love affair with California. Progressive, multicultural, artistic in multiple disciplines, great weather, big money, and a maverick spirit all make the list for why LVMH and several maisons — but especially Louis Vuitton — have California Dreamin’ in their blood.
WWD shared in February 2024 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. Louis Vuitton Chairman and CEO Pietro Beccari plans larger and grander retail attractions and fashion show events for Louis Vuitton locations around the world.
Today — on Labor Day 2025 in America — the rumor has been confirmed by Bloomberg, who has seen the filings with the city of Los Angeles for Beccari’s big new dream baby.
‘Huge’ Takes Many Forms and LVMH Has Human Assets
Vuitton CEO Pietro Beccari arrived at Louis Vuitton in January 2023, with a key priority of recruiting Pharrell Williams to the world’s biggest luxury brand to replace the beloved, and sorely missed Artistic Director of Louis Vuitton Mens, Virgil Abloh.
AOC was first and early, to the best of our knowledge, in calling for Williams to join LVMH Men.
We were the only media source with the moxie to criticize the team that lost the 2023 special vote for the Cheval Blanc in Beverly Hills. And we proposed a far better team to deal with LA politics, if the Louis Vuitton takeover of the site was true.
Prepare for takeoff!!
Read MoreAnne Talks Louis Vuitton Men Pre-Fall 2025 Collection and Dior Men Spring 2026
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Anne Talks Louis Vuitton Men Pre-Fall 2025 Collection and Dior Men Spring 2026
Flaunt Magazine [IG] Issue 199, ‘Fleeting Twilight’ shares key looks from the Louis Vuitton Men’s Pre-Fall 2025 Collection. Creative Director Pharrell Williams previewed the collection in Miami December 2024, with the upcoming Met Gala dandy aesthetic on his mind.
I just reviewed again Jonathan Anderson’s swoon-worthy debut men’s collection for Christian Dior, and like Pharrell, he also tapped the ‘young aristocrats’ trend. Anderson added skirts for men and nipping his waists with overtly-femme swagger and white bow ties.
Louis Vuitton Men Compared to The Absolutely-Brilliant Jonathan Anderson Dior Mens Debut
Pharrell played his ties straight and long, Anderson likes bows. Both designers did white ties and the Louis Vuitton man does go to the office to afford his wardrobe preferences. He’s a working man. Anderson’s Dior man is a trust fund kid — or maybe the growing number of men — at least in America — living at home with parents.
Dandyism is a design key to writing about both collections — Dior Spring 2026 and Louis Vuitton Pre-Fall 2025. Yes, Pharrell was off to India with lean and long fluidity for his Spring 2026 collection, which AOC loved.
Read MoreLouis Vuitton FW25 Offers Express Bag for High Speed, High Performance, High Self-Expectations Lives
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Louis Vuitton FW25 Offers Express Bag for High Speed, High Performance, High Self-Expectations Lives
Louis Vuitton Women taps House Ambassadors Emma Stone and Hoyeon Jung for the Fall/Winter 2025 Campaign, lensed by Ethan James Green.
Before Speedy Came Express
Bags and luggage are the visual currency of the Louis Vuitton brand. They also ring the cash register at critical levels to support LV’s position in the LVMH heirarchy. The FW25 Campaign is focused on its latest handbag: the Express, a roomy reprise of the original name of Vuitton’s signature Speedy handbag.
Louis Vuitton’s Chairman and CEO Pietro Beccari delivered press comments detailing the important role ‘The Louis’ marks on the new journey the luxury brand is taking into the DNA of Louis Vuitton itself. Reinforcing key buzzwords, Beccari stressed the importance of Louis Vuitton’s spirit of travel being experienced not only by crossing national borders, “but through ideas, emotions and inspiration.”
Anne drills down on exactly what Beccari’s words mean.
Read MoreLVMH's Michael Burke, New Chairman and CEO of its Americas Division Steps Into the Frenzy
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LVMH's Michael Burke, New Chairman and CEO of its Americas Division Steps Into the Frenzy
It may be LVMH’s newly-named chairman and chief executive of its Americas division Michael Burke, who first introduced the term ‘hodgepodge’ to the popular press and select financial analysts’ LVMH lexicon.
Anne will explain, but first the latest news.
The Burke appointment comes at a critical moment when the luxury sector is haunted by waning demand and US President Donald Trump’s ever-changing, often daily, tariffs landscape.
LVMH also appointed Burke as nonexecutive chairman of Tiffany’s board of directors. He retains his 2024 appointment as Chairman and CEO of LVMH Fashion Group.
In June and July 2025, AOC has been obsessed with the word ‘hodgepodge’ being bandied about by select financial analysts, with the tangential support of several fashion journalists. Their focus is a lack of branding clarity around Louis Vuitton in particular.
Referring last evening to the issue, I set off again this morning, trying to document the original source of the word. The person may be none other than Michael Burke.
Read MoreGoldman Sachs Adds LVMH to European Conviction Buy List, Ignoring Analysts and Fashion Writers
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Goldman Sachs Adds LVMH to European Conviction Buy List
My case for LVMH got a big boost Monday, July 7th with Goldman Sach’s decision to add LVMH to its European Conviction Buy list. Goldman’s Louise Singlehurst recommends investors "look through Q2 softness and Buy into LVMH" as a clear winner in the next luxury upcycle, noting asymmetric risk reward with potential upside of 69% versus 5% downside.
The Goldman analysis also mentioned that the steep selloff of LVMH shares borders on being irrational. This was welcome news after the June 22, deeply-personal, Bloomberg supplied hit piece on LVMH published on BoF.
I then read — again from HSBC, the same financial institution that financed all of Donald J. Trump’s bankruptcy business messes, when no other bank would — that the current Louis Vuitton brand strategy is a “hodgepodge”. Seriously!
Read MoreLouis Vuitton Is Soul of LVMH 'Strategic Layering' Paradigm-Busting F1 Deal
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Louis Vuitton Is Soul of LVMH 'Strategic Layering' Paradigm-Busting F1 Deal
Formula 1 [FI] has moved into the fast lane, striking new business alliances with Apple and LVMH starring Louis Vuitton in 2025.
Today we focus on LV and F1, with visuals from the new Formula 1 and the Apple Original Films' highly-anticipated movie movie in F1. The movie starring Brad Pitt and Damson Idris opens June 27.
Fresh off winning the prestigious 2025 Cannes Lions Grand Prix for their partnership with the Paris 2025 Olympic Games, this new F1 relationship announced in late 2024 represents what is called the LVMH “strategic narrative layering” approach across its maisons.
The fastest growing segment of F1 fandom is young women. From AOC’s perspective, layering bottles of Moët & Chandon into the F1 celebration experience, tying it directly to the Louis Vuitton brand experience is simply brilliant.
But hey — what do I understand understand about business in a purely transactional Wall Street world universe? ~ Anne
Read MorePharrell Williams Carries the Olympic Torch Onwards to UNESCO for Louis Vuitton Men
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Pharrell Williams Carries the Olympic Torch Onwards to UNESCO for Louis Vuitton Men
The Louis Vuitton Men Spring 2025 campaign, lensed by Stef Mitchell with Gabriel Moses [IG] as photographer and director, The visual effects continue the major themes Louis Vuitton Men creative director Pharrell Williams introduced at his fashion show held in Paris at UNESCO House.
This season Vuitton Men teamed up with Air Afrique in Paris, a consultancy inspired by those glorious years when all things seemed possible, and a multicultural youth quake took hold around the world.
After his recent role representing Louis Vuitton and his adopted country of France at the 2024 Paris Olympics, Williams was feeling the love of his own humanrace [Pharrell’s skincare brand] family.
Read MoreLa Beauté Louis Vuitton Launches in Fall 2025, Dame Pat McGrath Creative Director
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Louis Vuitton is launching La Beauté Louis Vuitton with Dame Pat McGrath
The makeup collection will initially launch with 55 lipsticks, 10 lip balms and eight eye palettes. "Working backstage for over 20 years at Louis Vuitton fashion shows, I am thrilled to now play such a key role in the launch of La Beauté Louis Vuitton, which is the result of extraordinary craftmanship, creativity and innovation," says McGrath.
McGrath will continue to oversee her own make-up brand, Pat McGrath Labs, which she launched in 2015 with great success. The LVMH structure for La Beauté Louis Vuitton mirrors the one in place with Guerlain’s Violette Serrat.
Read MoreLouis Vuitton Spring 2025 Campaign with Blackpink and Ronan Saoirse by Meisel
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Louis Vuitton Spring 2025 Campaign with Blackpink and Ronan Saoirse by Meisel
As much as AOC loves Louis Vuitton [IG], their ad campaigns can be ho-hum. The Spring 2025 campaign, shot by Steven Meisel [IG] with Louis Vuitton ambassadors Blackpink’s Lisa and actor Ronan Saoirse, is indeed worthy of fashion’s largest, omnipotent luxury brand.
Few luxury houses are associated with an illustrious name like The Fondation Louis Vuitton, the prominent art museum and cultural center located in Paris in the Bois de Boulogne.
Placing two gifted women artists like Lisa and Ronan, who are also Nicolas Ghesquière muses, in the presence of French conceptual artist Laurent Grasso’s artwork for a campaign shot by one of the world’s most celebrated fashion photographers Steven Meisel is a truly definitive statement for the Louis Vuitton Spring 2025 campaign.
Read MoreLouis Vuitton Flight Mode Summer 2024 Honors New Paris LV Flagship Élysée Palace Hotel
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Louis Vuitton introduces its Flight Mode summer 2024 collection for global travelers. The colorful collection is inspired by vibrant colors like yellow and also prints inspired by travel stamps connected to the famous Élysée Palace Hotel in Paris.
The newly-introduced Monogram canvas bags, like the Keepall and Side Trunk, are decorated with colorful Élysée Palace Hotel stamps. Built in 1896 in the Art Nouveau style, the Elysée Palace hotel — most recently the headquarters of HSBC Bank in Paris — is under a spectacular renovation as the first Louis Vuitton flagship hotel, scheduled to open in 2026. Read more details in our January 2024 post.
Apparently this ‘insider information’ about the reason Louis Vuitton is inspired in its Flight Mode summer 2024 collection by the Elysée Palace hotel was not in the LV press release. It’s not in their IG either.
Read MoreSailing to Paris 2024 Olympics with Louis Vuitton Nautical Summer Capsule, Crewed by Women
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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.
Read MoreAmerica’s Black Cowboys, As Tributed by Pharrell Williams for Louis Vuitton Fall-Winter 2024 Men’s Collection: Pt 1 of a French-American Cowboys Story
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America’s Black Cowboys, As Tributed by Pharrell Williams for Louis Vuitton Fall-Winter 2024 Men’s Collection: Pt 1 of an American-French Cowboys Story
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.
Texas became the largest home to black cowboys.
Read MoreLes Gastons Vuitton Fine Jewelry by Francesca Amfitheatrof Is Not Only for Men
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“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’.
Read MoreFirst Louis Vuitton Hotel Will Open in Paris on Avenue des Champs Élysées
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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.
Read MoreLouis Vuitton Taps Pharrell Williams As First Guest of Podcast 'Louis Vuitton Extended' Out Now
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Louis Vuitton is launching a podcast with popular French fashion journalist, documentary maker and YouTuber Loïc Prigent. Called ‘Louis Vuitton Extended’, the podcast will dive deeper into the scenes of what’s happening behind the scenes at one of the world’s premier luxury houses. That Prigent-guided conversation includes the house’s cultural codes, values and activism.
In the case of Louis Vuitton Men’s creative director Pharrell Williams, the dialogue will focus on the June 20, 2023 show and all the decisions made around its structure and content.
Read MoreLVMH Concedes Likely Defeat in Cheval Blanc Beverly Hills Vote to Override City Approval
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